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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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==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
 
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
 
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15098895150008551375|title=The Darkest Evening When Shadows Fall (D I Vera StanhopeS Max Craigie)|author=Ann CleevesNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a mercy that DI Vera Stanhope took Scottish mountain, seemingly the wrong turning as she drove home in the blizzardresult of a tragic accident. If she hadnShe't the car might not have been found until the morning and who knows what would have happened to the toddler strapped into the car seatd looked so happy, too, particularly as the car door had been left openwhen she posted her intentions on Facebook. Vera took the boy and drove to the nearest habitation. She ''thought'' it would be the village Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was Brockburn, the ancestral home of the Stanhopes: living her father best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had been died in similar circumstances in the younger brother of the man who inherited - last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and Hector was the black sheep sensible people. None of the family'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. Calling there unannounced, particularly as They were all alone when they seemed to have guests was going to be embarrassing, but died: DS Max Craigie is certain there was little else that she could do in 's a killer on the circumstancesloose.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241425441Paul B Preciado|title=The Thursday Murder Club|author=Richard OsmanDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=The first member ''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''  Through this hybrid text, consisting of The Thursday Murder Club we encounter arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is Joyce Meadowcroftnot considered a sign of political apathy. She used to be a nurse and Rather, it is thus the perfect person for Elizabeth proportional, valid response to consult about how long it would take a person who has been stabbed to bleed out. Details of where ''the epistemological and how political crack we are exchanged living through, and Joyce confirms that it would have taken about forty-five minutes the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that the victim could have been saved if shecharacterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''d received prompt medical help. It didndysphoria mundi't put Joyce off her shepherd's pie (. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which tells us that it was has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a Monday) but it does get her interested in The Thursday Murder Clubglobal scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. They meet each Thursday (Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as you might have guessed) in the Jigsaw Room at Coopers Chase Retirement Villagea sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1948124440Samantha Harvey|title=What Wonders Await Outdoors|author=Justine Avery and Liuba SyrotiukOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=The second book in Justine AveryIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital's Wonders series is the perfect antidote to long summer days with bored children - or, indeed, as we've found recently, for those long lockdown days when an awful pandemic is rolling across a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the worldInternational Space Station. What do you do when every book has been read and every toy has been played withThrough a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, repurposed, and played with again?Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Samira Ahmed295967572X|title= Mad, Bad and Dangerous to KnowPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating= 3.5|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they''In re going and what the endpurpose of this journey is, we all become storiesis uncertain. Django found the tickets '' Spending on the summer in Paris sounds like a dream for most people, especially art-lovers, but Khayyam canfloor somewhere''t relax and stop thinking about the mess she left behind in Chicago. On a chance encounter with a descendant of Alexandre Dumas, Khayyam finds herself on a historical journey with has persuaded our narrator to accompany him to unveil the truth about the 19th century Muslim woman who may have crossed paths with Alendre Dumas, Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byron. As the two teenagers travel the city they Why not only discover themselves, ? Not much else is clear either - but uncover we are probably in the past as the true story of pair travel to the woman station by coach and why it was one that should never have been forgottenthe train is a steam locomotive.|isbn=0349003556
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alice Oseman0008551324|title=LovelessThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary= Georgia is a teenager whoIt's embarking on her first year of university and unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in a desperate struggle to figure herself out. Sheprison and he's always been in love with love. With prepared to tell the idea of love, police where the idea body of falling madly a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and finding bliss. But it will be worth the reality for her has always been different. She's never had a crush. She's never been kissedpolice doing what he wants. And she's desperate what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to feel something serve the remainder of his sentence and fall for someoneto get an early parole date. But when the opportunity presents itself in any kind of real Not much to ask, tangible and physical way for her - she's disgusted by is it. But isn? