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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077745Polly Barton|title=The Dark Wives (D What Am I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves, A Deer?|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely uses translation 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 Josh.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura both subject and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a centurygoverning metaphor. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiousThe narrator, which is a bonus when you aim newly relocated from London to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the free spirit process of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This timelocalisation, rewriting language until it's their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was feels comfortably familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised 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 Citibanknew audience. Eventually, Barton treats this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|author=Leanne Egan|title=Lover Birds|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=When new girlparadoxical act: arguably, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain in striving for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each otheruniversality, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou language is straightendlessly repackaged, isn't she? Even though none its originality at risk of her relationships with boys have gone very well so fardisappearing altogether. From this, and she's never had the novel opens out into a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabelwider, and wanting resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in order to hang out with her because fighting with her is funbe understood, and she definitely just hates Isabelaccepted, doesn't sheor loved?|isbn=000862657X1804272175
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sally RooneyZabriskie1|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something A Village Where Many Ways Meet: A Story 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 Belonging and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother PeterCommunity, a successful lawyer living Rooted in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1009473085|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024Indigenous Wisdom|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' Across many African and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasionsIndigenous systems, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking fordifferences in how children learn, I don't think Anthony Seldon's booksense , {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can or process the world were not treated as disorders to be bettered for those tumultuous yearscorrected. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this They were understood as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state natural variations of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred human intelligence and the situation in 2024.}}{{Frontpage|author=Mark Lingane|title=Chimera|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''The survivor stumbles forwardawareness, her steps echoing in each holding value within the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lostcommunity.''
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Max Boucherat1787333175|title=The Last Life of Lori MillsYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersPopular Science|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening sheI was tempted to read ''You Don's got the house t Have to herself – no neighbour be Mad to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that 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 workings of the world-buildingNHS, 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.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Fyodor DostoyevskyMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=White NightsThe Disappearing Act|rating=54|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=As always Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's message in Dostoyevsky, the character this short work of autofiction is sublimeunmistakable. One A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for a literary festival she is never to be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left wondering what the show. The train functions as a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and temperaments with remarkable claritya retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=02416197851804272329
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008385068B0GFQ81YQK|title=The Midnight FeastHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Lucy FoleyStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It's midsummer on Before people came and joined the animals, there was only the Dorset coast sky and guests gather at The Manorthe earth. It's their opening weekend Everything was quiet until the earth and splendid celebrations are promisedthe sky began to tal to each other. It's all headed up by Francesca MeadowsFirst, the earth created bodies. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it And then, the sky breathed life into an impressive retreat for them. These were the wealthy first humans and they belonged to both earth and famoussky. Her husbandAnd so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, Owenespecially how they came to be. When they grew old and died, was their bodies returned to the architect earth and work is still ongoing on parts of their life returned to the sitesky. The heat And that is oppressive why the earth and amongst the guests sky are enemies as well as friendsboth revered. Old scores are going Only together can they create human beings. And that is why people must pay attention to be settled , and it won't be long before a body is foundcare for, both.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=James BaldwinB0GHPMNF6P|title=GiovanniThe Zookeeper's RoomDragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction Fantasy|summary=When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the family'Giovannis farm zoo. He's Room'' follows the narrator Davidnot expecting much excitement, until he receives an American man living unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in ParisNew Zealand, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanniand suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, an Italian bartender but a dragon! Now he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in SpainEdgar, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from mother Abi, and the deeper conflict within himself. It is Davidzoo's crippling shame part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of scales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanninot being able to tell anyone about it.|isbn=0141186356But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ashley Hickson-LovenceStephanie Zabriskie|title=Wild EastHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=4.5|genre=TeensChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Written in verse, this ''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy children’s nonfiction book drawn from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white schoolthe oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after The Maasai are a tragic event, cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, Cattle are status and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, wealth in Maasai culture but this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part doesn't tell the whole story of a poetry writing workshop group the intimate andsymbiotic connection its people, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetryespecially its women, have with their cows and for the power of creativity and crafting your wordsnatural world. The oral tradition retelling the many conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, does.|isbn=0241645441B0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866847Livi Michael|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham Elizabeth and Terry Barlin VesciRuth|rating=43.5|genre=LifestyleHistorical Fiction|summary=It's strange, the things that make you 'Elizabeth and Ruth'immediately'' feel that this is a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the book Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for youher first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the treatment of the working class published under a pseudonym. Before I started reading The ''The Lavender CompanionRuth'', I visited the authorfrom Livi Michael's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] title appears in her novel as Pasley, a young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child and therefinds herself in Manchester's New Bailey Prison after a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes difficult and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerallyunjust hand at life. (There's a recipe Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the book Victorian working poor and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in interrogates the margins are sanctioned. You get extent to fold down which the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book alreadywealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|author=Han KangMakenna Goodman|title=The VegetarianHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This novelIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, winner a disgraced professor on the brink of the International Booker Prize in 2016 losing both his career and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature his relationship, embodies this yearfeeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is as close to unputdownable as it getsindirect yet intimate. It more than lives up As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to the acclaimhis potential fresh start. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragilerealtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowablebeyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, elusive soulsHelen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=18035100561804272205
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jenny ValentineB0GCB1MQ7D|title=Us in the Before and AfterWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=Elk and Mab are best friendsI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or more than might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a book that evengives the full backstory, their friendship and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is a once in a lifetime connectionso perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. They meet as children ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each otherof those rare exceptions. It's contact details the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the time. But then chance brings them back togetherbeginning of the Second World War, and they are inseparablewould become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. Something has happened thoughIn fact, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, togetherhe was one of the founders of the department.|isbn=1471196585
