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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294181001787333175|title=BrunoYou Don's Challenge and Other Dordogne Talest Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Martin WalkerBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesPopular Science|summary=Iwas tempted to read 'm not usually a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy 'You Don't Have to put the book down between stories and forget be Mad to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin WalkerWork Here''s [[Martin Walkerafter enjoying Adam Kay's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Orderfirst book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the temptation to read NHS, humour and autobiography. ''BrunoYou Don's Challenget Have to be Mad...'' was hard promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to resist mental illness and I'm rather glad that I didn't even trythe work of a psychiatrist. For those new I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the series, there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and the background to why Bruno it is in St Denisalways delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09GJW49GF|title=Buried Lies Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Gaby Darin Book 5Translator)|authortitle=Jenny O'BrienThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Hannah Thomas was having Despite her first night away anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from her sonB (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for a literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at. Hunter had diabetes Detoured by erratic train schedules and this was controlled nudged by a pump attached to his stomach, so her over-protectiveness was understandable, but forces beyond her fiancecontrol, Ian, was pestering her to get married and she thought it would be journey slowly bends toward a good idea for him to find out what parenting was ''really'' liketraveling circus. Her friend, MillySwept up in this series of events, had arranged M eventually offers to take her boyfriend, Liam, step in for a night in circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The train functions as a posh hotel but then he dumped her motif of transience and she couldn't get impermanence, while the circus embodies the money backreshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, so Hannah was offered an impulse that lies at the very heart of the opportunity to go in his place. She would return home to find Ian dead and five-year-old Hunter missingnovel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09GV3WS1QB0GFQ81YQK|title=Without a TraceHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Jane BettanyStephanie Zabriskie|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Life hadn't been easy for Ruth Prendergast: she'd just come through a divorce Before people came and right now it joined the animals, there was raining hardonly the sky and the earth. All she wanted Everything was quiet until the earth and the sky began to get back tal to each other. First, the earth created bodies. And then, the sky breathed life into them. These were the first humans and they belonged to her new home both earth and settle down for a quiet eveningsky. It wasn't going And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, especially how they came to be though: when she went into her bedroom she found a dead man on her bed with a knife in his chest. She'd no idea who he wasWhen they grew old and died, their bodies returned to the earth and their life returned to the 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, both.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838774823B0GHPMNF6P|title=Her Majesty the Queen InvestigatesThe Zookeeper's Dragon: A Three Dog ProblemMagical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=S J BennettCarolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=ItWhen Phil's 2016 and father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the Queenfamily's Private Secretaryfarm zoo. He's not expecting much excitement, Sir Simon Holcroft has decided until he receives an unidentified egg that too much good claret his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, and too little exercise suddenly life is putting no longer quite what it seems. Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a strain on his waistband. Swimmingbird, but a dragon! Now he decides, is Edgar, his mother Abi, and the way zoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to go raise this little bundle of scales and he can use the Buckingham Palace pool which is joy, despite having no idea how he came to be there early one morning actually raise dragons and discovered the body of Cynthia Harris at the side of the pool. There was broken glass - a crystal tumbler, by the look at it - probably one of the young royals not being careless - and able to tell anyone about it looked as though Mrs Harris had slipped . But this tiny little dragon may show them love and cut herself so badly that she connection in ways they had bled out. Still, it was a shock for Sir Simon.never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=057136358XStephanie Zabriskie|title=April in Spain|author=John BanvilleHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Terry Tice was ''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a hitman, although he didn't think children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of himself Maasai elders in those termsNgorongoro, Tanzania. He saw what he did as '' The Maasai are a matter of making things tidy''cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so. I couldnCattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture but this doesn't resist tell the thought that he was an extreme version whole story of Marie Kondo. He enjoyed his jobthe intimate and symbiotic connection its people, and especially its women, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma have with their cows and for the army ''where he got natural world. The oral tradition retelling the chance to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows and many conversations Maasai women have had a fine old time''. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the ''morning''? It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spaintheir cows, does.|isbn=B0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dave Letterfly KnodererLivi Michael|title=Speedy: Hurled Through HavocElizabeth and Ruth|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=How to summarise ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a pithy sentence to kick off a review radical critique of the treatment of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can. Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and the working class published under a professional horsemanpseudonym. And The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in her novel as Pasley, a recovering alcoholic. The son of young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a Lutheran minister, hechild and finds herself in Manchester's struggled with New Bailey Prison after a controlling fatherdifficult and unjust hand at life. Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, run away the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to join which the circus wealthy (not a metaphorincluding Gaskell herself), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the bottle took overwere responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=B0965V3LLN1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tade ThompsonMakenna Goodman|title=Far From the Light Helen of HeavenNowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Literary Fiction|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going malaise - a hard-to space-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship RagtimeThe protagonist, bound for a disgraced professor on the world brink of Bloodrootlosing both his career and his relationship, she will essentially be a babysitter for the ship's AI captainembodies this feeling. However, when she wakes up at the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it wouldunnerving: Helen. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin The connection between Helen and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtimeprotagonist is indirect yet intimate. Meanwhile, As the former astronaut and friend owner of Shellthe countryside house he's father Lawrence Biz takes considering, Helen represents a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter volta in towhis life, her past tied to see why his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the Ragtime has gone quiethouse shares stories about Helen, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagosdescribes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. What Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the five of them discover on reader gets the Ragtime has ramifications sense are not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…altogether innocuous.|isbn=03565143231804272205
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rob KeeleyB0GCB1MQ7D|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!Why My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy|rating= 45|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary= I have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. Lily loves eating fruit and vegetables. She likes carrotsWith 'celebrities', broccolithere's frequently a book they might or might not have written, cabbage and aubergineswhich might or might not tell the true story. When her friends at school turn up their noses, Lily is keen to explain how good they are for It's not often that you and how nice to eat. One day, poor Lily gets tricked by Jordan, who tells her find a book that carrots grow on trees. Infuriatedgives the full backstory, Lily checks with and rarely do you discover a memoir where the teacher, who explains telling is so perfect that fruits grow on trees you'll go back and reread paragraphs and vegetablessentences, like carrots, grow in just for the pleasure the groundwords give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions. Jordan says It's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, "I did try to tell herborn at the beginning of the Second World War, Miss!" and everyone laughs would become a Professor of Psychology at poor LilyDundee University. In fact, he was one of the founders of the department.|isbn= B09HHN541V
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=178607981XJeremy Cooper|title=Bad Apples|author=Will DeanDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up Discord: a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at the side lack of the road. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of the car - and heard the screams from deep inside the forest. Determining the direction of a sound isn't easy when you need hearing aids and dampness is causing interference but Tuva made her way to where a woman was holding her coat over the body of a man. He'd been decapitated. He was Arne Gustav Perssonagreement or harmony (as between persons, things, a resident of Visberg.}}or ideas)
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeTom Percival|title=FledglingThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=BavariaWill's life is difficult, 1900in a multitude of ways. Our scene He is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over bullied because he has 'the decadeswrong shoes', and now looking imperiously down on he has the village wrong shoes because his dad can't work and woods below. Itdoesn's an eccentric houset have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system is not as weand his dad can'd know it, t work because he lost his job at the roof is retractablecollege, there is was working a steamcash-in-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, job on a building site and so onhad an accident. At Throw into that mix the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a passion for the long-standing family hobby tiny amount of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudlyhope. He is good at art, and the dying grandma clings to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all the maintenance moments of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else, joy when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day he is drawing, that feel like a cherub. And if you think such light at the end of a heavenly arrival is going to be a completely great and wonderful thinglong, think again..dark tunnel.|isbn=183994188X1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846276772Edward W Said|title=The End Representations of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordellthe Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: itEdward Said's simply a part ''Representations of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who wouldnIntellectual''t pass the medical become is less a part strict theory of an organisation it's rare that their views what intellectuals are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and degrading more a passionate argument for what they should be. Said clearly rejects the individuals on the receiving end comfortable image of the bias but it's not just intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to other specialists. Instead, he insists on the individuals intellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and unpopular, who are negatively impactedspeaks truth to power even when it is inconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248
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{{Frontpage
|author=Teresa DriscollSylvie Cathrall|title=Her Perfect FamilyA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=The novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisation, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrong. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''He is not who he says he is…'', paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremonycompelling premise. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows And this is a complex whodunit with a list one of suspects that continues to grow the further you readthem.|isbn=15420287520356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=84092901031786482126|title=If OnlyThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Matthew TreeElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Twenty-one-year-Builders were demolishing an old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cottonhouse in Norwich -broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick site was going to send him hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a monthly allowancechild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Patrick sent the money regularly and Was this a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrickritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It wasn't that Lowry senior didns difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be she is pregnant with his child as a danger to his wife and other childrenresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. The alcohol problem was Her condition will be obvious even before Patrick managed long, not least because Ruth is prone to get the young man on his waysudden bouts of sickness.
