Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1784165263|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma Curtis|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dot, despite the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being let. If she didn't get home, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, but don't be too quick to be understanding. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointment''. All this was in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, at the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being available.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784742775Tom Percival|title=A Change of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)|author=Susan HillThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Drugs hadnWill't really been that much of a problem s life is difficult, in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste multitude of timeways. They still were He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', to a great extent, but Serrailler knew that something had to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport he has the drugs wrong shoes because his dad can't work and the operation running the county lines was tight. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldndoesn't be have enough money for even the correct one) most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the person who college, was running him but he certainly wouldnworking 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't know anything about those higher up s life seems bleak in the organisationevery direction. The police might catch And yet, he still has a few 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 runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher upend of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FS89KX9Sylvie Cathrall|title=Fall On Me|author=Penelope Potts|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Life should have been good for Hollie: She was just going into the final year of her veterinary degree and - three years later - was still working at BB's diner. Bob - the owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good boss. Hollie had moved in with her boyfriend, Marcus: her mother thought he was great and he was doing well in his career. Hollie wasn't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted to control her and most of all he wanted her A Letter to leave her job at the diner. Then there was the fact that he would be violent, both to her and to other people.}}{{Frontpage|author=John Gwynne|title=The Shadow Of The GodsLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Saga, set in the era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered for all to see. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is There are few greater joys than a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together which lives up to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battlecompelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn=03565142180356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09HTWX47X0008517061|title=Endless ObsessionDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Dai HenleyStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's some years since we last caught up with Andy FloodFormer Metropolitan Police detective, formerly a DCI in the Met but now a well-respected private investigator. He's married to LauraJake Johnson, formerly has settled into his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in a forensics laboratoryrustic life at Little Sky. Flood's daughtersThere’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Gemma Livia and Pippaher daughter Diana, have flown the nest, Pippa as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to Australia, from where she has very little contact move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the family, future she wants for herself and Gemma to married life. her daughter? She's had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy and Laura hope that married For the moment they’re enjoying life will provide in the support she needs. Flood's business is going well present and that was why he felt able to turn down putting the future on the case of Lisa Blackback burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Papathanasiou1786482126|title=The StoningJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=In a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous Builders were demolishing an old house in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolley, and she's been taped Norwich - the site was going to a tree and shehold seventy-five 's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the worldluxury's tallest cricket stumps. When she's apartments - when they discovered by the town gossip everyonebones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home toDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it It's only fairdifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival pregnant with his child as a result of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything outone night they spent together some three months ago. Because such an aggrieved Her condition will be obvious before long, insular community not least because Ruth is really going prone to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law..sudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1529416973
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08Z8BMZ7H0008551324|title=The Mystery of HealingDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=A P McGrathNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the second century of police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the common era other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the physician on duty at police where the munus - the games put on body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the amusement of the populacepolice doing what he wants. The remuneration isn't high but the work gives And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the doctor a feeling remainder of virtue his sentence and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to liveget an early parole date. ItNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands t think so and when we first see them, theyshe're sprinkling gold dust onto s even prepared to do the lions' manes to other thing that Hardie demanded - make them look more impressive. The sagitarii are the archers certain that DS Max Craigie and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals anyone who are going to fight for their lives works with the wild animals. Today, ithim is kept well away from what's the crocodileshappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall0008405026|title=The Beatryce ProphecyA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=It''Stories have joy s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and surprises in them''the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, we and her father are told heredead in their bed. And none more so than in this wondrous story Initially, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with looks like a group of monks, straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the Order positioning of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, and the demonic goat bodies that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memoryboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate What looked as though it was going to find the girl, for it be an open-and-shut case is prophesied that now a young child can unseat the throne and cause great changecomplex double murder. Who foretold Kerrigan is convinced that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simpleexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?|isbn=1529500893Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09FFJF8YS0571379877|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)The Kellerby Code|author=Justine Avery and Kate ZhoidikJonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" Edward Jevons is a cry (the bigworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-girl kind!) of toilet triumph class friends, Robert and persevering panty prideStanza. Robert''  And so it is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates s a little girltheatre director. He's final goodbye to nappies and pullalso self-ups and graduation to "proper" pants by following her around as she proudly explains to her dogobsessed, her catdemanding, her stuffed rabbit handsome and her baby sibling that ''she'' can wear superentitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days -duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can the flowers, nor the fish, nor the birds. Boyand he's certainly can'tdrunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. She Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a big girl now and she wants everyone relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to know it!stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettJo Callaghan|title=Locked Out LilyLeave No Trace|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Lily When a man isfound crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, or was, or has been, very ill, and DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to give the case alongside her parents relief shesidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been told to stay very successful with her grandma for several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling later, Kat is just about to be born – suddenly struggling with a child Lily swears she hates already potential serial killer and wants nothing a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to do withtheir AI Future Policing project. