Changes

Want to find out learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__

|isbnauthor=0008370982Paul B Preciado|title=Rock Paper Scissors|author=Alice FeeneyDysphoria Mundi

|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Amelia Wright ''It is forty-two 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 it was brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her new generation, a weekend away new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a converted chapel in Scotlandsign of political apathy. Her husbandRather, Adamit is the proportional, isnvalid response to ''t so keen on the idea. Like Ameliaepistemological and political crack we are living through, he knows and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that their marriage has been under strain: hecharacterize our present'' which Preciado calls 's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that hedysphoria mundi'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with her. Amelia's annoyed The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that he never enquires about how her day which has been - and working with the dogscatalysed this revolution, many of whom have been abusedwhen dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, is never easyor as ''pangea covidica''. Still - she's won the weekend awayRather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, even if it does mean driving or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in the passenger seat - and then doing the same thing political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to come back a couple of days later''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=1804271454

|author=Doug JohnstoneSamantha Harvey|title=The Great SilenceOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=For those whoIn 2024, like me, havenSamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital''t come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does compact yet profound work that unfolds over a good job of bringing the backstory single day in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname lives of a family group of undertakersastronauts aboard the International Space Station. Undertakers and private investigators. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, she married Through a scot and ended up helping to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm narrative lens that had been in mirrors the family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jennyastronauts' orbital perspective, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about Harvey invites readers to graduate with see our planet in a first-class physics degree and join the academic staff next termwholly new light.|isbn=19131938371529922933

|isbn=1901514978295967572X|title=There's a Problem With DadPale Pieces|author=Carlos AlbaG M Stevens|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Life Our unnamed narrator is different for George Lovelace and he can't really understand whyabout to begin a train journey with his companion Django. HeWhere they's always done everything he ought to: steady worker, husband re going and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports days. So why what the purpose of this journey is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why , is someone with such a uncertain. Django found the tickets ''goodon the floor somewhere'' mind unable and has persuaded our narrator to progress at work or to relate to his colleaguesaccompany him. Why not? Why does he make so many breathNot much else is clear either -taking gaffes? It's almost become a cliche these days but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to suggest that someone who the station by coach and the train is a little different is 'on the spectrum', but George Lovelace has all the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome: high-functioning autismsteam locomotive.

|authorisbn=Louise Candlish0008551324|title=The HeightsDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Ellen doesnIt't expect s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to see Kieran that dayapproach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. SheBut Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's on site, visiting prepared to tell the police where the body of a client missing person is buried and who was responsible for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the waypolice doing what he wants. There are lots And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of thingshis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isnis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't one Ellen expected think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murderanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1471183483

|isbnauthor=0008421714Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Mrs March|author=Virginia FeitoVaim|rating=4.5

|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date'All was strange''.. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to This haunting phrase encapsulates the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the breadpervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, ''but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not have matteredfeel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, except for the fact that Johanna is two of the whore of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.''|isbn=1804271829

|authorisbn=John Boyne1035043092|title=The Echo ChamberKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of I can't have been the few television personalities over the age of fifty without only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a criminal record"new life on Orkney. He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she It's carrying his childbeen seven years since we heard from him, but then his author wife is getting her kicks he's now living with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three childrenWillow Reeves and their young son, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoeverJames, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signallingas well as Cassie, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the worlddaughter of his former partner. Willow's homeless with out-of-date foodalso his boss, and a fit young lad doing she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the gay hustle thing. Add in body of a few other characters – therapistspopular islander, lawyersArchie Stout, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his lifeis found, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to in the modern worldaftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. What suggests He'd been battered about the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funnyhead with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=0857526219

|isbnauthor=0241989094Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Perfect Life|author=Nuala EllwoodTower|rating=45|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling 'How unctuous are the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclay. The boys are a bit fats of a handful which is why sheanother's making this trip on her own. The house would be perfect for themlife, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.

