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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09NDJ77LM1806344777|title=Me Arthur and My Shadowthe Land of Nimbostratus: Arthur's Able Adventures|author=Deborah StoneRob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionFor Sharing|summary= ''What happens when someone is pushed too far and they begin to lose their grip on reality? How would you cope if you felt that no one loved you? And how far would you go to be happy? Accompany Rachel as she tries to shake off the shadows Arthur dreams of adventures. He looks out of her past his window each day and attempts to repair decades worth thinks of pain.'' Rachel is in a current conversation with her psychiatristall the escapades he could have, who pushes her to recall her life from very young childhood onwardsthe places he could go and the things he could see. But Rachel His favourite day is combative with Doctor Blake, sometimes even contemptuous of her. You can see Saturday because that it's not an easy therapeutic relationshipthe day his friend Maxine - she of the booming laugh and silver bangles - comes to visit. Rachel's recall of her life Maxine is a great believer in remarkable detail. She remembers each minor slight and each major betrayal in perfect detail with absolute and unforgiving claritythe power of imagination.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294096591035043092|title=The Locked Room Killing Stones (Dr Ruth GallowayJimmy Perez)|author=Elly GriffithsAnn Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=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 start a new life on Orkney. It was some time 's been seven years since her father had remarried we heard from him, but his wife was he's now keen to do some decorating living with Willow Reeves and Dr Ruth Galloway volunteered to clear out her mothertheir young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's belongings. She was intrigued by also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the discovery body of a picture of her own house: it was an old photographpopular islander, Archie Stout, is found, taken in misty conditions and on the back it said 'dawn 1963'aftermath of a storm, some years before Ruth was born. It was before her parents were married. When she returned to Norfolk she was determined to find out what was behind the photograph but Covid intervened and the country was in lockdowncan't resist getting involved. Ruth and Kate are restricted to He'd been battered about the cottage head with Ruth attempting to home school Kate and continue with her university teaching duties. The good thing was meeting Zoe, the new tenant a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from next door whom they got to know whilst clapping for carersa museum.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1847941834Polly Barton|title=Atomic Habits|author=James ClearWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary=IPolly Barton've said this before but there are some books s debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that you seek outuses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from London to Berlin, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop works translating video games into your life because you really MUST read themJapanese through the process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, likein striving for universality, right now! ''Atomic Habits'' language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the novel opens out into a wider, resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in the last category.order to be understood, accepted, or loved?|isbn=1804272175
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09MSC981WZabriskie1|title=The Woke IliadA Village Where Many Ways Meet: A Story of Belonging and Community, Rooted in Indigenous Wisdom|author=George BoreasStephanie Zabriskie|rating=45|genre=General Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Helen ''Across many African and Indigenous systems, differences in how children learn, sense , or process the world were not treated as disorders to be corrected. They were understood as natural variations of human intelligence and awareness, each holding value within the community.'' This lovely story is a popular activistsynthesis of that tradition, which was carried down through generations by oral retellings. Or should we call her It shows that a popular influencer? Or perhaps a popular franchise owner? Anyway, Helen community or society is so popular that the United States government has not made her its Ambassador up from interchangeable building blocks of Woke. Helen runs all sorts human beings but by a range of initiatives on behalf of the governmentpeople with different skills and different personalities, including the Shaming Conference all contributing to a whole that combines them all and to the Permissible Entertainment Committee - ''for indoctrinating and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how to have it''benefit of them all. Ouch!
