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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Non Pratt0008551375|title=Every Little Piece of My HeartWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary= Freya Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a beautiful, popular and complex girlScottish mountain, loved by many and seemingly stable in her existence as a queen bee 16-year-old student, complete with best friend and the promise result of the end of GCSEs just months awaya tragic accident. But one day She'd looked so happy, on January 1sttoo, when she just... left. No explanation. No warning. No goodbye. No one heard from posted her sinceintentions on Facebook. A once active social profile left deserted. So Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, when but it looked like she was living her best friend Sophie receives a mysterious parcel from her 5 months after, she expects life now. Then it to contain answers of some kind, but is surprised to find emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the parcel contains another layer addressed to a complete strangerlast year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and then another layer to another person and another, each containing an item unique to them and Freya, connecting 4 strangers through her mystery and sensible people. None of the promise of 'treasurewhat a stupid thing to do' at the end of it explanations applied. They were all. With each parcel, alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a new layer of killer on the story and of Freya is unwrapped - and painful truths come to light that threaten to break bonds, both new and oldloose. Can what's been broken be fixed? And why did Freya leave?|isbn=1406366943
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=178089922XPaul B Preciado|title=Invisible Girl|author=Lisa JewellDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=''When you wear a hood, you're invisible.It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1838951067295967572X|title=The Nothing ManPale Pieces|author=Catherine Ryan HowardG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Jim Doyle, he's Our unnamed narrator is about to get begin a shocktrain journey with his companion Django. HeWhere they's security at a supermarket re going and he's watching a woman who what the purpose of this journey is, is acting suspiciouslyuncertain. She has a book tucked under her arm and he wonders if sheDjango found the tickets ''s planning to pay for it. Suddenly it drops to on the floor with the spine splayed upwards. somewhere''Nothing Man'' by Eve Black, is the titleand has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why is Jim shockednot? Well, Jim was - ''Not much else is'' clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the Nothing Man who, until eighteen years ago raped station by coach and killed. The author of the book was twelve years old when Jim raped her mother, and then killed her, her father and her seven-year-old sister, Annatrain is a steam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christina Hammonds Reed0008551324|title=The Black KidsDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens Crime|summary=Christina Hammonds ReedIt's debut novel is set against unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the backdrop of police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the absolution police where the body of four police officers a missing person is buried and who was responsible for beating a black manher death. This person, Rodney Kinghe promises, nearly is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to death. Told from be transferred to an open prison to serve the perspective remainder of Ashley Bennetthis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the novel follows her evolution other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from a silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritagewhat's happening.|isbn=1471188191
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Vaim|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=07515674261804271829}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035043092|title=The Wicked SisterKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Karen DionneAnn Cleeves|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Cunningham she's an inpatient at the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center Everything in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She's twenty-six and has been there for fifteen yearsthis book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was eleven-years-old and that her father then took the gun is steeped in anguish and killed himselfdistortion. Her sisterEven a kiss, Dianausually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, just twenty-years-old, was left at becomes evidence of love lost. When the family homenarrator cries out internally, a lodge in the Upper Peninsula wilderness. Rachel's very bright 'come over here and although shekiss me,''s it is less an invitation than a voluntary patient at the Mental Health Center she remains there, feeling that desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is what she deserves. PerhapsXavier, thoughher ex-partner, the circumstances are not as a ghost she remembersconjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15069094420008405026|title=The Worst Dogs: A Progressive Murder-MysteryStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Matthew de Lacey DavidsonJane Casey|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=It''The greatest hatred, like the greatest virtue s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the worst dogsinvestigation ground to a halt. Now, is silent.'' The title of this enjoyable crime proceduralher mother, Helena, is from German romantic writer Jean Paul. But who and her father are the worst dogs dead in de Lacey Davidsontheir bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's latest novel and for whom is something about the hatred? This mystery will last all positioning of the way bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to the very last be an open-and carefully plotted pages but you will be thinking about unwarranted hatred all -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the way through. It sounds uncomfortable - but it isnexplanation lies in Rosalie'ts disappearance: itothers (such as Derwent's honestboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob BakerAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in AfricaOther Girl