ItIn this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the same month but now we're story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in Wimbledon and we encounter the same young woman19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, only this time shecaptures T's job hunting and living in her sister, Georgieimagination. Annie'sfate is, spare roomabove all, where an enticing story to T. It is a story which she's been since she broke up with her boyfriendconsumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, Connorfable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799

|author=Darren ShanClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox seriesBig Kiss, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Bye-Bye

|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=SoEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Having done the impossible Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Cryptcloseness, from which the Departed communicate with becomes evidence of love lost. When the Mergenarrator cries out internally, Archie now has ''gropcome over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to think aboutconfirm her emotional numbness. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one The imagined recipient of those this plea is. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathedXavier, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtisher ex-partner, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this seriesa ghost she conjures to test her detachment. |isbn=B093J9TF731804271934

|isbn=B07GZ81J7C0008405026|title=When Fred A Stranger in the Snake Got Squished and MendedFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Peter CottonJane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Meet Fred. Well, actually, youIt're going to be meeting Freds sixteen years since nine-year-Fred for reasons which will become all too obvious very quicklyold Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. But I'm getting ahead of myself: I'd better tell you She was never found and the investigation ground to a bit more about Fredhalt. Fred is a snake Now, her mother, Helena, and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes her father are going to warm to himdead in their bed. He arrived as Initially, it looks like a present in a box with holes so straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that he could breathe makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and immediately became part of the family, her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to the extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for be an open-and-shut case is now a walkcomplex double murder. And Kerrigan is convinced that was where the problem started. Fred didnexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent't have any road sense. Or brakess boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.

|author= Justine Avery Annie Ernaux and Naday MeldovaAlison L. Strayer (translator)|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)The Other Girl

|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary= Can potty training ever ''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 joyous? It often isnone of the most intimate accounts I'tve read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, as any parent however, this letter will tell younever reach her. But reallyWhy? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, why shouldnand 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't s process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845}}{{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? We all have 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 learn about our bodily functions just his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as we have it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to learn about everything else when we are smallbe. Why shouldnWhom 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?''t potty training . Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be as much fun asgained from a subjective account, saygiving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, learning about why the sun Chekhov and the moon take turns Andreyev in the sky? such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn= B098BJZYHH1804271977

|isbn=17876344931529077745|title=All Her FaultThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Andrea MaraAnn Cleeves

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It had seemed like one A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of those serendipitous events which sometimes happen. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that a man in the opportunity would arise for her sonpark near Rosebank, Milo, to go on a play datecare home for troubled teens. She The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was concerned that he didn't have any friends at his new schooldue to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School D I Vera Stanhope is called in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob to investigate the murder - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little later. What could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at but her only clue is the house, expecting to meet Jacob's mother, Jenny, disappearance of one of the door was answered by Estherresidents, who didn't know Jenny or Jacobfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. The phone number she'd been given Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for Jenny was not recognised. Milo had disappeared. And so had Jennythe death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's nannydiary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.

|authorisbn=Claire NorthB0FK5LHKD9|title=Notes from the Burning AgeThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden

|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'It' s been three years since we last reviewed a book by Claire North is a spy thrillerfavourite regular Christopher Bowden, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of so we were very glad to see a new and timely genre, cli-finovel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, or climate change fiction. Norththere's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any mystery at the heart of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons ''The Colour of mass destruction, intensive farming)Money''. There is We like this running theme in an author's work - take a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, mystery but give it different flavour and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earthatmosphere each time.|isbn=0356514757

|author=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)Olga Tokarczuk|title=Girls Who LieHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=35|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all ''What's the dark corners good of Iceland have featured a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in their noirish thrillers and crime books before now. You thinkit?'' The title of this spellbinding work, seeing on the map that we're set in Akranes'House of Day, and finding itHouse of Night''s only twenty kilometres from the capital city, that somewhat reflects this author is clutching at the few final straws left. However just because notion of shifting realities - the book aims for the usual small-town feel, it's not just in Akranes that subtle changes which govern our interests lie. Six months ago a woman failed lives, like the shift from day to turn up for her date eveningnight, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the girl backhowever quotidian, and a couple of delighted adopterscausing chaos. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, the constant in one place, that image is the woman's car was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six monthshouse, stoic against the body has been discovered, in a third, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depression, and very little maternal feeling in her bodyperceived. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?|isbn=191319373X1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0925KS87NhenleyA|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)Ultimate Obsession|author=Neil LancasterDai Henley

