132,662
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher0008385068|title=ThornhedgeThe Midnight Feast|author=Lucy Foley|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyThrillers|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It'You had a right to retake your places their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It'' T Kingfishers all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and well belovedfamous. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower Her husband, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentOwen, Thornhedge was the architect and work is not her storystill ongoing on parts of the site. Instead, our protagonist The heat is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby oppressive and secreted away to amongst the land of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to draw magic from her veins be settled and cast spellsit won't be long before a body is found.|isbn=1803364238
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B0CCCVRSGXAshley Hickson-Lovence|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F WalkerWild East|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesTeens|summary= This Written in verse, this is Richard F WalkerRonny's second volume of short storiesstory, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. There are thirteen The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in all a new town, a new school, and I took something from each keep himself out of themtrouble. There isn't He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a single one that doesn't deserve rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be among part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the others or brings down connections between rap and poetry, and the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about power of creativity and I think they give a general flavourcrafting your words.|isbn=0241645441
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876366071635866847|title=The TrapLavender Companion|author=Catherine Ryan HowardJessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLifestyle|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in strange, the early hours of things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the morningbook for you. Drunken revellers spilling out Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of clubs and looking for a way to get home. Some are lucky and manage to get one slice of chocolate cake on the few taxis availablehomepage. Others squash onto the night bus I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagescake viscerally. The woman all regret the (There'taxi problem', particularly s a recipe in the light of book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the missing women'book and I was told to make a mess of it. For one young woman, Notes in the final stop on margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the bus leaves her a long way short corners of her homepages. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use hisYou suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. ThereI ''loved''s no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoesthis book already.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405957174Rob Keeley|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelveAround here, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himselfwe're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He is en route to yet another fosterer's a ball of happy positivity, when he jumps into an anonymous carunderstands children, and lets it ride him he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to his futurelecture or hector. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in greatest achievements. It's a camp sequence of ghost stories centring on an island between the two directions of a motorwayEllie, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Themstalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and a mute girl also finding a home thereEdward, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters|isbn=18045400801783064617
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008530025Jenny Valentine|title=Murder Us in the Family|author=Cara HunterBefore and After|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home Elk and found the body of her stepfatherMab are best friends, Luke Ryderor more than that even, their friendship is a once in the garden of their West London homea lifetime connection. He had an injury They meet as children one day on the back of his head which could have happened if hea trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other'd slipped down the steps but s contact details at the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberatetime. Twenty years laterBut then chance brings them back together, no one has been charged with his murder and it's now the subject of ''Infamous'', a true-crime showthey are inseparable. A group of experts Something has been brought together to review the evidence happened though, something terrible and to take the investigation further. More to the pointtragic, and now they're going to do this live on cameramust work through their grief, episode by episode. There's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewingtheir friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=The Stolen SongbirdDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingMeet Kit. Her other motherLike most of the people in his world, Ronnieit seems, he is having to go up North to take care an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gamwarrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesmagical mazes, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment race to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's housethe exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there toothe way. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryUnfortunately for Kit, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mumthe only thing he's old suitcaseseen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplenew trio of questors is needed. Is Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the painting somehow linked to goading from the gang? And what has happened to Carotoken bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he's mother? ll enter as a team. Is she somehow involved What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in the mystery tooactually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|isbn=05713631481839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529195977Saima Mir|title=None of this is True|author=Lisa JewellVengeance|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=On her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd I was instantly intrigued by the premise of friends this novel – an organised crime syndicate in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fairnorth of England run by a Muslim woman. She, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she The fact that it was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Mary's hospital. That's where the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are second in the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst theyseries I hadn're not t read didn't stop me – I'exactlyve jumped midway into a few series before (on page and screen) and it needn't be a hindrance if it' rowdy, they're enjoying themselvess good enough. Josie, on the other hand, holds her handbag close to her tummy and you get the sense And that Walterwasn's not too happyt a problem here. He's not used Vengeance swiftly brings you up to spending this much money on a meal - but it is Josie's birthday after allspeed, and I never felt lost.|isbn=0861541561