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't that what think so and she's supposed even prepared to want? Isn't do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what everyone is supposed to do? How come everyone else can do it? Why can't she?|isbn=000824412Xs happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B086LLRZFHJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Archibald Lox and the Empress of SuanpanVaim|author=Darren Shan|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Archie's second foray into 'the MergeAll was strange'' opens with a fantastic vista. All .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of the Born's most famous buildings and monuments - Big Benotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, the Taj Mahal,  the Eiffel Tower - are collected together, joined by those clever Merge vines. But there's no time to waste a fictional fishing village in admiration: Archie is carrying an urgent cry Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for help from Inez to a venerable locksmith called Winston.Winston is a darling but is afraid to help - what is to be done? Despite yearning to go home Jatgeir and worry for his foster parentsEline, Archie feels an obligation to take Winston's place. And so Archie embarks on a new, and even more dangerous, adventure...two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14087122881035043092|title=Still Life The Killing Stones (DCI Karen PirieJimmy Perez)|author=Val McDermidAnn Cleeves|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=It I can't have been the only person who was the middle of February and bitterly cold sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a fishing boat out of St Monans pulled a body out the Firth of Forth instead of a lobster potnew life on Orkney. It fell to DCI Charlie Todd and DS Daisy Mortimer to investigate and it didn't take too long to establish that the man was Paul Allards been seven years since we heard from him, ostensibly a Frenchmanbut he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, but in reality James Auld , as well as Cassie, the daughter of Edinburghhis former partner. A decade earlier heWillow's gone missing also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when he was the prime suspect body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the disappearance and possible murder aftermath of his brothera storm, prominent civil servant, Iain Auldshe can't resist getting involved. DCI Karen Pirie, as He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of Police Scotland Historic Crimes Unit, a pair - which had been the last person to review the case, stolen from a couple of years earlier and it seemed sensible to bring her into the case at an early stagemuseum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Adrian TchaikovskyThea Lenarduzzi|title= The Doors of EdenTower|rating= 4.5|genre=Science Literary Fiction|summary= Wow – ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel is gigantic, in every sense Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the wordprotagonist of this tale. "Epic" is a word thatJust as T's thrown around story is being told, the story of a lot these dayssecond protagonist is unveiled: Annie, but if the daughter of a book ever earned wealthy family in the name it19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's this oneimagination. ItAnnie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a doorstopper full story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of big ideasmyth, fable and at times it almost felt too big for my brainfantasy. |isbn=15098658881804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will CarverClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Hinton Hollow Death TripBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= Hinton HollowEverything in this book, population 5however sweet or seemingly innocent,120is steeped in anguish and distortion. It sounds like one of those signs you see on improbably wide highways in America's mid-westEven a kiss, but this particular Hinton Hollow is usually a small town in Berkshiresymbol of intimacy and closeness, Englandbecomes evidence of love lost. Detective Sergeant Pace grew up When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over hereand kiss me, until something happened and he ran away '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to the cityconfirm her emotional numbness. He's running away again…only The imagined recipient of this time evil plea is following him and is going Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to touch just about everyone in towntest her detachment.|isbn=19131933061804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jacqueline Wilson0008405026|title=Love FrankieA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary= Frankie is nearly fourteenIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Being nearly fourteen is not easy when your mum has been diagnosed with MS when your dad has decided She was never found and the investigation ground to leave a halt. Now, her for another womanmother, when your older sister has turned into the girliest girl who ever livedHelena, andher father are dead in their bed. Initially, above all when Sally it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her mates are bullying you at schoolboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Oh, What looked as though it was going to be an open-and when Sam-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, your best friend since forever, suddenly starts sending out signs that he might fancy you - Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and you donAlison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Other Girl|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary='t fancy him back'We were born from the same body.I've never really wanted to think about this.''
