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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083850681786482126|title=The Midnight FeastJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Lucy FoleyElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=ItBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's midsummer on apartments - when they discovered the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manorbones of a child beneath a doorway. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promisedThere was no skull. It's all headed up by Francesca MeadowsWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The Manor was her ancestral home and sheIt's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husbanddifficult as Ruth knows, Owenbut Nelson doesn't, was the architect and work that she is still ongoing on parts pregnant with his child as a result of the siteone night they spent together some three months ago. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't Her condition will be obvious before long before a body , not least because Ruth is foundprone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=James Baldwin0008551375|title=Giovanni's RoomWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction Crime|summary=''GiovanniLeanne Wilson's Room'body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a tragic accident. She' follows the narrator Davidd looked so happy, an American man living in Paristoo, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovannishe was just out of an unpleasant relationship, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay barbut it looked like she was living her best life now. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling Then it emerged that five other women had died in Spain, the real tension similar circumstances in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the deeper conflict within himself'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. It They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is Davidcertain there's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovannia killer on the loose.|isbn=0141186356
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Ashley Hickson-LovencePaul B Preciado|title=Wild EastDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensPolitics and Society|summary=Written in verse, this ''It is Ronnynever too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''s story Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich essays and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic eventautofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and so Ronny finds himself trying brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to settle in a the new towngeneration, a new school, and keep himself out feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of troublepolitical apathy. He listens Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to music constantly''the epistemological 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 always dreamed of being catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a rapperglobal scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. But now, in Rather than taking this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part extreme dysphoria as a sign of a poetry writing workshop group andweakness, slowlyor mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Ronny begins Preciado urges his readers to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting ''use dysphoria as your wordsrevolutionary platform''.|isbn=02416454411804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866847Samantha Harvey|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin VesciOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleGeneral Fiction|summary=It's strangeIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book Booker Prize for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender CompanionOrbital'', I visited a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture lives of a slice group of chocolate cake on astronauts aboard the homepageInternational Space Station. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted Through a narrative lens that cake viscerally. (Theremirrors the astronauts's a recipe in the bookorbital perspective, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told Harvey invites readers to make a mess of it. Notes see our planet in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book alreadywholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jenny Valentine295967572X|title=Us in the Before and AfterPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Elk Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and Mab are best friends, or more than that evenwhat the purpose of this journey is, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connectionuncertain. They meet as children one day Django found the tickets ''on a trip out but unfortunately they donthe floor somewhere't get each other's contact details at the timeand has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. But then chance brings them back together, and they Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, togetherthe train is a steam locomotive.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17873331750008551324|title=The Devil 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}}{{FrontpageKnow (D S Max Craigie)|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother OpheliaIt's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood unusual for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainanyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Now Anuri Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in her twenties prison and she he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is slowly trying to regain her confidence buried and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about who was responsible for herdeath. Anuri is battling alcoholismThis person, failing to start her PhDhe promises, undergoing therapy is someone big and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for it will be worth the police doing sowhat he wants. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the new focus remainder of Ophelia's online empirehis sentence and to get an early parole date. Can she save her sisterNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and perhaps herself she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and her relationship anyone who works with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David ChadwickJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Headload of NapalmVaim|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California'All was strange''. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are This haunting phrase encapsulates the main local employers but otherwisepervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, there's a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not much of note other than dive bars feel more real for Jatgeir and Joshua trees. Life is quietEline, until...two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn= B0D321VJ761804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tom Percival1035043092|title=The Wrong ShoesKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=WillI can's life is difficultt have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, in Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a multitude of waysnew life on Orkney. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoesIt's been seven years since we heard from him, but he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work s now living with Willow Reeves and doesn't have enough money for even their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the most basic daughter 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 accidentformer partner. Throw into that mix the fact that Willow's also his mum and dad are separatedboss, and Willshe ''should''s life seems bleak in every direction. And yetbe on maternity leave, he still has but when the body of a tiny amount of hope. He popular islander, Archie Stout, is good at artfound, and clings to in the moments aftermath of joy when he is drawinga storm, that feel like she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the head with a light at the end Neolithic stone - one of a long, dark tunnelpair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie CathrallThea Lenarduzzi|title=A Letter to the Luminous DeepThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Science Literary Fiction|summary= There ''How unctuous are few greater joys than the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a book which lives up tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to a compelling premiseT. And this It is one a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of themmyth, fable and fantasy. |isbn= 03565227761804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786482126Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly GriffithsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.