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents, and the babe-in-arms, already installed. These devilish interlopers need to Will they be ousted able to get solve the family back intactcase in time, even if it's not or will Kat find herself taken off the family Lily wants – case and all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Molepotentially, Mouse and Snake.out of a career?|isbn=1471194833139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Greg James and Chris Smith1399613073|title=The Great Dream RobberyMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Maya's father is a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrongOlivia, Laura and now he can't wake upAnjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Or at least Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, that's what Maya has been toldwhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. In Laura is a rather strange dream one night Maya makes perfectionist and a new friend, trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleepshe becomes a GP. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams When we first meet them they're at a drug and reality collidealcohol-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.really...and there This time, it's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051Xtheir teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004644950241636604|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby MathsThe Trading Game: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of MathsA Confession|author=Emma SmithGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionAutobiography|summary=''Babies seem If you were to be born with bring up an amazing number sense: understanding shapes image of a city banker in the wombyour mind, being aware you're unlikely to think of quantities at seven hours oldsomeone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, assessing probability at six months oldwhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months oldinjustice.'' Did you know this? I didn't! How about: ''Maths ability There was no posh public school on entry his CV - but he had been to school the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a strong predictor facility with numbers which most of later achievement, double us can only envy. He also realised that of literacy skillsmost rich people expect poor people to be stupid.'' I didn't know this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children a good start in literacy - reading stories It was his ability at what was, teaching pen gripsessentially, singing rhymes - gives children a solid foundation when they start schoolcard game which got him an internship with Citibank. But do we think the same way about maths Eventually, beyond counting? I don't think we do, in part because so many of us are afraid of maths. But why are we? Most of us use maths in daily life without realising and it follows that giving our children this turned into permanent employment as a similar pre-school grounding will be just as beneficialtrader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robert Peston
|title=The Whistleblower
|rating=3
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=I'm not the first to point out how fitting it is for Robert Peston to write a political thriller, so I'll move on quickly – but this won't be winning any awards for originality. It's an interesting plot with a good pace, but it does very little to differentiate itself and I suspect before much time has passed I'll have forgotten a lot of it.
|isbn=1838775242
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293793851035021803|title=The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Louise PennyC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the Canadian village of Three Pines, weIt're post-pandemic: the scars are still there but life is starting to get s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to normalthe English country village where she grew up. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro and the AubergeShe's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. TheyFreya're visiting each others former mentor and Carole's homes close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and having friends and relatives the circumstances seem suspicious, to staysay the least. A young Sudanese woman who has Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been nominated for back to the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor and village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she soon proves that has not all saints are necessarily pleasant people felt able to be around - near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a bit like Vincent Gilbertcafe, known in met and married James (on the village as rebound from the Asshole Saintlove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09F4CTKJRAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= Flights for FreedomAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author= Steven BurgauerBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Science Fiction|summary=It's 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the later stages shape of World War things to come.'' I and the United States has just entered the conflict've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Petrol Petronus is Well, I must confess that there have been more than a young American who has signed few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up and joined reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the 17 Aero Squadronfeeling that it's all getting away from me. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in CanadaSome of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the first to be attached to possibilities and the RAF probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camela way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=183885410XSunny Singh|title=The Dark Remains|author=William McIlvanney and Ian RankinHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=Bobby Carter was The Hotel Arcadia is a lawyer and consigliere to one of the major crime families luxury hotel in nineteen seventies Glasgowan unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. DC Jack Laidlaw Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is on the CID team charged with Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the investigationhotel manager. I say ''on As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the team'' but Laidlaw never really seems hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be a part cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of ither room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. He does his own thingAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, goes his own way their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the truth of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one of Glasgow's seedier pubsterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19424102551529153298|title=Tokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)The List of Suspicious Things|author=Michael PronkoJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It''Zangyo: overtime works 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, often unpaidhonestly...) She's not whatIts worrying Miv's the culturefamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, isnbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't it? sound quite so frightening. The hours for which youMiv's upset because she're paid are really just a statement of s overheard that her father wants to move the minimum youfamily 'll be required to do: youDown South'll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizuka. When he was found dead in front of Senden Centralyou's headquarters in Tokyo there was nothing in the way of regret or grief, even re from his familyYorkshire, but there was Down South is a mild curiosity as to whether he'd jumped from the roof of the building or been assisted in his descentfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Gossip revolves around For Miv, the fact that he left the roof at the exact same spot that an employeemove would mean leaving her best friend, Mayu YamaseSharon, had committed suicide some three years earlierand she'll do anything to