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09D95TRKZ1787333175|title=The Wedding MurdersYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Sarah LinleyBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPopular Science|summary=Libby Steele I was hoping tempted to read ''You Don't Have to get be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a permanent job with glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the newspaper NHS, humour and the case she was covering was her big chanceautobiography. It was even more important ''You Don't Have to her than be Mad...'' promised the celebrity wedding she was same elements but moved from physical problems to attend mental illness and the following day with her ex-rock star boyfriend, Matthewwork of a psychiatrist. She I did wonder whether it was leaving her seven-year-old son, Patrick with her sister, Emma, and heading off acceptable to a grand manor house hotel be looking for humour in this setting but the North Yorkshire countryside. Daniel Acroyd, television presenter laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and former member of the rock band was marrying Vicky it is always delivered with empathy and Libby suspected that the wedding wasn't ''quite'' as high-profile as had been suggested as there was no ban on photos or phonesunderstanding.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838226834Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Carried Away With the Carnival|author=Ed BoxallThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=It was one Despite her anonymisation of those memories we treasure place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from our childhoods: an outing with our grandparents. They're there B (ostensibly Berlin) to undo all the good that parents dotown of F for a literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, so the trips out were always so much funher journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. A young boy was going Swept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the carnival with his Grandadshow. The train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, who told him: ''It'll be brilliantwhile the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, just remember, don't let go an impulse that lies at the very heart of my handthe novel form itself.''|isbn=1804272329
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529135362B0GFQ81YQK|title=The Long WeekendHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Gilly MacmillanStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It was a long drive to Before people came and joined the weekend retreat in Northumbriaanimals, right up near there was only the Scottish borders sky and to make it worse the three husbands had all - for one reason or another - had to delay making the trip earth. Everything was quiet until the Saturday morning. Jane earth and Ruth had known the sky began to tal to each other for a long time but Emily was a bit of an outsider. She and Paul had married only relatively recently and she was ten years younger than First, the earth created bodies. And then, the other two womensky breathed life into them. The friendship of These were the group went back first humans and they belonged to school daysboth earth and sky. Paul had coached rugby at the school where MarkAnd so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, Toby especially how they came to be. When they grew old and Rob were pupils. Mark had married Janedied, their bodies returned to the earth and Toby their life returned to the sky. And that is Ruth's husbandwhy the earth and the sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And Rob? Wellthat is why people must pay attention to, and care for, Rob's deadboth.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=gareth_steelB0GHPMNF6P|title=Never Work With AnimalsThe Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Gareth SteelCarolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre=Animals and WildlifeFantasy|summary=I donWhen Phil't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems s father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to be appropriate. Stories take over the running of a vetthe family's life have proved popular since farm zoo. He''All Creatures Great s not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' suddenly life is definitely not no longer quite what it seems. Then the companion volume you've been looking for. As egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realismdragon! Now he, Edgar, his mother Abi, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that and the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that hezoo's written it part-time café waitress Pearl have to inform raise this little bundle of scales and provoke thoughtjoy, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and distressing issues but not being able to tell anyone about it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading . But this tiny little dragon may show them love and eating.connection in ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787634884Stephanie Zabriskie|title=The Herd|author=Emily EdwardsHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=General Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Our story opens ''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in December 2019Ngorongoro, before most of us had even heard of Covid or realised that whether or not we should be vaccinated would come Tanzania.'' The Maasai are a cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be a major issueso. WeCattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture but this doesn're in Farley County Courtt tell the whole story of the intimate and symbiotic connection its people, where Elizabeth and Jack Chamberlain are facing Bryony especially its women, have with their cows and Ash Kohlifor the natural world. As they were best friends until just a few months ago we know that whatever has happened is major and that, regardless of The oral tradition retelling the outcomemany conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, this is not going to work out well for anyonedoes.|isbn=B0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|author=Annabel AbbsLivi Michael|title=The Language of FoodElizabeth and Ruth|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Eliza Acton ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a poet who has never had work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the treatment of the slightest inclination to boil an eggworking class published under a pseudonym. When tasked with writing The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in her novel as Pasley, a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a local woman with child and finds herself in Manchester's New Bailey Prison after a troubled home difficult and unjust hand at life. TogetherSet in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, they test, craft, refine and reshape the world of domestic cookery, reinventing novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the recipe book Victorian working poor and changing interrogates the face of cookery writing foreverextent to which the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=13985022271784633682
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{{Frontpage
|author=Louie StowellMakenna Goodman|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It 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, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.
|isbn=1804272205
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0GCB1MQ7D
|title=Why My Mother Went Away
|author=Alan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I 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 might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions. It's 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 one of the founders of the department.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Cooper
|title=Discord
|rating= 3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas)
The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to eye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.