Poor Frankie! 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= 0857535897 1804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1776572858Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=How Do You Make a Baby?|author=Anna Fiske Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Don Bartlett (translator)Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Home and FamilyBiography|summary=It's Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more than sixty years since objective and less personal. I asked how babies were made. My mother was deeply embarrassed think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and told me that she'd get me offers a book about itvibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. A couple In the first section of days later I was handed a pamphlet (which delivered nothing more than the basicsthis book, in clinical language which had never been used in our house before) and I was told Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that it wouldn: ''t be discussed any further you write not of real life as it ''wasn't something which nice people talked about''is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I ''knew'' moresee this tower, that sea, but was little ''wiseror that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. ThankfullyWell, times have changedMaxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15420174321529077745|title=The Nidderdale MurdersDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=J R EllisAnn Cleeves|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a Friday man in mid-September when the shoot was held on the grouse moor park near NiddersgillRosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The shooters at the butts were a strange mixture: Alexander Fraser (Sandy to his friends) dead man was the owner Josh - one of the moor and a retired judge. James Symonds care workers who was due to work a local landowner and Henry Saunders was a banker. He and Fraser shift the night before but who had known each other since their school daysnever turned up. The fourth member was Gideon Rawnsley, who dealt in exclusive cars D I Vera Stanhope is called in nearby Ripon. Rawnsley had a gripe with Fraser: he'd sold him an expensive car and Fraser was being slow to payinvestigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Other Some people had reason to comment on Fraserbelieve that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's attitude diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to money: his gamekeeper, Ian Davis thought he was stingy and very difficult discover what happened to work forJosh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241433568B0FK5LHKD9|title=Eight DetectivesThe Colour of Memory|author=Alex PavesiChristopher Bowden|rating=54|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at his house in SpainBookbag Towers. ItLike all Bowden's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: hestories, there's going to have a rest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious. Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesnmystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered. How can that have happened? ThereWe like this running theme in an author's no one else in the house, so one of them must be the killerwork - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1526362759Olga Tokarczuk|title=Dosh: How to Earn It, Save It, Spend It, Grow ItHouse of Day, Give It|author=Rashmi SirdeshpandeHouse of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Literary Fiction|summary=''What 's the good of a relief! A book about moneyworld that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, for childrenHouse of Night'', with clear explanations somewhat reflects this notion of what it 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 isthe house, why it matters, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how to acquire more of it (nope is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex- robbing banks is out) DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and what you can do with it when you've managed to get hold of ithe should be doing quite well financially. Your reasons for wanting money donUnfortunately, his daughter't matter: we all need it to some extents defence against a murder charge drained his savings. You might want to go into businessHis wife, be a clever shopperLaura, a saver (you might even become an has been trying to persuade him to retire - ''investormaybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do') and there might be something you really, ''really He'' want s not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to buy. Theretake his case, it's also the possibility thought of using to do good in the worldmoney he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083783631836284683|title=One Perfect MorningThe Big Happy|author=Pamela CraneDavid Chadwick|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=A husband Well! This is about 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.a murder mystery unlike any other!
MackenzieI do love it when I open a book, Robin and Lily met when they all went it's nothing like I expected it to the same college in Monroevillebe, Pennsylvania and twenty years later theyit takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''re still the best of friends. When they first met they called themselves the Spicier Girls as I don't want to ruin a nod similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the famous girl band of the dayscene. Lily would be Adventure Spice, Robin the Homemaker and Mackenzie - well, Mackenzie would be the supporting actress in her own life. She married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have a daughter, Aria, whoOnce that's now fifteen-year-olddone, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanSally Rooney|title=Archibald Lox and the Bridge Between WorldsIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction |summary=Time to catch you all up with some Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of my lockdown reading - I've been doing so much life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it that I'm a bit late to the party with actual reviewinginto words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Oops! And where better to start than with Among the new series from Bookbag favouritemany relationships woven into this story, Darren Shan? Archie the central one for readers to unravel is very downthe fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. He's lost a dear friend recentlyIvan, in a tragic accidentsocially awkward chess prodigy, and Archie blames himself. He can't face school so he takes himself for a truanting wander around London. As he strolls across a footbridgecontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, he sees a girl who is being pursued by some murderous-looking men successful lawyer living in white suitsDublin. He watchesFollowing their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, aghastthe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. What is going on?