prevent that. She'd accused Onizuka of bullying her and forcing s not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to work an unreasonable amount of overtimeanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414254251398524085|title=The Man Who Died TwiceHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Richard OsmanNicci French|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Elizabeth Best Charlotte Salter was a little surprised when she received the letterexpected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. It came from a man whose body she had helped to pull from the Thames Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and who had never existed her daughter, Etty. are all worried but then this - strangely - her husband, Alec, is the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on a regular basisnot. When she visits Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the sender body of the letter (heGreg's moved into father, Duncan Ackerley, in the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that itDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn's someone with whom she has a long professional history - and who used to be her husbandt stand the guilt. HeThe Salter children are not convinced but there's made a bad mistake - something to little else they can do but get on with a mask being removed within the range of a CCTV camera on a raid, a missing twenty-million pounds in diamonds their lives and a few death threats. He's now in hiding with a young woman called Polly, who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitresswonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Sharp1035906708|title=The Chef, the Bird and the BlessingDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy We tend to his employer - isthink of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in his mindManhattan, New York, the head chef of a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest December 1923 and dedicated only moved to his task and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but his dream is her father changed it to become 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American city. Even to win a Michelin starStates. He is thwarted When she was back in this ambition Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to you a mother who mercilessly exploited her and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval made no secret of her preference for his scruffy waysher elder sister, his uninterest in his guests and - shock, horror - his allowing of bush animals into the houseJackie.|isbn=B09926MK8H
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex FoulkesChristopher Edge|title=Rules for VampiresBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' Lucas and his friends are all booked in for short) is a Vampire. She drinks bloodmovie marathon at their local cinema, she sleeps during a place that has the day, and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock nickname of bats to travel around'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, although not all of them remember they're looking forward to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Now, on the night lots of her hundredth birthnightexciting films, she has to go out and hunt her first human. many, many snacks! However, instead she ends as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up killing two humans by accident and burning down into an orphanageadventure they couldn't even imagine. Oops! And But as they lurch from one film genre to make things worsethe next, the ghosts of one of the orphans and the evil master of the orphanage come can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to haunt her. So, not only does Leo have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerfulcinema, she has and to do it all while hiding it from her family. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each othertheir real lives? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955X1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tori BovalinoRachel Greenlaw|title=The Devil Makes ThreeCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Working all summer in her boarding school's library is 'I can hear the song of the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herselfsea. What makes it worse is The call of the man who requested deep, the books: Mr Birchanswering beat in my heart. The boarding school's headmaster' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and a man Tess hatesplundering the wrecks. As a petty act Mira, like her mother before her, is one of revenge for making her find the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and deliver such any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of trap to end the bookswrecking, scribbled with they capture the ugliest insults she can think ofisland's leader and Mira's father. They're never meant Desperate to reach save himfrom death, of course. Her plan Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to get guide her anger out like this, and then take them all she sets off before delivering themin search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. No harm done… Or it would beWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, if someone hadnas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler't delivered them for s territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of herhome and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=17890981300008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09BG8V3Q6James Sherwood Metts|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary= ''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!'' is the latest release in Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they''Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Averyre paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. This series Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of fun picture books aims other, new ways to take the pain out of potty training children spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and replace , along with it with some fun. It's a worthy aim, as any frustrated parent will tell you. all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B098FFFBH9Matthew Tree|title=Snowcub|author=Graham FulbrightWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of support be different from her family: his father Pip Harrison, a lecturer drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at Imperial College, London, mother Kate any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and her twin, Nickwho had endless crises of self confidence. Kate runs the family businessSo Tim applied himself to his studies, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toyscultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Angharad WalkerA G Slatter|title= The Ash HouseBriar Book of the Dead|rating= 5|genre= Confident ReadersFantasy|summary= A new boy arrives '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at The Ash Houselast. I just want to enjoy it for a while. He doesn't know his name' Within a remote mountain pass, or why he is there but he is used to far away from the systemworld, used to different places and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him lies Silverton; a town under the rules protection of The Ash House. These rules centre on the Briar's, a variety family of Nicenesses set out by witches who protect the absent Headmastertown and the wider world from the Darklands. All children must remember their Niceness Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and complete their choresas such since she was young, working her training as a hive in steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the smouldering shadows of The Ash HouseBriar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. But soon their easy peace is shattered by As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the arrival of rare ability to communicate with the Doctor. By dead, putting her at the end heart of the storya maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, lives will be changed forever Ellie must decide who to trust and The Ash House will never be determine what to do as the same againBriar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=19126269771803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Yancey Williams1529900360|title=Crosshairs of the DevilThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible andeven after Alex recovered, despite Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his strenuous objections help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddieshut cases which didn's point of view - in room 315 of t need the Garden help of Eden nursing home, with a psychologist only worked for a trusty nursing aidewhile. Finally, it was Robin, JenkinsDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for palatable companyhelp again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Nothing Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is going married to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his lifean extremely rich man and it's worknot the Italian.|isbn=0986031658 But which of them was the primary target?}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Philip Reeve1529395224|title=Utterly Dark and Letting the Face Cat Out of the DeepBag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=In Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildseahis footsteps, British but way west, beyond particularly when he considered the Scillies. There are troll people strain that being on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sailcall put on his father's life. The current Darks are When he was seventeen he took the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes opportunity of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will doing work experience with a family friend who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, was a vet and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of was convinced this was the sea one day eleven years agojob for him. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself Before long, both he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their islanddream since he was a child. If anything, like it or nothe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|isbn=1788452372
