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|isbn=15263627590008551375|title=Dosh: How to Earn It, Save It, Spend It, Grow It, Give ItWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Rashmi SirdeshpandeNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=What Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a relief! A book about moneyScottish mountain, for children, with clear explanations seemingly the result of what it isa tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, why it matterstoo, how to acquire more of it (nope - robbing banks is when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out) and what you can do with it when you've managed to get hold of an unpleasant relationship, but itlooked like she was living her best life now. Your reasons for wanting money don't matter: we all need Then it to some extentemerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. You might want to go into businessAll were experienced climbers, be a clever shopper, a saver (you might even become an ''investor'') properly equipped for what they were doing and there might be something you really, sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do'really'' want to buyexplanations applied. ThereThey were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's also the possibility of using to do good in a killer on the worldloose.

|isbnauthor=0008378363Paul B Preciado|title=One Perfect Morning|author=Pamela CraneDysphoria Mundi|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=A husband ''It is about never too late to have his throat cut in his own bed. To find out who - and why - we need to go back nine days and twenty years.embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''

MackenzieThrough this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, Robin and Lily met when they all went brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the same college new generation, a new feeling mechanism in Monroeville, Pennsylvania and twenty years later they're still the best which detachment is not considered a sign of friendspolitical apathy. When they first met they called themselves Rather, it is the Spicier Girls as a nod proportional, valid response to ''the famous girl band of epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the daytension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. Lily would be Adventure Spice, Robin The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Homemaker and Mackenzie Covid- well19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, Mackenzie would be the supporting actress in her own lifeor as ''pangea covidica''. She married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a daughtersign of weakness, Ariaor mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, whoPreciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''s now fifteen-year-old.|isbn=1804271454

|author=Darren ShanSamantha Harvey|title=Archibald Lox and the Bridge Between WorldsOrbital

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Time to catch you all up with some of my lockdown reading - IIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital''ve been doing so much , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of it that I'm a bit late to group of astronauts aboard the party with actual reviewingInternational Space Station. Oops! And where better to start than with Through a narrative lens that mirrors the new series from Bookbag favourite, Darren Shan? Archie is very down. Heastronauts's lost a dear friend recentlyorbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a tragic accident, and Archie blames himself. He can't face school so he takes himself for a truanting wander around London. As he strolls across a footbridge, he sees a girl who is being pursued by some murderous-looking men in white suits. He watches, aghastwholly new light. What is going on?|isbn=B086LKBHD61529922933

|authorisbn=Antony Wootten295967572X|title=Season of the Mammoth (BigShorts)Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= Tannash and her brother Geb are waiting in great excitement for the hunting party led by their uncle Our unnamed narrator is about to returnbegin a train journey with his companion Django. TheyWhere they're hoping for a feast going and what the purpose of mammoth meatthis journey is, is uncertain. Geb longs for Django found the day he can join his uncle Gagba and tickets ''on the other warriors on a hunting party floor somewhere'' and take part has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in their deeds of derring-do. But their father, the leader of past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the village, thinks that they also need an education; that knowledge train is powera steam locomotive.|isbn=1939269679

|authorisbn= Laura Lam and Elizabeth May0008551324|title= Seven DevilsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating= 4.5|genre= Science FictionCrime|summary= Eris is one of It's unusual for anyone from the foremost operatives of Hardie family to approach the Novantae, a resistance movement fighting against the ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as Princess Discordia, whom everyone believed police. Neither side likes or has been dead for years. Clo, an ace pilot any respect for the Novantae, has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the war effortother. Although sheBut Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's less than pleased prepared to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this mission. Things get more interesting as tell the mission commences; aboard police where the ship are three defectors with body of a secret that could potentially cripple the Empiremissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Eris's brother Damocles This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the runner-up heir police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the Empireremainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is plotting to disrupt peace talks between Tholos it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and the last of the free alien species. Itshe's a race against time as even prepared to do the rebels move to put a stop Damoclesother thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what' plans, with millions of lives hanging in the balance…|isbn=1473231140s happening.