|summary=Tam Hardie had Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been determined to find the grave - and it took some finding - in an overgrown old cemetery. It was a strange thing Private Investigator for Scotland's premier criminal to dosome time now, but Tam was getting old and there were things he wanted to doshould be doing quite well financially. OnlyUnfortunately, his family didndaughter't hear from s defence against a murder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him again after heto retire - 'd said that he'd found the grave - the one which said that it shouldn't be opened - and his three sons began to worrymaybe go travelling or go on cruises. Tam JuniorThat's what 'ordinary people do', Frankie and Dave wouldn't normally go ' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's the police but they weren't certain where their father had been and they were worriedthought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.

|authorisbn=Emily Critchley1836284683|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small FlowersBig Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=34.5|genre=General 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 Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something goodBig Happy''. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the book, and thought the authorscene. Once that's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promisingdone, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}}

|author=Sarah LanganSally Rooney|title=Good NeighboursIntermezzo

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary= If you're Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a certain vintage, grandmaster at putting it's hard to read the into words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a sing-song ''that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street Her dialogue is no Ramsay Streetgripping and so brilliantly frustrating, thoughas her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're central one of 18 households on for readers to unravel is the crescentfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, quite new arrivals having moved a successful lawyer living in a year earlierDublin. TheyFollowing their father're not quite like all s passing after a long battle with cancer, the other families (hebrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary='s an ex rocker, she's Just a former beauty queen) but theyLiverpool Lad ''ve made some friends is a collection of memories and their kids have settled reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in, and it's all going okaround Liverpool. Until it isn't. One hot Some are factual, clammy, sticky, sweaty summersuch as the family history of a sea-going family, a sinkhole opens up in with the park across docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the waywhat-might-have-been. It's a revolting mess book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of dirt and chaossimpler times when life seemed less constrained, but for despite the residents blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of Maple Street, parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the worst is yet to comeall-clear was sounded.|isbn=1789098211

|authorisbn=Lisa Thompson1836285493|title=The Small ThingsDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley

|summary=Although Anna has friends at schoolWill is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, she feels like she never really fits ina slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. Her family don't have enough money to let her do after school activitiesBut most of all, and so she feels like her life at home he is boring in comparison to theirsan aspiring writer. When a new girl joins her class, Anna English is asked to partner her, but things are complicated because the new girlhis favourite lesson at his school, EllieMarlowe Park, is unwell and so canone at which he excels. This hasn't attend school in person. Insteadgone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she joins in with the class by using has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a robot. Can Anna overcome the challenge couple of making friends with someone through afternoons a week at a robotdifferent school, and is she even interesting enough to Station Road, where his ability might be a good friend to Ellie?|isbn=1781129649better extended.

|isbn=00083503881009473085|title=We Need to Talk About MoneyThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Otegha UwagbaAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)

|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''To be a darkThe Conservative Effect: 2010-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light2024 -skinned counterparts...14 Wasted Years?'' . If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what 'We Need to Talk About Money'really' by Otegha Uwagba 'happened on certain occasions, then this isn'0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a t the book by a womanfor you.'' If that's what you'The Booksellerre looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five s book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years old. Her sisters were seven It's a compelling read and nineshould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. The family was hardIt's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-working, principled and determined that their children would have editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the best education possiblemost important. There was always This book follows the well-established format: a painful awareness series of money although this did not translate into a shortage experts from various fields review the state of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Oteghanation when the coalition took over in 2010, education meant a scholarship to a private school the changes that occurred and the situation in London and then a place at New College, Oxford2024.