|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008405026
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventyIt's sixteen years since nine-five 'luxury' apartments year- when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorwayold Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. There She was no skullnever found and the investigation ground to a halt. Was this a ritual killing or murder? InevitablyNow, her mother, Helena, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelsonand her father are dead in their bed. It's difficult as Ruth knowsInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but Nelson doesnthere't, s something about the positioning of the bodies that she 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 pregnant with his child as now a result of the one night they spent together some three months agocomplex double murder. Her condition will be obvious before longKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sicknessUna Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Joan DidionAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Year of Magical ThinkingOther Girl|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This book is Joan Didion''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's heartbreaking autobiographical account work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the grief she endured following most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her husband. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a beautiful few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and necessary resource to help people feel less alone2 years before the author was even born. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial The large and delusion and makes them utterly normalinstant 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, lends them a human face to wearan absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=00072168581804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies are often seen as the form 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, 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 real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim 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=00085513241529077745|title=The Devil You Know Dark Wives (D S Max CraigieI Vera Stanhope)|author=Neil LancasterAnn Cleeves
|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 A man walking his dog in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where early morning discovered the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for her deathtroubled teens. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the police doing what he wantsnight before but who had never turned up. And what he wants D I Vera Stanhope is called in to be transferred to an open prison to serve investigate the murder - but her only clue is the remainder disappearance of his sentence and to get an early parole dateone of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Not much to ask, Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and sheunlikely as the girl's even prepared to do the other thing diary makes it clear that Hardie demanded - make certain she adored Josh. She knows that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from she has to find Chloe to discover what's happeninghappened to Josh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739526910B0FK5LHKD9|title=Where I've Not Been LostThe Colour of Memory|author=Glen SibleyChristopher Bowden|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It''One year after s been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malleynew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's lifestories, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate there's a mystery at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams the heart of ''The Colour of reconnecting with everything he has lostMoney''. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up We like this running theme in an author's work - take a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos mystery but give it different flavour and surprising romantic possibilitiesatmosphere each time.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008405026Olga Tokarczuk|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane CaseyHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat 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.
|isbn=1804271918
}}{{Frontpage
|isbn=henleyA
|title=Ultimate Obsession
|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's sixteen years since nineEx-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer nightDCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. She was never found and the investigation ground to Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a haltmurder charge drained his savings. NowHis wife, her motherLaura, Helenahas been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do', and her father are dead in '' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their bedsavings. InitiallyWhen Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning thought of the bodies money he could make that convinces him 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 this is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced miscarriage of justice that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convincedhe really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15290777451836284683|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)Big Happy|author=Ann CleevesDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a man in the park near Rosebankbook, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a care home for troubled teenswild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due Big Happy''. I don't want to work ruin a shift the night before similar experience for any of you reading but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in 'll have to investigate at least set the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencerscene. Some people believe Once that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Joshdone, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399613073Sally Rooney|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie WatsonIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on Sally Rooney has studied the first day chessboard of medical school life and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter is something of a centurygrandmaster at putting it into words. Olivia Her dialogue is ruthlessly ambitiousgripping and so brilliantly frustrating, which is a bonus when you aim as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura unravel is a perfectionist the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and a trauma doctorPeter Koubek. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes Ivan, a GP. When we first meet them they're at socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end successful lawyer living in tragedyDublin. We donFollowing their father't know who suffered the tragedy or s passing after a long battle with cancer, the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, itbrothers's their teenage children who are involvedalready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02416366041036916375|title=The Trading Game: A ConfessionJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Gary StevensonPeter McArdle|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of ''Just a city banker in your mind, youLiverpool Lad ''re unlikely to think is a collection of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie memories and jeans replaces reflections from the pin-stripe suit years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and his background is around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the East Endfamily history of a sea-going family, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injusticethe docks dominating lives. There was no posh public school on his CV Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have- but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - It's a book to settle into and he has a facility with numbers which most allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of us can only envy. He also realised simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibankconstant factor in McArdle's early years. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a traderI'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Leanne Egan1836285493|title=Lover BirdsThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=When new girlWill is a keen player of video games, Isabela conscientious student, moves to Lou's hometown a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around herall, he is an aspiring writer. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each otherEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with herMarlowe Park, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isnone at which he excels. This hasn't it? Because Lou is straightgone unnoticed by his headteacher, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so farMrs Howarth, and she's never had has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a good kiss with any couple of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is funafternoons a week at a different school, and she definitely just hates IsabelStation Road, doesn't she?|isbn=000862657Xwhere his ability might be better extended.