|rating=4
|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=''"Go to Mali," they saidWe were born from the same body. "The music is amazing," they said. "And you get ten hours of sunshine every day." So I did've never really wanted to think about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=James PattersonMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Hawk: A Maximum Ride NovelReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=TeensBiography|summary=Hawk has been waiting on Biographies are often seen as the same street cornerform of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, every dayand offers a vibrant, for yearssubjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. She In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is waiting for her parents , but of what you yourself imagine it to come and get herbe. They left her there when she was just tinyWhom would it help to know how I see this tower, and although she's almost certain that they are never coming back for hersea, she continues to head back there each day, just in case. Hawk isnor that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''t your ordinary street urchin though...she has wingsWell, and Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can fly! Since she was abandoned she's been living with be gained from a group of other childrensubjective account, all with interesting characteristics of their own and together they've made their own family. But now the city is seemingly even more troubled than usual, there's a mysterious child-killer who has been brought to the prison next door giving us access to where the children livehow he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and then Andreyev in such privileged detail that one day Hawk comes home to find her family has been taken awayalmost feels unworthy of it. Where have they been taken, and can Hawk rescue them before it's too late?|isbn=15291200041804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17857656981529077745|title=Shed No TearsThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Caz FrearAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In November 2012 Christopher Masters, A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man who would become known as 'in the roommate killer'park near Rosebank, strangled three women in a fortnightcare home for troubled teens. When he The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was arrested he admitted due to work a shift the killingsnight before but who had never turned up. A fourth death was attributed D I Vera Stanhope is called in to him investigate the murder - that but her only clue is the disappearance of one of Holly Kemp - and on occasions, Masters admitted to the killingresidents, then he denied it fourteen-year- then admitted it, then denied itold Chloe Spencer. He played with the police, but there Some people believe that Chloe was sufficient evidence on the first three killings to put him away responsible for a long time and the CPS were not convinced about death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the Holly Kemp casegirl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. There was no body and once Masters was murdered in prison, no hope of progressing the case furtherShe knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1473682401B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)Colour of Memory|author=Catriona McPhersonChristopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=Those who It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were with us very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the end heart of [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory Dunnoch. They're now married and Mallory is having twins. When they arrive no one can doubt the charms 'The Colour of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. There are two drawbacks: theyMoney're noisy and they're staying with Dandy and Hugh. Dandy and her detective partner, Alec Osborne, had not taken up the chance to look into We like this running theme in an author's work - take a problem at the Cramond ferry when mystery but give it was offered to them twice before, but suddenly the possibility of being out of the house at Gilverton seems irresistibledifferent flavour and atmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B07WWSCGVSOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Lies You Told|author=Harriet TyceHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Year six student Robin Spence isn't happy about having to start a new school. She'What's left the school she loved good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in New York and now sheit?'s going to Ashams in North London. It's very upmarket; places are rare as hens The title of this spellbinding work, ' teeth and as the pupils have all been there ''foreverHouse of Day, House of Night'', they have their established groupssomewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived. Robin's going to |isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be an outsiderdoing quite well financially. And why is this happening? WellUnfortunately, over a matter of his daughter's defence against a few days her parents' marriage fell apartmurder charge drained his savings. Andrew Spence is staying in New York - he works for a securities firm - and her motherHis wife, Sadie RoperLaura, has come back been trying to London persuade him to pick up her practice as a criminal barristerretire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's easier said than done when youwhat 'ordinary people do','ve ' He's not been out entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's the market place - and thought of the country - for more than ten yearsmoney he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14087124151836284683|title=Cry BabyThe Big Happy|author=Mark BillinghamDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=It's June 1996 and football's European Championships are about to start in London. DS Tom Thorne Well! This is having a nightmare and it's one he has regularly. It relates to a case from ten years earlier when he ''knew'' that a man was guilty, but didn't take murder mystery unlike any action until the man's wife and three children had been murdered and the man had killed himself.other!