|isbnauthor=1787631869Jenny Valentine|title=The Rising Tide|author=Sam LloydUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadn't been easy but she'd built Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a good and decent life once in the aftermatha lifetime connection. She's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine They meet as children one day on Penleith Beach, and a trip out but unfortunately they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucydon't get each other's daughter and Fin, contact details at the child she had with Danieltime. They have financial difficultiesBut then chance brings them back together, some caused by Nick Poveyand they are inseparable. Something has happened though, Daniel's partner something terrible and so-called best friend. Nick tragic, and Daniel have a history together from the time now they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heartmust work through their grief, particularly where Lucyand their friendship, or money, is concernedtogether.|isbn=1471196585

|authorisbn=Hannah Peck1787333175|title=Kate on the CaseYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersPopular Science|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression shewas tempted to read ''You Don'd rather t Have to be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at that. For Catherine Rodriguez is KateMad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's idolfirst book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, and a glorious mixture of insight into the author workings of our heroinethe NHS, humour and autobiography. 's favourite possession, 'You Don'The Special Correspondent Manualt Have to be Mad...''promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. Armed with a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped I did wonder whether it was acceptable to manage a train ride to the Arctic, to see her scientist mother be looking for the first time humour in yonks. However, this setting but the laughter is directed at a train ride with situation rather than a difference, for on board person and it is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blink-always delivered with empathy and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalist..understanding.|isbn=184812970X

|author=Darren ShanMariana Enriquez|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3A Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our heroMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, Archie, back in London in the world achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of the Born. It's not been easy, explaining disused refrigerators due to his foster parents where he's beenan urban planning mishap, or slipping back into ordinary life an overcrowded homeless shelter and forgetting about Inez and his other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done his besta crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina.... well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling with The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awaythe supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1803511230

|isbn=0571365884|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Cotter1529934753|title=The House on the Edge|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Faith's family home is teetering on the edge of a cliff, literally. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faith's family. Her dad has disappeared, and her mum is struggling to cope, barely leaving her bed. So that leaves Faith in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah to school, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on.|isbn=1788008626}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008269041|title=Risk of HarmProtest|author=Lucie WhitehouseRob Rinder

|summary=DCI Robin Lyons is back For a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from the Metnick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. She might have been reinstated Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Lexi Williams, an intern at the whole episode left RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a nasty taste chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in her mouth. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years beforeface, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. She and her fifteen-yearIt seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-old daughter have moved out of her parentface's home into a rented house attacks, but there's still a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out of his way to make life difficult for Robin since she this was a young childdifferent. He's married to NatalieThe can had been laced with cyanide, now and has a young child but he's still got it in for RobinSir Max Bruce was dead.

|isbnauthor=1786332388Ariel Saramandi|title=The First Day Portrait of Spring|author=Nancy Tuckeran Island on Fire

|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''The First Day of Spring'rotting' was one such occasion. The writing is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation is excellent and the plot grips you and won't let go. So, what's a blunt yet apt metaphor for the problem? Well, systemic decay brought about by the problem is Chrissiemalignant forces of racism, the main character. When we first meet her she's just eight years oldpatriarchy, small for her age environmental degradation and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boygovernmental dysfunction. She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized up. There's Each essay in this collection serves as a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?island state.|isbn=1804271616

|author=Catherine SteadmanPekka Harju-Autti|title=The Disappearing ActLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on It's the cusp eighteenth century, a time of successdiscovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Great success. If the rumours are trueCaptain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, award season is going sent to treat her wellthe Andaman Islands in his endeavour. Along with his son, acknowledging her for her latestPeter, critically acclaimed production. She's going places but soand their cat, unfortunatelyMichi, is her partnerthey set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. And the places he's going take him towards lies, deceit The islands are beautiful and a pretty young thing stunning in their scenery and the form of his new co-star. Itislanders's a leader, Aarav, is keen to establish good time for Mia to escape, and pilot season in LA provides just the excuserelations.|isbn=1471189783B0DS1VGHH3