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|authorisbn=0008551375|title=Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston When Shadows Fall (translatorD S Max Craigie)|titleauthor=The Rabbit FactorNeil Lancaster|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it is other human beings, heLeanne Wilson's perfect for his job in body was found at the insurance company – until they decide he's not bottom of a team-memberScottish mountain, that theyseemingly the result of a tragic accident. She'd prefer everyone to be all open-planlooked so happy, too, holistic and keen when she posted her intentions on stupid-Facebook. Her friends were relieved as workshopping. This is when he finds his brother has died, having a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everything. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that 'everything' is she was just out of an adventure parkunpleasant relationship, and nothing elsebut it looked like she was living her best life now. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants to occupy his mind, but he perks up a little when he sees huge holes Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the finances – it runs at a steady money-moving pacelast year. All were experienced climbers, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out properly equipped for what they were doing and the amount vanishedsensible people. Fortunately (or otherwise) some people are quickly on None of the scene 'what a stupid thing to explain that missing money – itdo' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's been turned into a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henri, and killer on the activities of these guys are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan..loose.|isbn=191319387X
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471179311Paul B Preciado|title=The Unheard|author=Nicci FrenchDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Tess''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, a teacher essays and Jasonautofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a headmasternew sensorium as an offering to the new generation, have split up: she and Poppy have moved out a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the family home and Jason is now married proportional, valid response to Emily. The separation was amicable - they had just drifted apart. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in what was ''the family home epistemological and political crack we are living through, and another in the flat she shares with her mother. It tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''seemeddysphoria mundi'' to be working well until . The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the day Covid-19 pandemic as that Poppy came home with which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a menacing drawing of a woman falling from a tall building and she started swearingglobal scale, using words she was unlikely to have heard in either homeor as ''pangea covidica''. Her behaviour deteriorated and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns to Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a therapist sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for helppolitical paralysis, then her doctor and finally the police but no one will take what she has Preciado urges his readers to say seriously''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=1804271454
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471196615Samantha Harvey|title=Iced|author=Felix FrancisOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Miles Pussett used to be a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the three-quarter-mile Cresta RunBooker Prize for ''Orbital'', occasionally reaching eighty miles an hour. He was a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf - that's high-class horseracing on the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling lives of a group of astronauts aboard the horsesInternational Space Station. It's seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore Through a narrative lens that hemirrors the astronauts'd never go back orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to it. But when he sees that something suspicious is going on, Miles can't help but look for answers, even when it puts him see our planet in dangera wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=147228612X295967572X|title=The Late Train to Gipsy HillPale Pieces|author=Alan JohnsonG M Stevens|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=We all know people like Gary Nelson, although we probably havenOur unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they't taken much notice re going and what the purpose of themthis journey is, is uncertain. They live quiet, uneventful lives and stay mostly under Django found the radar. In a city like London, thattickets 's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore him. The highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on the train each morning: hefloor somewhere''d love and has persuaded our narrator to ask her for a date accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but he doesn't have we are probably in the past as the courage. Then, on his homeward commute, Arina speaks pair travel to him and asks for his help. Before long he finds himself on the run from mobsters, Russian secret agents station by coach and the Metropolitan policetrain is a steam locomotive.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire McGowan0008551324|title=I The Devil You Know You(D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It''Then:'' Casey returns s unusual for anyone from a walk with the baby, Carson, and comes across three bodies, almost a whole Hardie family taken downto approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he''Now:'' Rachel s prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is out buried and who was responsible for a walk with her dogdeath. This person, he promises, Brandyis someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, when is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she comes across a body in 's even prepared to do the woodsother thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1542019974