|author=Non PrattJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Every Little Piece of My HeartVaim

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary= Freya ''All was a beautiful, popular and complex girl, loved by many and seemingly stable in her existence as a queen bee 16-year-old student, complete with best friend and the promise of the end of GCSEs just months awaystrange''. But one day, on January 1st, she just... left. No explanation. No warning. No goodbye. No one heard from her since. A once active social profile left deserted. So, when her best friend Sophie receives a mysterious parcel from her 5 months after, she expects it to contain answers This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of some kindotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, but is surprised to find the parcel contains another layer addressed to a complete stranger, and then another layer to another person and another, each containing an item unique to them fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Freya, connecting 4 strangers through her mystery and the promise of 'treasure' at the end of it all. With each parcelEline, a new layer two of the story and of Freya is unwrapped - and painful truths come to light that threaten to break bonds, both new and oldprotagonists caught in its melancholic current. Can what's been broken be fixed? And why did Freya leave?|isbn=14063669431804271829

|isbn=178089922X1035043092|title=Invisible GirlThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Lisa JewellAnn Cleeves

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=I can''When you wear 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 hood, you're invisiblenew life on Orkney. It'' Saffyre Maddox is seventeen-s been seven years-old and beautiful. By her own admissionsince we heard from him, shebut he's a bit of a boffinnow living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, doing and enjoying mathsas well as Cassie, physics and biology at A levelthe daughter of his former partner. Life hasnWillow't been easy for her: most people who have been close to her have died s also his boss, and she's now living with her Uncle Aaron in an eighth-floor flat. Something 'should''reallybe on maternity leave, really bad happened'' to her but when she was ten and she self-harmed for the body of a long time. Aaron organised psychological help and for three years Roan Fours was her therapist. He gently unpeeled popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the layers aftermath of her psychea storm, but somehow managed to miss that she can'something really, really badt resist getting involved. He'. When d been battered about the therapy ended Saffyre felt cast adrift, but she retained an interest in Roanhead with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.

|isbnauthor=1838951067Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Nothing Man|author=Catherine Ryan HowardTower

|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Jim Doyle, he's about to get a shock. He'How unctuous are the fats of another's security at a supermarket and helife, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream's watching a woman who is acting suspiciously. She has a book tucked under her arm and he wonders if she's planning to pay for it. Suddenly it drops to  In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the floor with identity of T, the spine splayed upwardsprotagonist of this tale. Just as T''Nothing Man'' by Eve Blacks story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the title. Why is Jim shocked? Well19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, Jim was - captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is'' - the Nothing Man who, until eighteen years ago raped and killedabove all, an enticing story to T. The author of the book was twelve years old when Jim raped her motherIt is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and then killed herknowledge, her father and her seven-year-old sisterin service of myth, Annafable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799

|author=Christina Hammonds ReedClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Black KidsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye

|genre=Teens Literary Fiction|summary=Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is set against the backdrop steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of the 1992 Los Angeles riotsintimacy and closeness, a reaction to becomes evidence of love lost. When the absolution of four police officers for beating a black mannarrator cries out internally, Rodney King''come over here and kiss me, nearly '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to deathconfirm her emotional numbness. Told from the perspective The imagined recipient of Ashley Bennettthis plea is Xavier, the novel follows her evolution from ex-partner, a silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, ghost she conjures to a woman finding her voice and embracing test her heritagedetachment.|isbn=14711881911804271934

|isbn=07515674260008405026|title=The Wicked Sister|author=Karen Dionne|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=When we first meet Rachel Cunningham she's an inpatient at the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center A Stranger in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She's twenty-six and has been there for fifteen years, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was eleven-years-old and that her father then took the gun and killed himself. Her sister, Diana, just twenty-years-old, was left at the family home, a lodge in the Upper Peninsula wilderness. Rachel's very bright and although she's a voluntary patient at the Mental Health Center she remains there, feeling that this is what she deserves. Perhaps, though, the circumstances are not as she remembers.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1506909442|title=The Worst Dogs: A Progressive Murder-MysteryFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Matthew de Lacey DavidsonJane Casey|rating=45

|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.

|author=Rob BakerAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in AfricaOther Girl

|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.'' Rob Baker is an ethnomusicologistve never really wanted to think about this. ''A what?'' I hear you cry. Well, an ethnomusicologist studies music in relation to culture, so rather like a folklorist studies the oral and written story traditions relating to a culture.

Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=B089CSNFT71804271845

|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

|isbn=17857656981529077745|title=Shed No TearsThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Caz FrearAnn Cleeves

|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.

|isbn=1473682401B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)Colour of Memory|author=Catriona McPhersonChristopher Bowden

|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.

|isbnauthor=B07WWSCGVSOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Lies You Told|author=Harriet TyceHouse of Day, House of Night

|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.

|isbn=14087124151836284683|title=Cry BabyThe Big Happy|author=Mark BillinghamDavid Chadwick

|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!

Cat Coyne and Maria Ashton are with their sons Kieron and Josh. ItI do love it when I open a book, it's a happy combination in that the boys are devoted nothing like I expected it to each other be, and - despite differences in the where and how they live - the women are best friendsit takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The boys are seven-year-old and they play on the swings in the park and then dash off Big Happy''. I don't want to play hide and seek in Highgate Wood. Josh was the one doing the hiding - ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but he returned tearfully I'll have to at least set the women: Kieron never came to find him and now he canscene. Once that't find Kierons done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.

|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

|isbn=15043213831036916375|title=Single, Again, and Again, and AgainJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Louisa PatemanPeter McArdle|rating=4.5

|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.

|isbn=17873014351009473085|title=Dark WatersThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=G R HallidayAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''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 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 the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Valentine|title=Us in the Before and After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787333175|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. }}{{Frontpage|author=Mariana Enriquez|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |isbn=1803511230}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529934753|title=The Protest|author=Rob Rinder|rating=4.5

|summary=Twenty-two-year-old Annabelle Whittaker made her second mistake when she opted For a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to drive down show up for the private road opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in Glen Turritthe nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. It Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a long road through some breath-taking scenery and she could push record of the car to its limits without fear of being caught speedingprotest. When Lexi Williams, an intern at the blond child stepped out in front RA, grabbed a spray can of her she instinctively jerked the steering wheel blue paint from under a chair and hit a tree. When she came round after proceeded to spray Bruce in the accident she couldn't work out where she wasface, but it obviously wasnwhilst shouting 't a conventional hospital. She'd made her first mistake some time ago, although Stop the realisation wouldnWar''t be obvious to her for a long time. SheIt seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'd made it when she chose to have her father buy her a pale blue BMW M4-face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and Sir Max Bruce was dead.

|author=Suzanne CollinsAriel Saramandi|title=The Ballad Portrait of Songbirds and Snakesan Island on Fire

|genre=TeensPolitics and Society|summary= Coriolanus Snow is refinedIn this powerful collection of essays, charming, and one of Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the only surviving members sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the affluent Snow familywounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. But their world was destroyed by Saramandi describes the war. Their riches gonecountry at one stage as ''rotting'', his parents dead - and a blunt yet apt metaphor for the facade must be maintained. As systemic decay brought about by the 10th Hunger Games beginsmalignant forces of racism, patriarchy, Coriolanus environmental degradation and other students of the Academy become the first Mentors of the tributes in the gamesgovernmental dysfunction. This is his chance to prove himself to the world and secure his place Each essay in the Capitol for good. But when he is assigned a tribute with no hope - this collection serves as a girl from District 12 - he thinks all chances kind of winning (both for her and for him) are gone. But Lucy Gray Baird proves herself to be a spark in his worlddiagnostic, in a way he could never have imagined. As charting the Games commence, Lucy Gray fights for her life in the arena - but behind the scenes, in various diseases afflicting the sly, complex and strangely dangerous world of the Capitol, Coriolanus is fighting for his life tooisland state. Will she survive the Games? Will he? And what happens then?|isbn=07023001791804271616