}}
{{Frontpage
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Love is love; although humans continue to be confused by this sentiment. Gay conversion therapy is ongoingDuring location filming for his 1970's sitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across the dead body of a woman on the edge of a reservoir. The UK government ruled out plans police seem happy to make assign it a crime andas an accidental death, in but something about the USwhole thing bothers Lowe, nearly 700 000 adults have received it. Although it is both a secular and he enlists the help of a religious prejudicefellow actor, Chuck TingleJohn Le Breton to help him investigate matters further. They travel across the country during their days off filming, in his new horroruncovering more possible murders and, ''Camp Damascus''seemingly, peels back a link to death during the skin of Christian ''pray Second World War. But is there really a link between the gay away'' camps deaths? And will they manage to show the reader the horror lurking within.uncover who is responsible before more people lose their lives?|isbn=1803368209
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803136383B0CYV674G2|title=Tin SoldiersSwanton Morley (John Tanner)|author=David ChadwickBlake|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting It seemed like an open-and-shut case. A man, covered in Vietnam under something mud and blood - and carrying a knife, comes into the police station shouting that he hasn't killed the man. A body at the bottom of a cloudfreshly dug grave at Swanton Morley church - he's been stabbed to death. What actually happened out there DCI John Tanner is gossiped about and nobody is sure exactly what took placejust back from his honeymoon, which coincided with the birth of his daughter Samantha. You would think he'd be grateful for an easy answer but an act of heroism leading to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice the words 'perverse' and disgrace seems 'John Tanner' were made for each other. He's sleep-deprived to be the consensus. Wat himself is keeping his cards close point of falling asleep at work but he's determined to his chest, as keep going - probably because he always doescan't get any sleep at home.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B1787333175|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=A J LewisBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionPopular Science|summary=When we I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first meet our herobook {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, his name is Ettore a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallowsautobiography. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was bornYou Don't Have to be Mad... He's not been short of mothers, though - ' promised the same elements but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult moved from physical problems to obtain decent employment. The stint working with mental illness and the preparation work of anchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boatsa psychiatrist. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and I did wonder whether it was not long before he had acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a successful business as situation rather than a guide for visitors. He was even saving some moneyperson and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dean KoontzOnyi Nwabineli|title=After DeathAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Michael MaceAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, Head where she posted every step of SecurityAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, at a top secret biological research facilitybasically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is among 55 people who die when a virus in her twenties and she is released in a bioslowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-hazard accidentmother to take down the content about her. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuaryAnuri is battling alcoholism, covered in plasticfailing to start her PhD, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – undergoing therapy and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends secretly abusing people online and former colleaguesreceiving money from them for doing so. As he recovers his sensesMost importantly, he realises that there she is something different desperately worried about him; he can 'her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia'feel'' everythings online empire. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=16625004670861546873}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jamie LittlerDavid Chadwick|title=ArkspireHeadload of Napalm|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader It's September 1973 in illicit magicHicks, including relics from prior major wars left out in the BadlandsCalifornia. Elodie Hicks is intent on getting closer to power in one a Mojave desert town of the religious districts a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to Hicks. A silver mine and a ruler defence contractor are the district hasmain local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and one of the five major victors in said earlier warJoshua trees. Life is quiet, until... Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143B0D321VJ76
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de MoraesTom Percival|title=Old Gods New TricksThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapesWill's life is difficult, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought in a young goddess multitude of nuisanceways. But just when sheHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, he has the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of electric carsthings like food, hits not just the town the schooland his dad can's in but t work because he lost his job at the entire planet (apart from mobile phonescollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and all had an accident. Throw into that powers mix the Internetfact that his mum and dad are separated, just for our convenienceand Will's sake)life seems bleak in every direction. Trixie, luckilyAnd yet, realises what he still has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power a tiny amount of power from ushope. And so she begins her epic questHe is good at art, and clings to gather all the people moments of joy when he is drawing, that can steal it back – namely feel like a light at the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giantsend of a long, half-gods and so on known as the trickstersdark tunnel.|isbn=178845295X1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexia CasaleSylvie Cathrall|title=Sing if you Can't DanceA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate There are few greater joys than a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back book which lives up to a life that's as normal as she can possibly managecompelling premise. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day-to-day traumas And this is one of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigatethem. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=05713738010356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Helen Peters0008517061|title=Friends and TraitorsDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=34|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=EnglandFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, WW2has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Two young girls are new at There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her future of his life it seemswith his vet girlfriend, like the female generations before Livia and her. The other is Sidneydaughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flightlot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-paths. The girls are chalk grid and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour relaxing life to move in with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is amiss, the future she wants for herself and first separately and then her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, present and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely putting the girls are wrong, and future on the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=1788004647back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02419961041786482126|title=Coming to Find YouThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Jane CorryElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=NancyBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 's mother and stepluxury' apartments -father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted when they discovered the bones of their murdera child beneath a doorway. We first meet Nancy outside the court, after Martin receives a life sentenceThere was no skull. The barrister tells her that she's received Was this a 'silent sentence' - she's not been found guilty of anything but will have to live ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with what happened for the rest of her lifeDCI Harry Nelson. Of course, itIt's made worse because Nancydifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn's rich - t, that she inherited five million pounds from her mother - and is pregnant with his child as a result of the papers are making the most of itone night they spent together some three months ago. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might Her condition will be obvious before long, not be printed but least because Ruth is undoubtedly spokenprone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294136800008551324|title=A Chateau Under Siege The Devil You Know (A Bruno, Chief of Police NovelD S Max Craigie)|author=Martin WalkerNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=One of It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the main events of police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the Sarlat tourist season other. But Davie Hardie is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English struggling in 1370 prison and Brunohe's there prepared to see tell the show with some friendspolice where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong whenThis person, Kerquelinhe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the man playing one of the main characters police doing what he wants. And what he wants is seriously injured when he departs from to be transferred to an open prison to serve the scriptremainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. LuckilyNot much to ask, his doctor is there and the man is whisked away in a helicopter. it? A local doctor (The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as heshe's a senior government employee, even prepared to do the man who runs Frenchelon other thing that Hardie demanded - the military has stepped in. One daughter lives nearby make certain that DS Max Craigie and another, anyone who lives in California, works with him is flying in with some of her fatherkept well away from what's friends for a pre-arranged holidayhappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291963880008405026|title=The TrialA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Rob RinderJane Casey|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Grant Cliveden It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good never found and honest and looked up the investigation ground to by just about everyonea halt. Now, her mother, Helena, so there was public uproar when he was murdered and her father are dead in plain sight at the Old Baileytheir bed. ThereInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's just one man in something about the positioning of the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it's not too long before Knight appears in court, charged with Cliveden's murder. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylorgoing to be an open-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers and it's Taylor-Cameron and his pupil, Adam Green, who eventually represent himshut case is now a complex double murder. KnightKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Camerondisappearance: others (such as Derwent's recommendations to the contraryboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Essie Fox0571379877|title=The FascinationKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= The Victorian era Edward Jevons is incredibly overa working-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched onlyclass young man, perhapsobsessed with his upper-class friends, by the Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling itRobert and Stanza. There Robert's such a glut of media set in the era that the hallmarks wetheatre director. He've come s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to associate run errands for him. Edward has been in love with it are familiar Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to the point of being cliched, hackneyed evenRobert. All this is simply to illustrate that it Most men in Robert's position would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this booka relationship had begun between them but he's description did as wellnot like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1914585526
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew CartmelJo Callaghan|title=Death in Fine ConditionLeave No Trace|rating=34
|genre=Crime
|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and in particular When a series called Sleuth Hound. She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell man is found crucified on for profit, sometimes 'tweaking' themthe top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to add valuethe case alongside her sidekick, in somewhat fraudulent waysthe AI detective Lock. One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them in the background of a photograph on her drug dealerIt's living room walltheir first live case together, and so she sets about discovering where this collection having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there isa second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and how she can steal it! a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. It's a next-level step Will they be able to solve the case in her petty crime career, but has she reached too fartime, and what or will happen when Kat find herself taken off the owner case and, potentially, out of the collection comes looking for their booksa career?|isbn=1789098947139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15295079871399613073|title=The Repair Shop Craft BookMoral Injuries|author=Walker Books and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionThrillers|summary=I love ''The Repair Shop''Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. It's my go-to programme Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when I want you aim to be cheered upa cardiothoracic surgeon. After Laura is a perfectionist and a hard day, there's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worthtrauma doctor. You see, Anjali is the value is in what these possessions are worth to free spirit of the people who own them group and the memories they holdshe becomes a GP. No expense appears to be spared When we first meet them they're at a drug and the experts spend as much time alcohol-fuelled party and effort as is required it's going to achieve end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the desired resultconsequences. Regular viewers know Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the experts and they're all brilliant at explaining what three friends. This time, it is they're doings their teenage children who are involved. But how did they start?