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291482511035043092|title=Misfits: A Personal ManifestoThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Michaela CoelAnn Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=I can''How am I able t have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to be so transparent start a new life on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as though I were telling well as Cassie, the truth whilst simultaneously running away from itdaughter of his former partner. Willow'' Before you start reading s also his boss, and she ''Misfitsshould'' you need to be on maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of a certain frame of mindstorm, she can't resist getting involved. You He're not going to read d been battered about the head with a book Neolithic stone - one of essays or a selfpair -help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on had been stolen from a cloud of exquisite writingmuseum.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008433631Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Next of Kin|author=Kia AbdullahThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=It was ''How unctuous are the sort fats of thing that happened every day, although not to Leila Syed. Sheanother'd never driven her nephew, Max, to school before but his fathers life, Andrew Hanson, had rung her how dizzying their sugars in a panicour bloodstream''. He was supposed to be taking Max to school but he'd been called into work and In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the delay in getting there could lead to financial losses. As identity of T, the school was only five minutes out protagonist of Leilathis tale. Just as T's waystory is being told, could she drop him off? Of coursethe story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, she could and the daughter of a sleeping Max was duly strapped into wealthy family in the back 19th century, who died of her cartuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. On the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her work tooAnnie's fate is, above all, with an enticing story to T. It is a problem story which could put she consumes avariciously, both in a multi-million-pound contract at riskquest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799
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{{Frontpage
|author= Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Everybody Toots! (Everybody Potties!)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Toots, trumps, farts. Whatever your word for them, find us a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny to talk about and joke about, that is. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go at the wrong time. In class, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At you. Justine Avery's latest entry in her ''Everybody Potties!'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently and calmlyBig Kiss, with the familiar humour attached, explains that tooting is perfectly normal. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1784165263|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma CurtisBye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Martin Curran's wifeEverything in this book, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dothowever sweet or seemingly innocent, despite the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being letis steeped in anguish and distortion. If she didn't get homeEven a kiss, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was usually a paraplegic symbol of intimacy and confined to a wheelchaircloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, but don't be too quick to be understanding. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza 'come over here and kiss me,'you're good at being it is less an invitation than a disappointment''desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. All The imagined recipient of this was in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrivedplea is Xavier, unannouncedher ex-partner, at the flat just as Eliza was about a ghost she conjures to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being availabletest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17847427750008405026|title=A Change of Circumstance Stranger in the Family (Simon SerraillerMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Susan HillJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Drugs hadnIt't really been that much of 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 problem halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste of timetheir bed. They still were Initially, to it looks like a great extent, straightforward murder/suicide but Serrailler knew there's something about the positioning of the bodies that something had makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be donean open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Children Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as young as nine Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Other Girl|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''We were being recruited born from the same body. I've never really wanted to transport the drugs think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the operation running the county lines was tightmost intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldnWhy? Because Annie Ernaux't be the correct one) s sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the person who vaccine was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the organisationauthor was even born. The police might catch a few large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of the runners reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but they'd never get anywhere near those higher upoften denied.|isbn=1804271845
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FS89KX9Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Fall On Me|author=Penelope PottsReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionBiography|summary=Life should have been good for Hollie: She was just going into Biographies are often seen as the final year form of her veterinary degree 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 years later - was still working at BB's dinerof his literary contemporaries. Bob - In the owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good boss. Hollie had moved in with her boyfriendfirst section of this book, MarcusTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: her mother thought he was great and he was doing well in his career. Hollie wasn't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted to control her and most 'you write not of real life as it is, but of all he wanted her what you yourself imagine it to leave her job at the dinerbe. Then there was the fact Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that he would Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be violentgained from a subjective account, both giving us access to her how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and to other peopleAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977
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|authorisbn=John Gwynne1529077745|title=The Shadow Of The GodsDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment of A man walking his dog in the Bloodsworn Saga, set in early morning discovered the era body of the Vikings a man in the shadow park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered for all care workers who was due to seework a shift the night before but who had never turned up. This story D I Vera Stanhope is the ultimate called in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to investigate the genre, with mythical creaturesmurder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, archaic language and battles galorefourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. This Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that are woven together she has to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battlefind Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|isbn=0356514218