|isbn=B086LKBHD60571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Antony Wootten1036916375|title=Season of the Mammoth (BigShorts)Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections 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. 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 constant 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= Tannash Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and her brother Geb are waiting in great excitement for the hunting party led by their uncle to returna supportive friend. They're hoping for a feast But most of mammoth meatall, he is an aspiring writer. Geb longs for the day English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he can join excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his uncle Gagba headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and the other warriors on his mum that he spends a hunting party and take part in their deeds couple of derring-do. But their fatherafternoons a week at a different school, the leader of the villageStation Road, thinks that they also need an education; that knowledge is powerwhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1939269679
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Laura Lam and Elizabeth May1009473085|title= Seven DevilsThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating= 45|genre= Science FictionPolitics and Society|summary= Eris is one of 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 foremost operatives of inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the Novantaebook for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, a resistance movement fighting against the ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as Princess Discordia{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, whom everyone believed has been dead can be bettered for those tumultuous years. Clo, an ace pilot It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for the Novantae, has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital anyone who thinks Johnson should return to the war effortpolitics. Although she ''The Conservative Effect''s less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this missionan entirely different beast. Things get more interesting as It's the mission commences; aboard seventh book in a series which looks at the ship are three defectors with impact a secret that could potentially cripple government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the Empiremost important. Eris's brother Damocles, This book follows the runnerwell-up heir to established format: a series of experts from various fields review the Empire, is plotting to disrupt peace talks between Tholos and the last state of the free alien species. It's a race against time as nation when the rebels move to put a stop Damocles' planscoalition took over in 2010, with millions of lives hanging the changes that occurred and the situation in the balance…|isbn=14732311402024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Non PrattJenny Valentine|title=Every Little Piece of My HeartUs in the Before and After|rating=45
|genre=Teens
|summary= Freya was a beautifulElk and Mab are best friends, popular and complex girlor more than that even, loved by many and seemingly stable their friendship is a once 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 awaylifetime connection. But They meet as children 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 of some kind, trip out but is surprised to find unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the parcel contains another layer addressed to a complete stranger, and time. But then another layer to another person and another, each containing an item unique to chance brings them and Freyaback together, connecting 4 strangers through her mystery and the promise of 'treasure' at the end of it allthey are inseparable. With each parcel Something has happened though, a new layer of the story something terrible and of Freya is unwrapped - tragic, and painful truths come to light that threaten to break bondsnow they must work through their grief, both new and oldtheir friendship, together. Can what's been broken be fixed? And why did Freya leave?|isbn=14063669431471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178089922X1787333175|title=Invisible GirlYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Lisa JewellBenji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersPopular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''When you wear a hood, youYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here're invisible.'after enjoying Adam KaySaffyre Maddox s first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is seventeen-years-old and beautiful. By her own admissionGoing to Hurt}}, she's a bit glorious mixture of insight into the workings of a boffinthe NHS, doing humour and enjoying maths, physics and biology at A levelautobiography. Life hasn''You Don't been easy for her: most people who have been close Have to her have died and she's now living with her Uncle Aaron in an eighth-floor flatbe Mad... Something ''really, really bad happened'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to her when she was ten mental illness and she self-harmed for the work of a long timepsychiatrist. Aaron organised psychological help and I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for three years Roan Fours was her therapist. He gently unpeeled the layers of her psyche, humour in this setting but somehow managed to miss that 'something really, really bad'. When the therapy ended Saffyre felt cast adrift, but she retained an interest in Roanlaughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838951067Mariana Enriquez|title=The Nothing Man|author=Catherine Ryan HowardA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersShort Stories|summary=When we first meet Jim DoyleMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, he's about achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to get a shock. He's security at a supermarket an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and he'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 the floor with the spine splayed upwards. ''Nothing Man'' by Eve Black, is the title. Why is Jim shocked? Well, Jim was crime- ''is'' ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - the Nothing Man who, until eighteen years ago raped and killedall within Argentina. The author circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the book was twelve years old when Jim raped her mother, and then killed her, her father and her seven-year-old sister, Annasupernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christina Hammonds Reed1529934753|title=The Black KidsProtest|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens Crime|summary=Christina Hammonds ReedFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's debut novel is set against most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the backdrop opening of his retrospective at the 1992 Los Angeles riotsRoyal Academy. Still, a reaction to he arrived in the absolution nick of four police officers for beating a black mantime, complete with his two wives and six children, Rodney Kingone of whom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, nearly you tend to deathdo things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Told Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the perspective face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to be part of Ashley Bennettan ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, the novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted but this was different. The can had been laced with matters of racecyanide, to a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritageSir Max Bruce was dead.|isbn=1471188191