}}
{{Frontpage
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{{Frontpage
|author=Max BoucheratJenny Valentine|title=The Last Life of Lori MillsUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=We Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet Lori as children one day on the first evening shea trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's got contact details at the house to herself – no neighbour to pop intime. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, babysitter poorlysomething terrible and tragic, mother at and now they must workthrough their grief, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year oldand their friendship, on her lonesometogether. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that |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 log on to VoxminerHurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the world-buildingworkings of the NHS, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldhumour and autobiography. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn''You Don't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyHave to be Mad... For '' promised the server she same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs the work of tamperinga psychiatrist. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the game has been doctored – well, where laughter is directed at a situation rather than a girl to turn?|isbn=0008666482person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fyodor DostoyevskyMariana Enriquez|title=White NightsA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=As always in DostoyevskyMariana 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 character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable claritysimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=02416197851803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD1529934753|title=Nowhere ManThe Protest|author=Deborah StoneRob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In For a quiet suburban houselittle while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, Patrick is making was not going to show up for the opening of his final plansretrospective at the Royal Academy. A meticulous manStill, he makes sure arrived in the nick of every preparationtime, down 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 last detailprotest. Some last reflections Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and then he says goodbye proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to his wifebe 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=Portrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the worldsociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and his slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. ItSaramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting''s horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off a blunt yet another phone call apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about her ageing by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accidentgovernmental dysfunction. It will be Each essay in this collection serves as a while before Diana realises what Patrick has donekind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Virginie DespentesPekka Harju-Autti|title=King Kong TheoryLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography Fantasy|summary=It''King Kong Theory'' is s the eighteenth century, a hard-hitting memoir time of discovery and feminist manifestoBritain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, which can be seen as a call is sent to arms for women the Andaman Islands in a phallocentric society broken at its corehis endeavour. Originally written in FrenchAlong with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as they set off on a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape perilous voyage to sex work and pornographythese faraway lands. Though these discussions The islands are intertwined, beautiful and stunning in their placement within scenery and the book can feel somewhat disjointedislanders' leader, Aarav, a reflection of their original form as independent essaysis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=191309734XB0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alba de Cespedes Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Forbidden NotebookLili is Crying|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This Italian work First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and tension sentences from their proper position on the moment our protagonistpage and positions them elsewhere, Valeria Cossatidisjointed, purchases truncated. Like the lives of her forbidden notebookcharacters, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing waysthey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=17822782221804271675
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|author=Ottessa MoshfeghTom Percival|title=My Year of Rest and RelaxationThe Wrong Shoes|rating=35|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=At bestWill's life is difficult, this novel is in a scathing critique multitude of modern society ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and reveals doesn't have enough money for even the fragility most basic of human relationships; things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at worstthe college, it is was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the cynicalfact that his mum and dad are separated, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonistWill's life seems bleak in every direction. This unlikely heroine And yet, he still has a slimtiny amount of hope. He is good at art, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties clings to the moments of joy when he is disillusioned with drawing, that feel like a light at the worldend of a long, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernationdark tunnel.|isbn=17847074221398527122
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|author=Jo CallaghanSylvie Cathrall|title=Leave No TraceA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=When There are few greater joys than a man is found crucified on the top of book which lives up to a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lockcompelling premise. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat And this is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot one of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing projectthem. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X0356522776
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|isbnauthor=B0DB64PYV5Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The White Rose|author=Dave BainesAccidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian FictionShort Stories|summary=In 2033This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemispheremagical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. And it's not Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a storm wisdom that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half appears to want to teach us something about the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going awayworld.|isbn=1804271470
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