|author= Christophe MedlerHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary= Set against the backdrop of the English Civil WarFirst published in 1953 in French, this novel is a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in timeless text which wrenches the summer of 1642. As a loyal servant hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the Kingpage and positions them elsewhere, and Head of the Secret Servicedisjointed, it is Robert's duty to uncover truncated. Like the details lives of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the Kingher characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ1804271675

|author=Tasha SuriTom Percival|title=The Jasmine ThroneWrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary= On Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the night 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 her sacred burningthings like food, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on to the pyrea building site and had an accident. She is immediately sent to be imprisoned on Throw into that mix the Hirana: an ancient temple fact that was once filled with his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a community tiny amount of people who got powers from the mysterious deathless watershope. But now He is good at art, and clings to the temple moments of joy when he is nothing more than an overgrowndrawing, decaying ruin. One day, Malini witnesses that feel like a girl kill someone with magic. Instead light at the end of reporting her for such a gruesome crimelong, Malini claims that the girl saved her from an attacker and begs for the girl to become her own personal maidservantdark tunnel.|isbn=03565156481398527122

|isbnauthor=B088YWF5BCSylvie Cathrall|title=The Lies We Tell|author=Jane CorryA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew There are few greater joys than a book which lives up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters. It seemed to have been a loving, stable familycompelling premise. When we first meet her, she can't sleep because her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by the time he sort And this is one of half-promised he'd be in by. Her husband, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house in the morning but he's still going to be going to work and he needs his sleep. He wakes, though, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someonethem.|isbn= 0356522776

|authorisbn=Joseph Knox1786482126|title=True Crime StoryThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Joseph Knox, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waits, has created 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 child beneath a new genre with his latest novel, "True Crime Story"doorway. The story follows the disappearance of Zoe Nolan from her university halls of residence There was no skull. Split into four parts Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, the reader is taken through the life and disappearance of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sisterDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, other familybut Nelson doesn't, friends and professionals, such that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the policeone night they spent together some three months ago. The various accounts help the reader get to know Zoe Her condition will be obvious before long, or at not least the Zoe she presented because Ruth is prone to others. However, the twists and turns at the end of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure sudden bouts of what is true or fabricatedsickness. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=0857527703

|author=Justine Avery Guadalupe Nettel and Naday MeldovaRosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=No, No, No!The Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingShort Stories|summary=They say the best picture books are the simplest ones. And nothing could be truer This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of this latest from Justine Avery, a Bookbag favourite. ''No, No, No!'' is based around the simplest text imaginable. ''Noword: spellbinding with its fantastical, no, no! Okay, okaymagical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. Yes, you may.'' That's it! But, like all the best picture booksGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, this tiny snippet of text is her stories structured by a veritable tardis - so much bigger on the inside wisdom that it appears on to want to teach us something about the outsideworld.|isbn=16388204571804271470

|authorisbn=Monica Connell0008551375|title=Against a Peacock SkyWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TravelCrime|summary= Monica Connell went to Nepal to do Leanne Wilson's body was found at the fieldwork for her Ph.D. in social anthropology. I think it is important to know that. She went on bottom of a grant-supported tripScottish mountain, with seemingly the result of a relatively specific objectivetragic accident. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-la. She wasn't a mere tourist passing throughd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. She went with a fundamental aim Her friends were relieved as she was just out of learning about these people and how they livedan unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. She also went, presumably, with the academic discipline of how to find these things out, how to organise them Then it emerged that five other women had died in her mind, how to "understand" them similar circumstances in the context of her own paradigmslast year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and how to keep enough notes and files and photos to help her create some greater sense sensible people. None of the experience after the event'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. Fortunately, she also went with They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a sense of open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to muck-in, to break her own rules and to truly connect with the people of killer on the village where she hauled uploose.|isbn=1780600429