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0751567426Ariel Saramandi|title=The Wicked Sister|author=Karen DionnePortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=When we first meet Rachel Cunningham she's an inpatient at In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She's twenty-six and has been there for fifteen yearssociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was eleven-years-old and that her father then took tunneling deep into the gun wounds left by colonialism and killed himselfslavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Her sister, Diana, just twenty-years-old, was left Saramandi describes the country at the family homeone stage as ''rotting'', a lodge in blunt yet apt metaphor for the Upper Peninsula wilderness. Rachel's very bright and although she's a voluntary patient at systemic decay brought about by the Mental Health Center she remains theremalignant forces of racism, feeling that patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this is what she deserves. Perhaps, thoughcollection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the circumstances are not as she remembersisland state.|isbn=1804271616
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1506909442Pekka Harju-Autti|title=The Worst Dogs: A Progressive Murder-Mystery|author=Matthew de Lacey DavidsonLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=It''The greatest hatreds the eighteenth century, a time of discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, like is sent to the greatest virtue Andaman Islands in his endeavour. Along with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, they set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the worst dogsislanders' leader, Aarav, is silentkeen to establish good relations.''|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3}}{{Frontpage|author=Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)The |title of this enjoyable crime procedural, =Lili is from German romantic writer Jean PaulCrying|rating=4. But who are the worst dogs 5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=First published in 1953 in de Lacey Davidson's latest French, this novel and for whom is a timeless text which wrenches the hatred? This mystery will last all the way to hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the very last page and carefully plotted pages but you will be thinking about unwarranted hatred all positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the way through. It sounds uncomfortable - but it isn't: it's honestlives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rob BakerTom Percival|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in AfricaWrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=TravelConfident Readers|summary=Will''"Go to Mali," they said. "The music s life is amazingdifficult," they said. "And you get ten hours in a multitude of sunshine every day." So I didways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoesRob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. , he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn'A what?t have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because 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 mum and dad are separated, and Will' I hear you crys life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. Well He is good at art, an ethnomusicologist studies music in relation and clings to culturethe moments of joy when he is drawing, so rather that feel like a folklorist studies light at the oral and written story traditions relating to end of a culturelong, dark tunnel. |isbn=B089CSNFT71398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=James PattersonSylvie Cathrall|title=Hawk: A Maximum Ride NovelLetter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Hawk has been waiting on the same street corner, every day, for years. She is waiting for her parents to come and get her. They left her there when she was just tiny, and although she's almost certain that they There are never coming back for her, she continues few greater joys than a book which lives up to head back there each day, just in case. Hawk isn't your ordinary street urchin though...she has wings, and can fly! Since she was abandoned she's been living with a group of other children, all with interesting characteristics of their own and together they've made their own familycompelling premise. But now the city And this is seemingly even more troubled than usual, there's a mysterious child-killer who has been brought to the prison next door to where the children live, and then one day Hawk comes home to find her family has been taken awayof them. Where have they been taken, and can Hawk rescue them before it's too late?|isbn=15291200040356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17857656981786482126|title=Shed No TearsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Caz FrearElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In November 2012 Christopher Masters, Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the man who would become known as site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'apartments - when they discovered the roommate killer', strangled three women in bones of a child beneath a fortnightdoorway. When he There was arrested he admitted the killingsno skull. A fourth death was attributed to him - that of Holly Kemp - and on occasions, Masters admitted to the Was this a ritual killingor murder? Inevitably, then he denied it - then admitted it, then denied itDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. He played with the policeIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but there was sufficient evidence on Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the first one night they spent together some three killings to put him away for a months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long time and the CPS were , not convinced about the Holly Kemp caseleast because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. There was no body }}{{Frontpage|author=Guadalupe Nettel and once Masters Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This collection was murdered truly enchanting in prisonall senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, no hope magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of progressing 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 case furtherworld.|isbn=1804271470
}}