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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Oliver Greeves1787333175|title=NelsonYou Don's Follyt Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=2.5|genre=Historical FictionPopular Science|summary=The story of Admiral Nelson – who never actually achieved that rank, but only ascended I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Vice Admiral – Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is one Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the best known in English historyworkings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. Despite our history teachers ' best efforts there are very few battles that most of us can name'You Don't Have to be Mad... Dunkirk, Battle of Britain, Hastings…if we live in '' promised the north then Flodden, Bannockburn, Culloden…it probably takes an interest in maritime things same elements but moved from physical problems to know of the Battle of the Nile mental illness and the siege work of Malta…but just about every English person knows about Trafalgara psychiatrist. They may not know where it is and what I did wonder whether it was about, acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but we know (if only from the Square laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and the Column) that it was a mighty victory is always delivered with empathy and that Nelson was in commandunderstanding.|isbn=0645023701
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{{Frontpage
|author= Justine Avery Maria Stepanova and Naday MeldovaSasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Everybody Toots! (Everybody Potties!)The Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary= TootsDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, trumps, fartsStepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. Whatever your word A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for them, find us a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny literary festival she is to talk about and joke about, that is. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go be a guest speaker at the wrong time. In classDetoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At youher journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Justine Avery's latest entry Swept up in her ''Everybody Potties!'' this series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently of events, M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The train functions as a motif of transience and calmlyimpermanence, with while the familiar humour attachedcircus embodies the reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, explains an impulse that tooting is perfectly normallies at the very heart of the novel form itself. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W1804272329}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1784165263B0GFQ81YQK|title=Invite Me InHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Emma CurtisStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Martin Curran's wifeBefore people came and joined the animals, Eliza knew that she had there was only the sky and the earth. Everything was quiet until the earth and the sky began to be home tal to make his lunch for one o'clock on each other. First, the dotearth created bodies. And then, despite the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior sky breathed life into them. These were the first humans and they belonged to it being letboth earth and sky. If she didn't get homeAnd so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, there would especially how they came to be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic When they grew old and died, their bodies returned to the earth and confined their life returned to a wheelchairthe sky. And that is why the earth and the sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is why people must pay attention to, and care for, but donboth.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GHPMNF6P|title=The Zookeeper't be too quick to be understandings Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews|rating=4. He was also a very unpleasant person: 5|genre=Fantasy|summary= When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointment'quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the family's farm zoo. All this was in ElizaHe's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrivednot expecting much excitement, unannounceduntil he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, at and suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a dragon! Now he wanted , Edgar, his mother Abi, and the lease zoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of flat 2scales and joy, 42 Linden Road despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and he was desperate not being able to get tell anyone about it. But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before it was advertised as being available.imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784742775Stephanie Zabriskie|title=A Change How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)|author=Susan HillMaasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Drugs hadn't really been that much 'How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of a problem Maasai elders in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste of timeNgorongoro, Tanzania. They still were, to '' The Maasai are a great extent, but Serrailler knew that something had cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be doneso. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport the drugs Cattle are status and the operation running the county lines was tight. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldnwealth in Maasai culture but this doesn't be tell the correct one) whole story of the person who was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up in intimate and symbiotic connection its people, and especially its women, have with their cows and for the organisationnatural world. The police might catch a few of oral tradition retelling the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher upmany conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, does.|isbn=B0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FS89KX9Livi Michael|title=Fall On Me|author=Penelope PottsElizabeth and Ruth
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Historical Fiction|summary=Life should have been good ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for Hollie: She was just going into her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the final year treatment of her veterinary degree and - three years later - was still the working at BBclass published under a pseudonym. The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's diner. Bob - the owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good boss. Hollie had moved title appears in with her boyfriendnovel as Pasley, Marcus: her mother thought he a young Irish prostitute who was great abandoned as a child and he was doing well finds herself in his career. Hollie wasnManchester't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted to control her s New Bailey Prison after a difficult and most of all he wanted her to leave her job unjust hand at life. Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the diner. Then there was harsh conditions endured by the fact that he would be violent, both to her Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to other peoplewhich the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|author=John GwynneMakenna Goodman|title=The Shadow Of The GodsHelen of Nowhere|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is It could be argued that the first installment pervading theme of the Bloodsworn Sagathis book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, set in a disgraced professor on the era brink of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnaroklosing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, when the Gods have battled radical and their bones lie scattered for all to seeunnerving: Helen. This story The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the ultimate former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in High Fantasyhis life, and John Gwynne certainly does justice her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the genre, with mythical creatureshouse shares stories about Helen, archaic language and battles galore. This describes her as ''an entity that is a thick bookpure consciousness, with beyond form''. Although she lives in an intricate plot and fascinating characters that assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battlenot altogether innocuous.|isbn=03565142181804272205