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787333175Jeremy Cooper|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji WaterhouseDiscord|rating=3.5|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|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}}, Discord: a glorious mixture lack of insight into the workings agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the NHSnovel, 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 as 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 most instances of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishapdiscord, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentinais easily located. The circumstances two protagonists of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |isbn=1803511230}}{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the worldnovel, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals Rebekah Rosen andEvie Bennet, basically, monetary gainare as different as they come. Now Anuri Rebekah is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to get her life backretirement, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri while Evie is battling alcoholisma force of nature, failing to start her PhDbounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online oozing with talent and receiving money from them for doing socharm. Most importantlyThe two, she is desperately worried about her little sisterpredictably, who is the new focus of Opheliadon's online empire. Can she save her sistert always see eye to eye, their approaches different and perhaps herself and her relationship Evie's progressive views at odds with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|author=David Chadwick|title=Headload of Napalm|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary= ItRebekah's September 1973 in Hicksconservative leaning. However, California. Hicks is something connects them beyond just their musical project: a Mojave desert town sort 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 fragile alliance formed within the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until...clamour.|isbn= B0D321VJ761804272264
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{{Frontpage
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Edward W Said
|title=Representations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Edward Said's ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is less a strict theory of what intellectuals are and more a passionate argument for what they should be. Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to other specialists. Instead, he insists on the intellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and unpopular, who speaks truth to power even when it is inconvenient or risky.
|isbn=1804272248
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551375|title=When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Joan DidionNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the loose.}}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=Dysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''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 Year whole text is framed against the backdrop of Magical Thinkingthe Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''. |isbn=1804271454}}{{Frontpage|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=This book is Joan DidionIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital''s heartbreaking autobiographical account , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the grief she endured following her husband's sudden deathInternational Space Station. Books Through a narrative lens that shed mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light .|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful the floor somewhere'' and necessary resource has persuaded our narrator to help people feel less aloneaccompany him. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like selfWhy not? Not much else is clear either -pity, denial but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them the train is a human face to wearsteam locomotive.|isbn=0007216858
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02416784121035043092|title=The Proof of My InnocenceKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Jonathan CoeAnn Cleeves|rating=45|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Life after university hasnI can't worked out quite have been the way that Phyl anticipatedonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. SheIt's back homebeen seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with her parents Willow Reeves and on a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of Heathrow Airporthis former partner. All those ideas of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothing. The situation improves when Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughterbe on maternity leave, Rashida. Christopher Swann (described by some as but when the body of a lefty blogger) popular islander, Archie Stout, is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University found, in the 1980saftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. It plans to push He'd been battered about the government in head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a more extreme direction and is ready to actmuseum.
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{{Frontpage
|titleauthor=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?Thea Lenarduzzi|authortitle=Claire DedererThe Tower|rating=35|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography How unctuous are the fats of the audienceanother's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'' in a deconstructed. In this compelling novel, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the old aphorism identity of separating the art from the artist in T, the context protagonist of contemporary ''cancel culture''this tale. DedererJust as T's work story is original and expressive. The reader gets being told, the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particularstory of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the prologue packs daughter of a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts wealthy family in the director Roman Polanski19th century, an artist she personally admires for his artwho died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, and yet despises for his actionscaptures T's imagination. This model of Annie''monstrous men'' as she calls them, s fate is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allenabove all, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picassoan enticing story to T. Her critical voice It is acutely present throughouta story which she consumes avariciously, never slipping into anonymity both in a quest for truth and maintaining her own subjectivityknowledge, as she holds it so dearlyand in service of myth, fable and a personal, rather than collective voicefantasy. |isbn=13997150701804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1739526910Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Where I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen SibleyBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's lifeEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, he arrives is steeped in an unfamiliar Devon town to recoveranguish and distortion. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday homeEven a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, he dreams becomes evidence of reconnecting with everything he has love lost. But as those tentative plans falterWhen the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me, he becomes swept up in '' it is less an invitation than a local world desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of unlikely friendshipsthis plea is Xavier, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilitiesher ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.''|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)
|title=The Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''
Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.
|isbn=1804271845
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{{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=1529077745|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe 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 Josh.}}{{Frontpage|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House 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=B0DGDJRHYD1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1836284683|title=Nowhere ManThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian Fiction|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the scene. Once that's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.}}{{Frontpage|author=Deborah StoneSally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a quiet suburban housegrandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, Patrick 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 making the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his final plansolder brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. A meticulous manFollowing their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, he makes sure a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of every preparationall, down to the last detailhe is an aspiring writer. Some last reflectionsEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and then one at which he says goodbye excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his wifemum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1009473085|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the worldbook for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and his lifeshould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's horribly sadthe 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. At work 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 her shop2010, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Valentine|title=Us in the Before and After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and ailing motherMab are best friends, who needs extricating from yet another accidentor more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. It will be They meet as children one day on a while before Diana realises what Patrick trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has donehappened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}