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nicole Jarvis0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Portrait in ShadowConfession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionAutobiography|summary=''I want all of Florence If you were to know my name'' Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking bring up an oasis image of a city banker in which her art can find a home your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where her future can thrive rather than stagnatehe was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self There was no posh public school on his CV -proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power but he had been to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and cursesLondon School of Economics. The all Stevenson is bright -male Accademia extremely bright - and he has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all elsea facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. To them It was his ability at what was, essentially, Artemisia – a card game which got him an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their societyinternship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1803362340
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH1035021803|title=The Grave ListenersAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=William FrankC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village is isolated and poorwhere she grew up. It She's surrounded by back now because of a Witching Forestrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. And Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicinesleast. The black wood of Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the forest provides heat and warmthvillage: Arthur, roofs on homesshe feels, and even gallows, if neededlet her down badly. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the village and that is profession she loved. After the reason Volushkasplit, she worked in a drunkencafe, self-indulgentmet and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, lazy lout of a man is toleratedwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=024162343XSunny Singh|title=Stolen History|author=Sathnam SangheraHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionThrillers |summary=I was the bad company other people got into at schoolThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed Hiding from the existence of terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a 'god'wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. Where was As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse residents who are still. Not too long after alive in the end of WWIIhotel, I didn't so much want he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to learn about the British army's successes (be cowed by events, and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell keeps on those) in venturing out of her room to try to capture what came to be called 's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the colonies' phone, their friendship grows as want Abhi tries to dispute what right the army had help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be there in rescued before they are discovered by the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amanda Craig1529153298|title=Three GracesThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novelIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... There) She's something not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the atmosphere of the day and capture itfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this move would be embarrassingly inadequate: mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this pointll do anything to prevent that. She has such a gift for weaving 's not worried about the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of dangers or that her characters in a way that feels natural and livedMum's stopped talking -in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselvesto anyone.|isbn= 140871468X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14483093791398524085|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=David MarkNicci French|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's something of a surprise to find that you're dead, particularly when you're thinking that you're actually on a break with your wife and children, fiftieth birthday party but that's what happened to DS Aector McAvoynever turned up. Whilst he was relieved to find that he was stillHer children, officiallysons Niall, alivePaul and Ollie and her daughter, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish PharoahEtty. Her protegee are all worried but - McAvoy strangely - was still alive but the partially clad man who'd dashed from her flat in the early hours of the morning when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her carhusband, Alec, was is not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoyShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindlyfather, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on Aectorwith their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=09571811671035906708|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian LewisDiva|author=Alan MarshallDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=ArtGeneral Fiction|summary=There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but this timeshe was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in trying December 1923 and only moved to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and Athens when she was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewisthirteen. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the print I wanted was ‘not available’States. Oh, dear When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - then a few doors down from she was raised under the apartment, I found Nazi occupation by a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - mother who mercilessly exploited her and a framed print made no secret of the picture I wantedher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Simon FoxChristopher Edge|title=DeadlockBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from Lucas and his shift on friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the forcenickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and then suddenly rings Archiemany, demanding he fetch many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from a secret placeone film genre to the next, and join him can they figure out what on earth is going on the run. ? They Will they ever get togetherback to the cinema, but barely begin and to smell their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the whiff sea. The call of Southern trains when the father is arresteddeep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, leaving Archie survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the late express wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to Brightonend the wrecking, toting a tin his they capture the island's leader and Mira's father was determined . Desperate to keep away save him from his colleaguesdeath, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the bearer sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of a whole heap the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of questionsher home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=18399444200008664730
}}