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|isbnauthor=B09HTWX47XOlga Tokarczuk|title=Endless Obsession|author=Dai HenleyHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=45|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It''What's some years since we last caught up with Andy Flood, formerly the good of a DCI world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in the Met but now a well-respected private investigator. Heit?''s married to Laura The title of this spellbinding work, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in a forensics laboratory. Flood's daughters'House of Day, Gemma and PippaHouse of Night'', have flown somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the nestsmall, subtle changes which govern our lives, Pippa like the shift from day to Australianight, from where she has very little contact with the familyhowever quotidian, and Gemma to married lifecausing chaos. She's had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy and Laura hope But, the constant in that married life will provide image is the house, stoic against the support she needs. Flood's business ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is going well and that was why he felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Blackperceived.|isbn=1804271918
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|authorisbn=Peter Papathanasiou1836284683|title=The StoningBig Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=In Well! This is a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparison, murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolleybook, and sheit's been taped nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a tree and shewild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumps. When sheI don's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from t want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home toscene. An arson attack on Once that shows the feeling – and it's only fair, is the general opiniondone, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything outyourself. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law...|isbn=1529416973
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|isbnauthor=B08Z8BMZ7HSally Rooney|title=The Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrathIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction |summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in Sally Rooney has studied the second century chessboard of the common era life and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement is something of the populace. The remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to livegrandmaster at putting it into words. It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands Her dialogue is gripping and when we first see themso brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressivefeel. The sagitarii are Among the archers and many relationships woven into this story, the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going central one for readers to fight for their lives with unravel is the wild animalsfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. TodayIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, itcontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the crocodilesbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
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|authorisbn=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall1836285493|title=The Beatryce ProphecyDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Stories have joy and surprises in them''Will is a keen player of video games, we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous storya conscientious student, which feels an instant classic with the freshness a slightly annoying brother and the agelessness it has in equal proportiona supportive friend. We start with a group But most of monksall, the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowinghe is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingMarlowe Park, trampling on and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memoryat which he excels. Elsewhere sits a King in This hasn't gone unnoticed by his castleheadteacher, desperate Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to find the girl, for it is prophesied Will and his mum that he spends a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution but the Order couple of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can afternoons a week at a simpledifferent school, Station Road, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?|isbn=1529500893where his ability might be better extended.
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|isbn=B09FFJF8YS1009473085|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Justine Avery Anthony Seldon and Kate ZhoidikTom Egerton (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingPolitics and Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Canisn't Wear Panties!" is a cry (the big-girl kind!) 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 that applies to "proper" pants by following her around as she proudly explains to her dog, her cat, her stuffed rabbit and her baby sibling that ''sheThe Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?'' can wear super-duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the flowersinside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, nor then this isn't the fish, nor the birdsbook for you. Boy If that's certainly canwhat you're looking for, I don'tthink Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. She It's a big girl now compelling read and she wants everyone should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to know it!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.}}
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|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettJenny Valentine|title=Locked Out LilyUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=Lily isElk and Mab are best friends, or wasmore than that even, or has been, very ill, and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for their friendship is a once in a few dayslifetime connection. The parents need the relief They meet as Lilychildren one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing to do withcontact details at the time. But on tracking then chance brings them back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parentstogether, and the babe-in-arms, already installedthey are inseparable. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get the family back intact Something has happened though, even if it's not the family Lily wants – something terrible and all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crowtragic, Moleand now they must work through their grief, Mouse and Snaketheir friendship, together.|isbn=14711948331471196585
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