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Erling Kagge0861541774|title=Walking: One Step At A TimeNye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54|genre= LifestyleCrime|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a book is evidenced by the number of pages short holiday in Singapore to meet up with corners turnedan old ally, so let me start this one Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not minea knife - and he killed a Ghurka. In my defence Initially, I will say that as he faced a reader charge of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, manslaughter but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about evidence came to do as soon as I light that suggested that he might have finished telling you why). Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked planned to murder the South Pole, man. Now he could be facing the North Pole and the summit of Everestdeath penalty. He knows a thing or two about walking. However, this isn't a travelogue about Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any of those epic journeys, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means to walk. It is interference from another police force could provoke a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page diplomatic incident and I havenwouldn't countedhelp Danny at all. In small format paperback, each essay is only a few pages long. Perhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|isbn=0241357705
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Mark and Louis GhibaultAlexander McCall Smith|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's The Perfect Passion Company is a slight boydating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses operating as an alternative to let him out of his sight. That's because Jack's mother knew all about monstersthe online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look what happened after the business, as Ness is planning to her – she diedtake a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point Katie is coming out of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOLbreak up with a bad boyfriend, Jack will fluke and so jumps at the ogre's deathchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, a dwarfish wizard-type will make him bringing us to an apprentice monster hunterEdinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact Isabel Dalhousie novels, but withsome new characters who quickly begin to charm. The book Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''...always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=07555019421846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Keith Gray0811771741|title=The ClimbersInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Sully is Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the best tree climber 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the villagefire' variety. He has what The projects are divided by the time they's known amongst ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the kids as projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'reachbut that's me being picky. But what happens when }}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a new kid shows up in town? A new kidterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, called Nottinghamand someone has delivered a really weird, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that disturbing coffin-sized object to his status is being threatenedhome, and not only it's possible that, whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his chance to name the finalhouse! The thing is, unnamed big tree in Benny is the park by being very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the first delivery to conquer ithis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, might be snatched who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from his handsnefarious forces for being a good person. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will it cost him his best friendcertainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, or maybe even all of his friendsBenny, to do so?and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=17811299911662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Emma CarrollAdam Stower|title=The Week at World's EndMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=FirstMurray is supposed to be a humble, the title. We're in World's End Closetidy and friendly cat, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie one who is able to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog sleep and eat and eat and sleep and with , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the boy over the roadtwo. But we could also be at Worldhe's a bad magician's Endcat, because something taking so his favourite bun has been turned into a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshorecatflap they both use can chuck them out, and not much else is able to make into the news. That saidregular back garden, Vie has news but into a world of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shedfrightening adventure and whiffs. Anna has, in no short This timeround it drops them into a Viking land, taken where a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Closetroll hunter is expected – well, said she'd locate something she wanted and leaveone much bigger than Murray was, failed to leavebe honest, but he's turned up and implied her life was at risk. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing he'll have to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?do…|isbn=05713644380008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de FrestonB0C47LV1PC|title=Julia and the SharkFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for Can you make a summer''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, in is the far NE of question should you make it? Or is the Scottish islands. Here be Vikingsquestion if you did, would it land? The catch is that kind of Scottish islandthe answer for both could well be.... no. Dad  ''Fragility'' is going to be automating set as the lanterncity of Portland, which is his specialist thingOregon, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind cautiously begins to hunt emerge from the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.|isbn=1510107789restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Freya Sampson1529431735|title=The Last LibraryWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous to start a story about a libraryIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, since I am a librarianwhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. I always grit my teeth slightly at He'd been exiled on the thought of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in Costa del Sol as a bun, cat-owning, glasses on wanted drug smuggler for a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in decade. The return has come about because he's had a bunletter from his ex-wife, and saying that she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), 's ill and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didnhasn't immediately throw the book out of the window, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she didlong to live. Her mum used It's hard to be a librarian at the village library, but feel any sympathy when she got sickHopkins is abducted, June gave up on going stripped to University his underwear and stayed at home sent to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local library. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything watery grave in her life is about the changeboot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|isbn=183877369X}} Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?

Navigation menu