|author=Sakinu AhronglongPekka Harju-Autti|title=Hunter SchoolLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyFantasy|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is It's the eighteenth century, a work time of fictiondiscovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all upCaptain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, or whether it is as the blurb goes on sent to say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latterAndaman Islands in his endeavour. It feels like the stories he tells about Along with his experiences as a childson, as an adolescentPeter, as an adult are real and truetheir cat, Michi, they set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. But memory is a fickle thing, The islands are beautiful and maybe poetic licence has taken over here stunning in their scenery and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people shouldthe islanders' leader, Aarav, is keen to establish good relations.|isbn=1999791282B0DS1VGHH3

|author=Kat EllisHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Harrow LakeLili is Crying

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet 17-year-old LolaFirst published in 1953 in French, daughter to legendary horror movie director Nolan Nox, she this novel is saying goodbye to New York City - by sneaking out a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and stealing sentences from its residents. But when she is found by her father's assistant their proper position on the page and forced to come homepositions them elsewhere, she arrives to find an unlocked door, a trail of blooddisjointed, and her father dying in his studytruncated. And so, while he recovers, she is sent off to live with her grandmother in Harrow Lake, Like the small 1920s town in Indiana that served as the location for the film that made her parents famous. But something about this place isn't right. There's a darkness inside the people here. Secrets about lives of 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 allcharacters, and something very real and sinister lurks in Harrow Lakethey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=02413970491804271675

|author= Helly ActonTom Percival|title= The ShelfWrong Shoes|rating= 45|genre= Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary= When we meet Amy, sheWill's life is difficult, in a relationship with Jamiemultitude of ways. You He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't really call it a partnershipwork and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because things tend to get done he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his termsmum and dad are separated, but sheand Will's sticking around because she hopes she can change himlife seems bleak in every direction. Ah And yet, yes. Haven't we all been there? Things are looking up when he tells her to pack for still has a surprise triptiny amount of hope. Could this be it? Is he ''finally'' going He is good at art, and clings to get down on one knee? Was the work (and moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the wait) worth it?end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=18387708791398527122

|author= Justine Avery and Daria YudinaSylvie Cathrall|title= This Book Wants A Letter to Make You Laugh (Living Book)the Luminous Deep|rating= 45|genre= For SharingScience Fiction|summary=This Living Book is on There are few greater joys than a mission. What's the mission? To make you laugh! I can't think of many better missions than that, can you? Let's see how it does... .... well, it opens book which lives up with to a terrible jokecompelling premise. A groany joke, an eye-roll joke. The joke isn't very funny but it And this is funny to see how enthusiastic and how generously this book wants to make you laugh - ''Oh, I'm terrible at jokes. Some books are so good at one of them. I always wanted to help someone laugh.'' |isbn= 194812453X0356522776

|isbn=15294022711786482126|title=Murder on the Moorland The Janus Stone (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire MysteriesDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Helen CoxElly Griffiths|rating=34.5

|summary=DI Malcolm Halloran and Kitt HartleyBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's relationship is developing nicely: apartments - when they're even into discovered the bones of a child beneath a spot of bandage now, although the details are (mercifully) scantdoorway. There was no skull. After Was this a night of passion Halloran is called away in the early hours of the morningritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. ThereIt's been a murder in Irendaledifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, where Halloran used to live and where that she is pregnant with his wife, Kamala, was strangled five years child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. There are sufficient details Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of the current murder to make Halloran suspect that the man who murdered his wife - sickness.}}{{Frontpage|author=Guadalupe Nettel and others - is Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This collection was truly enchanting in some way involvedall senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, despite being magical elements and charming in prisonits gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. The DI heads off Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that appears to speak want to Jeremy Kerrteach us something about the world.|isbn=1804271470