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B08CHJLNBSSally Rooney|title=Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke AdamsIntermezzo|rating=34.5|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a partner grandmaster at Wickham Jonesputting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emiliamany relationships woven into this story, twenty-nine, librarian the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and archivist in the heritage library next doorPeter Koubek. Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like thatIvan, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a little deeper. Charles is more of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himselfsocially awkward chess prodigy, butcontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friendsa successful lawyer living in Dublin. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by CharlesFollowing their father's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously passing after a non-starterlong battle with cancer, isnthe brothers't it?already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15043213831036916375|title=Single, Again, and Again, and AgainJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Louisa PatemanPeter McArdle|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''You canJust a Liverpool Lad 't be happy ' is a collection of memories and fulfilled on your ownreflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. You are not complete until you find It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a manconstant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.}}
{{Frontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasnhasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced gone unnoticed by all those fairy tales where the girl (his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough has suggested to be brought up ''without'' the expectation Will and his mum that they will marry and have children. It was he spends a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''couple of afternoons a belief is week at a choice''different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17873014351009473085|title=Dark WatersThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=G R HallidayAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=45|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Twenty-two-year-old Annabelle Whittaker made her second mistake when she opted Sometimes it's simpler to drive down the private road in Glen Turrit. It was explain a long road through some breath-taking scenery book by describing what it ''isn't'' and she could push the car that applies to its limits without fear of being caught speeding''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. When If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the blond child stepped out in front of her she instinctively jerked the steering wheel and hit a tree. When she came round after the accident she couldninside story about what ''really''t work out where she washappened on certain occasions, but it obviously wasnthen this isn't a conventional hospitalthe book for you. SheIf that's what you'd made her first mistake some time agore looking for, although the realisation wouldnI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be obvious to her bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a long timecompelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. She'd 'The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made it and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when she chose to have her father buy her a pale blue BMW M4the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Suzanne CollinsJenny Valentine|title=The Ballad of Songbirds Us in the Before and SnakesAfter|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Coriolanus Snow is refinedElk and Mab are best friends, charmingor more than that even, and one of the only surviving members of the affluent Snow family. But their world was destroyed by the warfriendship is a once in a lifetime connection. Their riches gone, his parents dead - and yet the facade must be maintained. As the 10th Hunger Games begins, Coriolanus and They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other students of the Academy become the first Mentors of the tributes in 's contact details at the gamestime. This is his But then chance to prove himself to the world and secure his place in the Capitol for good. But when he is assigned a tribute with no hope - a girl from District 12 - he thinks all chances of winning (both for her brings them back together, and for him) they are goneinseparable. But Lucy Gray Baird proves herself to be a spark in his world Something has happened though, in a way he could never have imagined. As the Games commencesomething terrible and tragic, Lucy Gray fights for her life in the arena - but behind the scenes, in the slyand now they must work through their grief, complex and strangely dangerous world of the Capitoltheir friendship, Coriolanus is fighting for his life tootogether. Will she survive the Games? Will he? And what happens then?|isbn=07023001791471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sakinu Ahronglong1787333175|title=Hunter SchoolYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPopular Science|summary= The flyleaf I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to this little collection tells us that it be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a work glorious mixture of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in insight into the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as workings of the blurb goes on to say ''recollectionsNHS, folklore humour and autobiographical storiesautobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad.. It feels like .'' promised the latter. It feels like same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the stories he tells about his experiences as work of a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and truepsychiatrist. But memory I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a fickle thing, situation rather than a person and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer is always delivered with empathy and therefore more people will read it. More people shouldunderstanding.|isbn=1999791282
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kat EllisMariana Enriquez|title=Harrow LakeA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=4.5|genre=TeensShort Stories|summary=When we first meet 17-year-old Lola, daughter to legendary Mariana Enriquez writes horror movie director Nolan Noxthat is disturbingly real, she is saying goodbye to New York City - by sneaking out and stealing from its residents. But when she is found achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her father's assistant and forced settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to come homean urban planning mishap, she arrives to find an unlocked door, overcrowded homeless shelter and a trail crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of blood, and her father dying in his study. And characters are so, while he recovers, she is sent off to live with her grandmother in Harrow Lake, the small 1920s town in Indiana plausible that served as the location for the film that made her parents famous. But something about this place isn't right. There's supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a darkness inside the people here. Secrets about her mother and dark tales of the town's cannibal monster 'Mister Jitters' fill every corner, and disturbing happenings plague Lola. But with every passing hour, secrets long buried come painfully