134,728
edits
Changes
Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)
Revision as of 08:52, 11 December 2025
, Thursday at 08:52no edit summary
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551375|title=When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Mary McCarthyNeil Lancaster|titlerating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Memories Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a Catholic Girlhoodtragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the loose.}}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=Dysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architectIt is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, obsessively digging into the past consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to piece together the broken mosaic new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of her lifepolitical apathy. She attributes her Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''burning interest in the pastepistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present''which Preciado calls ' 'dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to her orphanhoodemerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parentsyour revolutionary platform''. |isbn=1804271454}}{{Frontpage|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, who died in Samantha Harvey won the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early yearsBooker Prize for ''Orbital'', beginning with her orphanhood a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship lives of her late fathera group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Laterorbital perspective, she moved Harvey invites readers to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with see our planet in a different kind of upbringingwholly new light.|isbn=18042716591529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jonathan Buckley295967572X|title=One BoatPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''One Boat'' Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the reader into a contemplative realm purpose of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonistthis journey is, Teresais uncertain. Set against Django found the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures tickets ''on the magic of its setting floor somewhere'' and its power has persuaded our narrator to provoke profound introspectionaccompany him. Teresa herself recognises these qualities Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the reason she has visited it after pair travel to the death of both her parents. Prompted station by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative coach and deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It train is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsionsteam locomotive.|isbn=1804271764
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jen Beagin0008551324|title=Big SwissThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour Crime|summary=I found It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the premise of this book totally original and addictivepolice. Greta possesses the power to know Neither side likes or has any respect for the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and fearsother. How? Her job But Davie Hardie is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, therestruggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach missing person is buried and who calls himself Om keeps reminding was responsible for her, but that just makes it more excitingdeath. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life This person, Greta can exist passivelyhe promises, placidly, as a fly on is someone big and it will be worth the wallpolice doing what he wants. That And what he wants is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from be transferred to an open prison to serve the safety remainder of the wall his sentence and buzz far too close to the sunget an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The sun in this analogy is the sex coachnew Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who, like the sun, works with him is bright, blonde kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jon Fosse and beautiful - and irresistible to GretaDamion Searls (translator) |title=Vaim|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''All was strange''... Suddenly, This haunting phrase encapsulates the confidentiality agreement, the ethics pervading sense of her professional positionotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, her loyalties to Oma fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, fly out two of the window. She's protagonists caught in too deepits melancholic current.|isbn=05713785791804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15290777451035043092|title=The Dark Wives Killing Stones (D I Vera StanhopeJimmy Perez)
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=A man walking his dog in I can't have been the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers only person who was due sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to work start a shift the night before but who had never turned upnew life on Orkney. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - It's been seven years since we heard from him, but her only clue is he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the disappearance daughter of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencerhis former partner. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the death but Vera thinks this body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is unlikely as found, in the girlaftermath of a storm, she can's diary makes it clear that she adored Josht resist getting involved. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399613073Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie WatsonThe Tower|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Olivia''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, Laura and Anjali met on the first day story of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter 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. Olivia Annie's fate is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim above all, an enticing story to be a cardiothoracic surgeonT. Laura It is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and story which she becomes consumes avariciously, both in a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug quest for truth and alcohol-fuelled party knowledge, and it's going to end in tragedyservice of myth, fable and fantasy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241636604Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary StevensonBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker Everything in your mindthis book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty steeped in anguish and injusticedistortion. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School Even a kiss, usually a symbol of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - intimacy and he has a facility with numbers which most closeness, becomes evidence of us can only envylove lost. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what wasWhen the narrator cries out internally, essentially''come over here and kiss me, '' it is less an invitation than a card game which got him an internship with Citibankdesperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. EventuallyThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, this turned into permanent employment as a traderghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Leanne Egan0008405026|title=Lover BirdsA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to LouIt's hometown of Liverpool sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around herbed one summer night. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each otherShe was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with mother, Helena, and herfather are dead in their bed. Initially, and thatit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's definitely because Isabel something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her feel so cross, isn't boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it? was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Because Lou Kerrigan is straight, isnconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and shes disappearance: others (such as Derwent's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabelboss, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?|isbn=000862657XUna Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jacqueline RoseAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Women in Dark TimesThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=''The world of We were born from the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sally RooneyMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=IntermezzoReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=General Fiction Biography|summary=Sally Rooney has studied Biographies are often seen as the chessboard form of life -writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and is something less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of a grandmaster at putting real life as it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly but of what they feelyou yourself imagine it to be. Among the many relationships woven into Whom would it help to know how I see this storytower, that sea, the central one for readers to unravel or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubekit?''. IvanWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a socially awkward chess prodigysubjective account, contrasts sharply with his older brother Petergiving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, a successful lawyer living Chekhov and Andreyev in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trialssuch privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=05713654691804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=10094730851529077745|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton Dark Wives (EditorsD I Vera Stanhope)|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=Mark Lingane|title=ChimeraAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=''The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing A man walking his dog in the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like early morning discovered the body of a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.'' ''Broken and fragmented recollections tumble around her head. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come man in shallowthe park near Rosebank, ragged gasps as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchablecare home for troubled teens.'' ''There must be The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a way out. As she moves through shift the foreign area, memories begin to gel. Disaster night before but who had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’snever turned up.'' As our survivor struggles D I Vera Stanhope is called in to orient herselfinvestigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, she's guided by a robot, which looks humanfourteen-year-made, old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but she canVera thinks this is unlikely as the girl't be sure. It says s diary makes it is. It says clear that she must try not to injure herselfadored Josh. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group of aliens, She knows that she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradation, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts has to survive - and find Chloe to attempt discover what happened to explain how she came to be here, apparently the last human being aliveJosh.|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1784745758B0FK5LHKD9|title=Three Days in JuneThe Colour of Memory|author=Anne TylerChristopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The day before your daughterIt's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. Firstbeen three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, it was her job as assistant head so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at the local schoolBookbag Towers. There was Like all Bowden's stories, there's a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but mystery at the discussion moved into the subject heart of ''The Colour of Money'people skills' and before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, depending on who was explaining the situation. When she got home (We like this running theme in the middle of the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her exan author's work -husband was there with take a cat. He thinks that he'll be staying mystery but give it different flavour and that Gail will be adopting the cat. And that's before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal lifeatmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Eowyn IveyOlga Tokarczuk|title=Black Woods Blue SkyHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Black Woods Blue SkyWhat's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?' tells the story ' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of BirdieDay, the young mother House of toddler EmaleenNight'', who longs for a life beyond somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitresssmall, a setting subtle changes which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card''govern our lives, she feels stuck in her like the shift from day-to-day lifenight, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on constant in that image is the house, stoic against the North Fork to fulfil her desires of ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a simple life surrounded by naturePrivate Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. When she meets Arthur Nielson Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a strangemurder charge drained his savings. His wife, taciturn and solitary manLaura, who says he has a cabin over there, she feels called been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go - and bring Emaleen with heron cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. Without realising When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives foreverthe thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.|isbn=1472279042
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Max Boucherat1836284683|title=The Last Life of Lori MillsBig Happy|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersDystopian Fiction|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening sheWell! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, it's got the house nothing like I expected it to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year oldbe, and it takes me on her lonesomea wild ride. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to log on ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to Voxminer, at least set the world-building, critter-collecting game scene. Once that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her owndone, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else I think you should be able to enter shows signs of tamperingsimply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?|isbn=0008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008385068Sally Rooney|title=The Midnight Feast|author=Lucy FoleyIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=It's midsummer on Sally Rooney has studied the Dorset coast chessboard of life and guests gather is something of a grandmaster at The Manorputting it into words. It's their opening weekend Her dialogue is gripping and splendid celebrations are promisedso brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it Among the many relationships woven into an impressive retreat this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the wealthy fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and famousPeter Koubek. Her husbandIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, Owencontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, was the architect and work brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is still ongoing on parts a collection of memories and reflections from the siteyears Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests Some are enemies factual, such as well as friendsthe family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. Old scores are going It's a book to be settled settle into and it wonallow 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't be long d never heard of parachute mines before a body is found- but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ashley Hickson-Lovence1836285493|title=Wild EastThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Written in verseWill is a keen player of video games, this is Ronny's storya conscientious student, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich slightly annoying brother and start at a mostly white schoolsupportive friend. The move But most of all, he is initiated by Ronny's mum who an aspiring writer. English is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic eventhis favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new townone at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, a new schoolMrs Howarth, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens she has suggested to music constantly, Will and has always dreamed his mum that he spends a couple of being afternoons a rapper. But nowweek at a different school, in this new schoolStation Road, where his teacher encourages him to ability might be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your wordsbetter extended.|isbn=0241645441
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=16358668471009473085|title=The Lavender CompanionConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Jessica Dunham Anthony Seldon and Terry Barlin VesciTom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society|summary=ItSometimes it's strange, the things simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that make 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 ''immediatelyreally'' feel that happened on certain occasions, then this is isn't the book for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender CompanionIf that's what you're looking for, I visited the authordon't think Anthony Seldon's [https://wwwbook, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there It's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepagecompelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally'The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. (ThereIt's a recipe in the seventh book, in a series which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book and I was told to make follows the well-established format: a mess series of it. Notes experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down changes that occurred and the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book alreadysituation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|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
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529934753|title=The Protest|author=Onyi NwabineliRob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=For a little while, it 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 the nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. 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 face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and Sir Max Bruce was dead.}}{{Frontpage|author=Ariel Saramandi|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the worldsociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, thanks tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to her step-mother Opheliaexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting''s increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals andracism, basicallypatriarchy, monetary gainenvironmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Now Anuri is Each essay in her twenties this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=1804271616}}{{Frontpage|author=Pekka Harju-Autti|title=LoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse|rating=4|genre=Fantasy|summary=It's the eighteenth century, a time of discovery and she Britain is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life backexpanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, suing her step-mother is sent to take down the content about herAndaman Islands in his endeavour. Anuri is battling alcoholismAlong with his son, failing to start her PhDPeter, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantlytheir cat, she is desperately worried about her little sisterMichi, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empirethey set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. Can she save her sister, The islands are beautiful and perhaps herself stunning in their scenery and her relationship with her father at the same time?islanders' leader, Aarav, is keen to establish good relations.|isbn=0861546873B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David ChadwickHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Headload of NapalmLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= It's September 1973 First published in Hicks1953 in French, California. Hicks this novel is a Mojave desert town timeless text which wrenches the hearts of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and Las Vegas both a significant drive awaypositions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are Like the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much lives of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiether characters, until...they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn= B0D321VJ761804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Samantha Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey(Translator)|title=OrbitalThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day This collection was truly enchanting in the lives of a group all senses of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspectiveword: spellbinding with its fantastical, Harvey invites readers to see our planet magical elements and charming in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's 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 prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body its gentle portrayal of a missing person is buried nature and who was responsible for her deathhuman relationships. This personGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is her stories structured by a wisdom that appears to be transferred want to an open prison to serve teach us something about the remainder of his 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 other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1739526910|title=Where I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-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, Una Burt) are less convinced.1804271470
}}