|isbn=1804272264
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided thereWill's only one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki life is spending difficult, in a month both in exile and in the physical form multitude of a middle-school kid here on Earthways. Heis bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor he has come along as well, to be the more suave, more popular wrong shoes because his dad can't work and more successful brother doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of the two. Loki has a month to redeem his reputationthings like food, and get his moral compass pointing dad can't work because he lost his job at the right way againcollege, or elsewas 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 to prove it Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has to write the text we read in a sentient notebook, that tiny amount of hope. He is able to cry foul of his liesgood at art, and judge his progress. But Loki is clings to the kind moments of god who insists joy when he can do anythingis drawing, so surviving that feel like a bit more virtuously for light at the end of a month is going to be a walk in the park..long, dark tunnel.right?|isbn=14063997521398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008454442Edward W Said|title=A Flicker in Representations of the Dark|author=Stacy WillinghamIntellectual |rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=ItEdward Said's May 2019 and Dr Chloe Davis, a medical psychologist, ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is completing a session with less a new patient. Lacey is suffering mentally but Chloe has hopes strict theory of getting her through the trauma. You see, Chloe knows what it's like to have intellectuals are and more a traumatic childhoodpassionate argument for what they should be. Her father is Richard Davis, Said clearly rejects the man who murdered six girls some twenty years ago. Their bodies have never been found but Chloe found some jewellery belonging to comfortable image of the girls - trophies taken from their bodies - tucked away in intellectual as a cupboard at home and she and her mother handed it detached expert speaking only to the policeother specialists. Dick Davis is in Instead, he insists on the Louisiana State Penitentiary intellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and Chloie has had nothing unpopular, who speaks truth to do with him for the last twenty years. Her mother power even when it is in a care homeinconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeSylvie Cathrall|title=Escape RoomA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=35|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process by There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific location, and have to solve problems in order to get their way outcompelling premise. What I've not done (alongside experience And this is one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventure, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Here, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new to each other and booked into the game without any of their friends, are a team – starting out at the game's main offices, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changerthem. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?|isbn=17880079640356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17328987311786482126|title=The Boy Who Loved Boxes: A Children's Book for AdultsJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Michael Albanese Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=There Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a Boy who loved boxes. He had child beneath a box for everything and he was meticulous about storage: his parents probably couldn't believe their luck! It began with art supplies, stuffed toys and the like: all the things which most children have in abundancedoorway. The Boy's delight There was in the sense of order in his room: it made him feel happyno skull. As he grew up and became Was this a Manritual killing or murder? Inevitably, his life became more complicated and he dealt Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with this by getting bigger and better boxesDCI Harry Nelson. Look carefully at the pictures and youIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn'll see t, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of them has a padlock..sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09MN1526W0008551375|title=Blood Games When Shadows Fall (DS Nikki Parekh 4D S Max Craigie)|author=Liz MistryNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItLeanne Wilson's body was found at the third murder in bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the space result of a few weeks and theytragic accident. She've all been because of machetes used d looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on teenagersFacebook. DS Nikki Parekh and DC Sajid Malik are amongst the first to arrive on the scene at Chellow Dene Reservoir on the outskirts Her friends were relieved as she was just out of Bradfordan unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Only, this time, Then it's going to be differentemerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. The body appears to Nikki to be that of her beloved nephew, HaqibAll were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and she has a very public meltdownsensible people. It isnNone of the 'what a stupid thing to do't Haqib: there are similarities but the body is clad in designer clothes and comes from an obviously monied backgroundexplanations applied. What it does mean though They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is that Nikki is going to be certain there's a killer on sick leave for some time with anxiety and depressionthe loose.