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09HTWX47XB0GCB1MQ7D|title=Endless ObsessionWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Dai HenleyAlan Kennedy|rating=45|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=ItI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's some years since we last caught up with Andy Floodfrequently a book they might or might not have written, formerly a DCI in which might or might not tell the Met but now a well-respected private investigatortrue story. HeIt's married to Lauranot often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, formerly his DS in and rarely do you discover a memoir where the Murder Squad but now working in a forensics laboratory. Floodtelling is so perfect that you's daughters, Gemma ll go back and reread paragraphs and Pippasentences, have flown just for the nest, Pippa to Australia, from where she has very little contact with pleasure the family, and Gemma to married lifewords give. She's had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy and Laura hope that married life will provide the support she needs'Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions. FloodIt's business is going well and that the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the beginning of the Second World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, he was why he felt able to turn down one of the case founders of Lisa Blackthe department.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter PapathanasiouJeremy Cooper|title=The StoningDiscord|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=In Discord: a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparisonlack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolleyor ideas) The principal example of discord within the novel, and she's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumpswith most instances of discord, is easily located. When she's discovered by The two protagonists of the town gossip everyonenovel, including the local copsRebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are quite confident the culprit has as different as they come from the immigrant detention centre the place . Rebekah is reluctantly home an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it's only fairretirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the general opinionmusical scene as a precocious saxophonist, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditionsoozing with talent and charm. Cue the arrival of George ManolisThe two, a higher rank from the citypredictably, don't always see eye to sort everything outeye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. Because such an aggrievedHowever, insular community is really going to welcome something connects them beyond just their musical project: a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down sort of fragile alliance formed within the law..clamour.|isbn=15294169731804272264
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{{Frontpage
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Will''Stories have joy and surprises s life is difficult, in thema multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story, which feels an instant classic with he has the freshness wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group most basic of monksthings like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowingcollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the demonic goat fact that loves nothing more than upendinghis mum and dad are separated, trampling on and biting the poor BrothersWill's life seems bleak in every direction. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl And yet, one who he still has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memorya tiny amount of hope. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle He is good at art, desperate and clings to find the girlmoments of joy when he is drawing, for it is prophesied that feel like a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution but light at the Order end of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simplelong, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?dark tunnel.|isbn=15295008931398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FFJF8YSEdward W Said|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)|author=Justine Avery and Kate Zhoidik|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" is a cry (the big-girl kind!) Representations of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.'' And so it is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates a little girl's final goodbye to nappies and pull-ups and graduation to "proper" pants by following her around as she proudly explains to her dog, her cat, her stuffed rabbit and her baby sibling that ''she'' can wear super-duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can the flowers, nor the fish, nor the birds. Boy's certainly can't. She's a big girl now and she wants everyone to know it!}} {{Frontpage|author=Nick Lake and Emily Gravett|title=Locked Out LilyIntellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Lily Edward Said's ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is, or was, or has been, very ill, less a strict theory of what intellectuals are and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma more a passionate argument for a few dayswhat they should be. The parents need Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the relief intellectual as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing detached expert speaking only to do withother specialists. But Instead, he insists on tracking back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parentsthe intellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and the babe-in-armsunpopular, already installed. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted who speaks truth to get the family back intact, power even if when it's not the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snakeis inconvenient or risky.|isbn=14711948331804272248
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{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithSylvie Cathrall|title=The Great Dream RobberyA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Maya's father is There are few greater joys than a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrong, and now he can't wake book which lives up. Or at least, that's what Maya has been told. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes to a new friend, and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleepcompelling premise. Cue And this is one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really..of them.and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051X0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004644951786482126|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of MathsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Emma SmithElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'Babies seem to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in apartments - when they discovered the womb, being aware bones of quantities at seven hours old, assessing probability at six months old, and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months olda child beneath a doorway. There was no skull.'' Did you know Was thisa ritual killing or murder? I didn't! How about: ''Maths ability on entry to school is a strong predictor of later achievement Inevitably, double that of literacy skillsDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It'' I didns difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't know this either! I think most parents are aware , that giving your children she is pregnant with his child as a good start in literacy - reading stories, teaching pen grips, singing rhymes - gives children a solid foundation when result of the one night they start schoolspent together some three months ago. But do we think the same way about maths Her condition will be obvious before long, beyond counting? I don't think we do, in part not least because so many of us are afraid of maths. But why are we? Most Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of us use maths in daily life without realising and it follows that giving our children a similar pre-school grounding will be just as beneficialsickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293793850008551375|title=The Madness of Crowds When Shadows Fall (Chief Inspector GamacheD S Max Craigie)|author=Louise PennyNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In Leanne Wilson's body was found at the Canadian village bottom of Three Pinesa Scottish mountain, weseemingly the result of a tragic accident. She're post-pandemic: the scars are still there 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 is starting to get back to normalnow. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and the Aubergesensible people. TheyNone of the 're visiting each otherwhat a stupid thing to do's homes and having friends and relatives to stayexplanations applied. A young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is one such visitor and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people to be around - certain there's a bit like Vincent Gilbert, known in the village as killer on the Asshole Saintloose.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09F4CTKJRPaul B Preciado|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven BurgauerDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionPolitics and Society|summary=''Itis never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood's the later stages ' Through this hybrid text, consisting of World War I arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadronsign of political apathy. This company was Rather, it is the first US Aero Squadron proportional, valid response to be trained in Canada''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the first to be attached to the RAF tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the first to be sent into backdrop of the skies Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to fight the Germans in active combatemerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. But before that can happenRather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Petrol has Preciado urges his readers to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=1804271454
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=183885410XSamantha Harvey|title=The Dark Remains|author=William McIlvanney and Ian RankinOrbital|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Bobby Carter was a lawyer and consigliere to one of In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgow. DC Jack Laidlaw is on the CID team charged with the investigation. I say Booker Prize for ''on the teamOrbital'' but Laidlaw never really seems to be , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a part group of itastronauts aboard the International Space Station. He does his own thing, goes his own way and ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers Through a narrative lens that mirrors the truth of why Bobby Carterastronauts's body was found behind one of Glasgow's seedier pubsorbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1942410255295967572X|title=Tokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)Pale Pieces|author=Michael PronkoG M Stevens|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they''Zangyo: overtime workre going and what the purpose of this journey is, often unpaid'' It's is uncertain. Django found the culture, isntickets 't it? The hours for which you're paid are really just a statement of on the minimum youfloor somewhere'll be required to do: you'll work more hours to get the job done and done has persuaded our narrator to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizukaaccompany him. When he was found dead in front of Senden Central's headquarters in Tokyo there was nothing Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the way of regret or grief, even from his family, but there was a mild curiosity past as the pair travel to whether he'd jumped from the roof of station by coach and the building or been assisted in his descent. Gossip revolves around the fact that he left the roof at the exact same spot that an employee, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years earlier. She'd accused Onizuka of bullying her and forcing her to work an unreasonable amount of overtimetrain is a steam locomotive.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414254250008551324|title=The Man Who Died TwiceDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Richard OsmanNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she received the letter. It came 's unusual for anyone from a man whose body she had helped the Hardie family to pull from approach the Thames and who had never existed but then this is the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on a regular basispolice. When she visits Neither side likes or has any respect for the sender of the letter (other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's moved into prepared to tell the police where the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has body of a long professional history - missing person is buried and who used was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be her husbandtransferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. HeNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's made a bad mistake - something even prepared to do with a mask being removed within the range of a CCTV camera on a raid, a missing twentyother thing that Hardie demanded -million pounds in diamonds make certain that DS Max Craigie and a few death threats. He's now in hiding anyone who works with a young woman called Polly, whohim is kept well away from what's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitresshappening.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Sharp1035043092|title=The Chef, the Bird and the BlessingKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to his employer - isstart a new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, in his mindas well as Cassie, the head chef daughter of a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African countryhis former partner. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to Willow's also his task boss, and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but his dream is to become when the head chef body of a restaurant popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in London or the aftermath of a big American city. Even to win a Michelin starstorm, she can't resist getting involved. He is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to you and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and d been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - shock, horror one of a pair - his allowing of bush animals into the housewhich had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=B09926MK8H
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alex FoulkesThea Lenarduzzi|title=Rules for VampiresThe Tower|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) is a VampireHow unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. She drinks blood In this compelling novel, she sleeps during Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the day, and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock identity of bats to travel aroundT, although not all the protagonist of them remember to come back)this tale. Pretty cool stuff. NowJust as T's story is being told, on the night story of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oops! And to make things worsea second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the ghosts of one daughter of a wealthy family in the orphans and the evil master 19th century, who died of the orphanage come back to haunt hertuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. SoAnnie's fate is, not only does Leo have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerfulabove all, she has an enticing story to do it all while hiding it from her familyT. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? YeahIt is a story which she consumes avariciously, there's both in a reason why there are rules quest for vampires…truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=147119955X1804271799
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tori BovalinoClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Devil Makes ThreeBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary= Working all summer Everything in her boarding school's library this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmasterkiss, and a man Tess hates. As usually a petty act symbol of revenge for making her find intimacy and deliver such a large requestcloseness, Tess sticks post-it notes on each becomes evidence of love lost. When the booksnarrator cries out internally, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him'come over here and kiss me, of course. Her plan '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to get confirm her anger out like emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of thisplea is Xavier, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would beher ex-partner, if someone hadn't delivered them for a ghost she conjures to test herdetachment.|isbn=17890981301804271934