to light and she begins to think that these stories may not be stories at all, and something very real and sinister lurks in Harrow Lakesimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=02413970491803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Helly Acton1529934753|title= The ShelfProtest|author=Rob Rinder|rating= 4.5|genre= Women's FictionCrime|summary= When we meet AmyFor a little while, sheit looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in a relationship the nick of time, complete with Jamiehis two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. You can't really call it a partnership Being an influencer, because things you tend to get done on his termsdo things like that, but she's sticking around because she hopes she can change himit was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Ah Lexi Williams, yes. Haven't we all been there? Things are looking up when he tells her an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to pack for a surprise trip. Could this be it? Is he spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''finallyStop the War'' going . It seemed to get down on one knee? Was the work (be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and the wait) worth it?|isbn=1838770879Sir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Justine Avery and Daria YudinaAriel Saramandi|title= This Book Wants to Make You Laugh (Living Book)Portrait of an Island on Fire|rating= 4.5|genre= For SharingPolitics and Society|summary=This Living Book is on a mission. What's In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the mission? To make you laugh! I can't think sociopolitical fabric of many better missions than thatMauritius, can you? Let's see tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how it doesthese legacies still shape modern life... .... wellSaramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting'', it opens up with a terrible joke. A groany jokeblunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, an eye-roll jokeenvironmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. The joke isn't very funny but it is funny to see how enthusiastic and how generously Each essay in this book wants to make you laugh - ''Ohcollection serves as a kind of diagnostic, I'm terrible at jokes. Some books are so good at themcharting the various diseases afflicting the island state. I always wanted to help someone laugh.'' |isbn= 194812453X1804271616
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529402271Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Murder on LoveVortex and the Moorland (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)|author=Helen CoxDrakor's Curse|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=DI Malcolm Halloran and Kitt HartleyIt's relationship is developing nicely: they're even into the eighteenth century, a spot time of bandage nowdiscovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, although an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the details are (mercifully) scant. After a night of passion Halloran is called away Andaman Islands in the early hours of the morninghis endeavour. There's been a murder in IrendaleAlong with his son, Peter, where Halloran used to live and where his wifetheir cat, KamalaMichi, was strangled five years agothey set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. There The islands are sufficient details of the current murder to make Halloran suspect that the man who murdered his wife - beautiful and others - is stunning in some way involvedtheir scenery and the islanders' leader, Aarav, despite being in prison. The DI heads off to speak is keen to Jeremy Kerrestablish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
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{{Frontpage
|author= Mark DawsonHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= The CleanerLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= Ruthless and coldly competentFirst published in 1953 in French, John Milton this novel is one a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the British government's best assets – a contract killer with lethal instinctspage and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Now, after ten yearsLike the lives of her characters, he wants outthey are often left tragically incomplete. But his job isn't one you can just walk away from…|isbn=178739462X1804271675
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{{Frontpage
|author=Angela MackTom Percival|title=I Am UnworthyThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary= Isabel Will's life is determined to start freshdifficult, in a multitude of ways. Start again. Sixth form will be different. Her tormentor He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't go to Gilleford Secondary School anymore. She can escape have enough money for even the hurtmost basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the fearcollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and the person she becamehad an accident. Josh is determined to keep going, even through Throw into that mix the rage, the painfact that his mum and dad are separated, and using his fists to solve any problem or situationWill's life seems bleak in every direction. But And yet, he still has secrets that threaten to tear him and his brothers aparta tiny amount of hope. When Josh He is good at art, and Isabel's worlds collideclings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, can they make their relationship work? Can they both finally be happy? Or will Josh's time run out?dark tunnel.|isbn=B089FL7H4H1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Laura Imai MessinaSylvie Cathrall|title=The Phone Box at A Letter to the End of the WorldLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary= In the northeast of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture There are few greater joys than a man installed book which lives up to a telephone box in his gardencompelling premise. ''Inside there And this is an old black, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the wind.'' It is a real place, a necessary place, and I am pleased to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to her story, that the place is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need itone of them.|isbn=178658039X0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0859115X51786482126|title=Lies to Tell The Janus Stone (DI Clare MackayDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Marion ToddElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we meet up with DI Clare Mackay again sheBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's at Daisy Cottage on apartments - when they discovered the outskirts bones of St Andrews with her English Bull Terrier, Benjy. She's just had a postcard from Geoffrey Dark and he's in Provincetown, Cape Codchild beneath a doorway. He wishes that she There was there, but Clare's struggling to think of what he ''actually'' is to her nowno skull. Is he her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfriendWas this a ritual killing or murder? She can't work it out and thinks that Geoffrey probably can't eitherInevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. WorkIt's about to get very busy and she candifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't work out why DCI Alastair Gibson has cancelled a meeting , that she'd arranged without discussing it is pregnant with her firsthis child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. They're off somewhere top secretHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|author=Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the world.|isbn=1804271470
}}