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ally WilkesPaul B Preciado|title=All the White SpacesDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorPolitics and Society|summary=In post-WWI England''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Arctic expedition led by the famous Australis Randall. For Jonathanconsisting of arias, this adventure represents a chance for a fresh startletters, essays and the opportunity to live life as autofiction, Preciado expresses his authentic own hybrid self , and true genderbrings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, without the disapproval and constraints a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of his parentspolitical apathy. HoweverRather, Jonathan isnit is the proportional, valid response to ''t the only one fleeing epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the confines of his past tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the shadow backdrop of the war hangs like a funeral shroud over the expedition. Guilt, mistrust and grief stalk the party andCovid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when disaster strikes and they are forced dysphoria began to overwinter emerge on landa global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a menacing presence waits to prey on their darkness. If Jonathan is to make it out sign of the Arctic winter aliveweakness, he will have to face his demons once and or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for all, or risk making the barrenpolitical paralysis, icy landscape Preciado urges his tombreaders to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=17890978351804271454
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dean KoontzSamantha Harvey|title=QuicksilverOrbital|rating=24.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Quinn Quicksilver. He's not had In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the chance to get to be a mercurial character yet, Booker Prize for he's lived in a nun-run orphanage since he was a three-day old foundling, and now is starting a career on a needless magazine's staff. But when this book starts he IS now ''subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mindOrbital'', for something – call it unearthly intuition, call it mind-control, call it a supernatural urge – has demanded of him compact yet profound work that he go to unfolds over a derelict diner, find a gold coin worth a fortune, cash single day in the value lives of it out a group of his bank and prepare for going on astronauts aboard the lamInternational Space Station. And all this is just in time for two of those typical Men in Black types to turn up and suggest heThrough a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts's of interest orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to them. Helped to escape, he finds his flight is interrupted by other instances of him acting without being in control, the discovery that he is not unique see our planet in having some kind of burgeoning power – and a whole lot more besideswholly new light.|isbn=15420198851529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008441618295967572X|title=Other ParentsPale Pieces|author=Sarah StovellG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=Jo Fairburn knew that she was under intense pressure as the new head of West Burntridge First School: if she didn't live up Our unnamed narrator is about to her retired predecessor there could well be begin a house price slump in that part of the towntrain journey with his companion Django. The school had an active Parent Teacher Association Where they're going and what the funds which they raised were a considerable benefit to purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the school. There was one difficulty, though - they were tickets ''devastatingly shockableon the floor somewhere'', with two members, and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in particular, causing problems for the head. Laura Spence past as the pair travel to the station by coach and Kate Monroe objected to Jo's restrictions on the toys children could bring in on Toy Day but that was just train is a warm-up act for their real gripe: LGBTQ educationsteam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Ann Juckes0008551324|title=The Hunt for the NightingaleDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Jasper It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is a little boy who has some struggles, struggling in prison and whilst wehe're never told why exactly, we can see that he has anxiety s prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and panic attacks, and has difficulty dealing with change and big emotionswho was responsible for her death. His big sister, Rosie, has been a huge support to him, talking him down when things were difficult, encouraging him This person, and writing a book with him, all about birds, that he can read when he gets scared to help him calm down. His parents seem completely caught up in their businesspromises, is someone big and so it is Rosie he always turns to. Even though she has gone away to University now, she has promised him that she will still be there when worth the police doing what he needs herwants. But now And what he can't find Rosie. She hasn't come home when she said she would, wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and she isn't answering her phoneto get an early parole date. His parents won't speak Not much to him or when they doask, he is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't understand or take in what theythink so and she're saying. Nothing seems s even prepared to be right, do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and the only way he feels he can find any peace anyone who works with him is if he can find Rosie, and if they can find the nightingale and listen to its song, as they do together every Springkept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1398510890
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{{Frontpage
|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Red is My HeartThe Tower|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in my houseour bloodstream''. And so was In this onecompelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, although I could have spelled that more accurately – the protagonist of this one wastale. Just as T's story is being told, and the story of a second protagonist isunveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, black and white and redcaptures T's imagination. YesAnnie's fate is, above all, he has an artistic collaborator on this pieceenticing story to T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence in service of some striking visual ideasmyth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=19135471831804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529135567Claire-Louise Bennett|title=One Step Too Far|author=Lisa GardnerBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It's five years since the stag weekend. Five of them had set out: Tim (the groom) and