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09BG8V3Q60008405026|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! A Stranger in the Family (Everybody Potties!Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadJane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= It''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!'' is s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the latest release 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 ''Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Avery. This series positioning of fun picture books aims to take the pain out of potty training children bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and replace her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it with some funwas going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. It Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's a worthy aimboss, as any frustrated parent will tell you. Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B098FFFBH9Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Snowcub|author=Graham FulbrightThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's animal rights project leader and she work is always very candid and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the way most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of support from direct address to her family: father Pip Harrisonsister, a lecturer at Imperial College, Londonhowever, mother Kate and this letter will never reach her twin, Nick. Kate runs the family businessWhy? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a toy shop called Cornucopia few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in PutneyFrance, which is where we'll meet Racheland 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 main (if unsuspected) source process of information: five soft toysreckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845
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|author= Angharad WalkerMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title= The Ash HouseReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating= 3.5|genre= Confident ReadersBiography|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he is used to Biographies are often seen as the system, used to different places form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and different facesless personal. He meets Dom who names him Sol I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and sets out to teach him the rules offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of The Ash Househis literary contemporaries. These rules centre on a variety In the first section of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their choresthis book, working Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as a hive in the smouldering shadows it is, but of The Ash Housewhat you yourself imagine it to be. But soon their easy peace 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 shattered by the arrival of the Doctorit?''. By the end of the storyWell, lives will Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be changed forever gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and The Ash House will never be the same againAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=19126269771804271977
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|authorisbn=Yancey Williams1529077745|title=Crosshairs of the DevilThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on A man walking his dog in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point the early morning discovered the body of view - a man in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing homepark near Rosebank, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, care home for palatable companytroubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. Nothing D I Vera Stanhope is going called in to keep Eddie from his stockinvestigate the murder -in-trade but her only clue is the disappearance of one of writing though, so herethe residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for his readers, are his wanderings through his lifethe death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's workdiary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|isbn=0986031658}}
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|author=Philip ReeveOlga Tokarczuk|title=Utterly Dark and the Face House of the DeepDay, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance ''What's the good of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, and sea-witches''House of Day, and legends House of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further westNight'', where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the Watchersmall, Andrewesubtle changes which govern our lives, who has to keep notes of activity like the shift from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head day to worry about such local yokel superstitionsnight, and Andrewe's foundling daughterhowever quotidian, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years agocausing chaos. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their islandconstant in that image is the house, like stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it or notis perceived.|isbn=17884523721804271918
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|authorisbn=Erling Kagge1836284683|title=Walking: One Step At A TimeThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre= LifestyleDystopian Fiction|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved Well! This is a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorrymurder mystery unlike any other! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why).
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|author=Ian Mark and Louis GhibaultSally Rooney|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.
|isbn=0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= 1836285493
|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User
|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quickWill is a keen player of video games, for he's a slight boyconscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and although a supportive friend. But most of all, he wants for danger and peril and interesting things is an aspiring writer. English is his dad refuses to let him out of favourite lesson at his sightschool, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. ThatThis hasn's because Jack's mother knew all about monsterst gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and look what happened she has suggested to her – she died. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point Will and his mum that he spends a couple of view, afternoons a week at a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOLdifferent school, Jack will fluke the ogre's deathStation Road, a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll where his ability might be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''..better extended.|isbn=0755501942
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|authorisbn=Keith Gray1009473085|title=The ClimbersConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Sully is the best tree climber in 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 village. He has inside story about what's known amongst the kids as 'reachreally'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. But If that's what happens when a new kid shows up in town? A new kidyou're looking for, called NottinghamI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatened{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and not only that, that his chance should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to name politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the final, unnamed big tree seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the park by being most important. This book follows the first to conquer it, might be snatched well-established format: a series of experts from his hands. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all various fields review the state of his friendsthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, to do so?|isbn=1781129991the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
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|author=Emma CarrollJenny Valentine|title=The Week at World's EndUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=FirstElk and Mab are best friends, the titleor more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. We They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don're in Worldt get each other's End Close, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie to her friends) finds fun only with contact details at the family dog and with the boy over the roadtime. But we could also be at World's Endthen chance brings them back together, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats and they are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore, and not much else is able to make the newsinseparable. That said, Vie Something has news of her own – Annahappened though, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted terrible and leavetragic, failed to leaveand now they must work through their grief, and implied her life was at risktheir friendship, together. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=05713644381471196585
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