his four groomsmenEverything in this book, Scothowever sweet or seemingly innocent, Miguel (who was usually called Miggy), Neil is steeped in anguish and Joshdistortion. The first night they had plenty Even a kiss, usually a symbol of alcohol - too much really - intimacy and in the night Scot managed to wander off. The remaining four searched for him in vain and it was decided that Timcloseness, who was experienced in survival techniques, would go for helpbecomes evidence of love lost. When help didnthe narrator cries out internally, ''t come the remaining three finally made their way back over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to townconfirm her emotional numbness. Scott followed soon after but there was no sign The imagined recipient of Tim. Every yearthis plea is Xavier, Tim's father, Martinher ex-partner, and the four friends have been back a ghost she conjures to continue the search although they do now acknowledge that they're looking for 'remains' rather than for Timtest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Gunnar Staalesen0008405026|title=Bitter FlowersA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Varg Veum is a Norwegian Private Investigator who has just finished a stint in rehab It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and is now returning the investigation ground to worka halt. However Now, the quiet job he's supposedly taken on caretaking someone's house quickly turns into a murder investigationher mother, Helena, and a mystery around a missing womanher father are dead in their bed. Varg finds himself not only investigating these Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but also looking into an old, cold case there's something about the positioning of an eight year old girl who disappeared one night the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was never found. Somehow, these disparate cases appear going to be linked, but what an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the linkexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, and how can Varg possibly unravel the truth?|isbn=191319308XUna Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kia AhankoobAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Gold Lion and the Tournament of SentinelsOther Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic NovelsAutobiography|summary= When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in ''We were born from the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous societysame body. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging I've never really wanted to one of eight countries led by Myriadthink about this.'' Ernaux's children work is always very candid and their descendants. But it didnher tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I't quite work out like thatve read. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went Ernaux writes in direct address to warher sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of war too highdiphtheria at 6 years old, a solution is proposed. Each of few months before the eight countries will send their greatest warriorsvaccine was made compulsory in France, known as sentinels, to a single combat tournamentand 2 years before the author was even born. The winner will take possession of all the rings large and become instant void created by the supreme ruler jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of Dunivareckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=B09MMQJFPV1804271845
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|author=Alastair Chisholm Maxim Gorky and Eric DeschampsBryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and IronskinAndreyev|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersBiography|summary=Meet Tomas. Happy to work with his father in Biographies are often seen as the blacksmith's forge, he's almost form of the age to become a full apprentice, life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and help with the new batch of dragonswords is certainly neededless personal. Not I think that there are any dragonsGorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of course – they vanished centuries agothree of his literary contemporaries. Except... Strange signals from within In the forge furnacefirst section of this book, and a peculiar invite Tolstoy complains to become an apprentice clerk insteadhis friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, are things for Tom but of what you yourself imagine it to puzzle over – until be. Whom would it all comes out in the washhelp to know how I see this tower, that yes dragons do still exist in this worldsea, and or that Tom Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is rare in the ability it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to summon them, share magical attributeshow he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and ride with them..Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=18399400261804271977
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|isbn=15293465411529077745|title=Something to Hide: An Inspector Lynley NovelThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Elizabeth GeorgeAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's late July and Deborah St James is at A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a meeting with Dominique Shawman in the park near Rosebank, Undersecretary a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the school system, care workers who was due to work a representative from shift the NHS, Mr Oh from Barnardos, someone from Orchid House whose name she didn't catch night before but would later turn out to be Zawadi and Narissa Cameron, a filmmakerwho had never turned up. It follows on from D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the success of Deborah's book ''London Voices'': murder - but her only clue is the meeting is an exploration disappearance of the possibility one of the idea behind residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the book being used to highlight an area which death but Vera thinks this is causing concern in some communities. Deborahunlikely as the girl's uncertain about quite how successful diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she could be as the problem seems has to find Chloe to occur in Nigerian and Somali communities as she relies on getting the trust of the people she speaks discover what happened to and photographsJosh.
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|isbnauthor=B09Q3P283YOlga Tokarczuk|title=Shadebringer|author=Grayson W HooperHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=45|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=Clyde Robbins signs up for the US Army during the Vietnam War. He''What's not really the good of a world that keeps changing like that invested ? How can one go on calmly living in the fight against Communismit?'' The title of this spellbinding work, nor is he particularly interested in a career in the military. If he's honest - which Clyde usually is'House of Day, with himself at least - he hasnHouse of Night''t got many choices and , somewhat reflects this onenotion of shifting realities - the small, at leastsubtle changes which govern our lives, gets him out of like the rut he's inshift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. He's good But, the constant in training and that image is quickly put onto a non commissioned officer training course. He's chuffed with himselfthe house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918
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|authorisbn=Lucy Strange and Pam Smy1836284683|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondBig Happy|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersDystopian Fiction|summary=There Well! This is no mermaid in the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there be a friend for her in amongst all the murder mystery unlike any other kids! I do love it when I open a book, who have had their entire childhoods sold it's nothing like I expected it to the mill-owners by the London workhouse they used to call homebe, and it takes me on a wild ride. Bess knows there And that is no time for friendship in just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to ruin a hand-to-mouth, every man similar experience for himself kind any of existence. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of a kindred spirit in the slight little Dot, and despite everything that life has taught her about betrayal and how befriending people only leads you reading but I'll have to harm, there might be a glimmer of companionship in at least set the tired-out mill workersscene. But surely Once that doesn't mean there is any truth in the existence of the mermaid?|isbn=180090049Xs done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
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|isbnauthor=1785633074Sally Rooney|title=Staggering Hubris|author=Josh BerryIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction |summary=Members Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of Parliament like us to believe that the country a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is run by politiciansgripping and so brilliantly frustrating, headed by as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the Prime minister - many relationships woven into this story, the ''primus inter pares'' (that's central one for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality readers to unravel is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the governmentfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. We are Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe HubrisDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watchbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
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|isbn=B09MYXSRV41836285493|title=Otter's Coat: The Real Reason Turtle Raced Rabbit: A Cherolachian Tortoise and HareDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Cordellya SmithRob Keeley|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=When the world was madeWill is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, the animals were given gifts. Bear was given strength so that he could become a protector. Water Spider received slightly annoying brother and a strong web that even fire could not burnsupportive friend. Owl had excellent sight so that But most of all, he could see the present ''is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, andone at which he excels. This hasn'' the future. Rabbit developed intelligence - butt gone unnoticed by his headteacher, unfortunatelyMrs Howarth, not the ability and she has suggested to use it well. He liked to trick other animals. He was also jealous which was how Will and his mum that he came to be in spends a couple of afternoons a week at a race with Turtle. You different school, Station Road, where his ability might think that's not a fair contest but wait and see. Things are not always as they seem. I'll tell you how it came aboutbe better extended.
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|authorisbn=Giovanna Fletcher1009473085|title=Walking on SunshineThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Women's FictionPolitics and Society|summary=MikeSometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's wifewhat you're looking for, PiaI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, who he was with can be bettered for seventeen those tumultuous years, has died. And whilst he is dealing with his grief, so are their best friends, Vicky It's a compelling read and Zazashould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. But Pia left them all some ''The Conservative Effect''rulesis an entirely different beast. It' to follow, knowing that she was dying s the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and that they would need help to carry on livingco-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. Whilst some This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the rules are around practicalities such as clearing out her wardrobestate of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, another one the changes that Mike discovers one day encourages him to take one of their trips away, occurred and Vicky and Zaza, struggling with their grief and their own life troubles, decide to drop everything the situation in their own lives, and go along with him2024.|isbn=140593560X
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|isbnauthor=1529393930Jenny Valentine|title=Making a Living: How to Craft Your Business|author=Sophie RochesterUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsTeens|summary=''Starting a creative business has never been easier.'' ''If not nowElk and Mab are best friends, when?'' I know or more than that I'm not alone even, their friendship is a once in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into a businesslifetime connection. ThereThey meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's a lot of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and there they are a lot of people who have been delighted to accept what I make as giftsinseparable. Selling would offset the costs Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, which can be quite considerable and it could be fun to donow they must work through their grief, couldn't it? But where to start? What do I need to think about? Welland their friendship, the first thing anyone who is considering turning a crafting hobby into a business should do is to read ''Making a Living''together.|isbn=1471196585
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