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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787636607152919640X|title=The TrapSuspect|author=Catherine Ryan HowardRob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItThe nation's favourite daytime TV presenter, Jessica Holby, was murdered live on television and it seems that there's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningonly one suspect. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs He's celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks and looking for a way his contract stated that he must not serve anything containing miso to get homeJessica Holby. Some are lucky She's seriously allergic and manage to get one carries an EpiPen in case of the few taxis availableemergencies. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go Everything seemed as normal - as far normal as one of the outlying villages. The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly they can be in the light of 'the missing women'. For one young womana busy, the final stop on the bus leaves her live television studio - and Brooks served a long way short of her homeragout to Holby. She had intended to ring someone Her EpiPen was nowhere to come be found and collect her - but her phone's she was dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use hiswithin minutes. There's It was soon clear that this was no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoesaccident.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14059571740008385068|title=A Death at the PartyThe Midnight Feast|author=Amy StuartLucy Foley|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeThrillers|summary=From It's midsummer on the first page, we know that Nadine WalshDorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It's party will not end wellall headed up by Francesca Meadows. The victim - a man - is dying when we first meet him Manor was her ancestral home and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the ambulance he so desperately needswealthy and famous. What we don't know Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is who still ongoing on parts of the man site. The heat is or why Nadine prefers to have him dieoppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. IOld scores are going to be settled and it won'd better give you t be long before a little more background so that you can understand what's happeningbody is found.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthAshley Hickson-Lovence|title=Nowhere IslandWild East
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=Meet GilWritten in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. Just twelveThe move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, he is and so determined Ronny finds himself trying to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him settle in futureless places that are not homes – a new town, a new school, and find a home for keep himselfout of trouble. He is en route listens to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous carmusic constantly, and lets it ride him to his futurehas always dreamed of being a rapper. That future seems But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag part of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorwaypoetry writing workshop group and, slowly, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough Ronny begins to provide for their safety see the connections between rap and seclusion. Thempoetry, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullythe power of creativity and crafting your words. 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…|isbn=18045400800241645441
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085300251635866847|title=Murder in the FamilyThe Lavender Companion|author=Cara HunterJessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLifestyle|summary=It was in December 2003 's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found this is the body of her stepfather, Luke Ryderbook for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', in I visited the garden author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of their West London homechocolate cake on the homepage. He had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if heI don'd slipped down the steps t eat cakes and desserts - but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberateI wanted that cake viscerally. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it(There's now a recipe in the subject of book, which I''Infamous'', m avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a true-crime showmess of it. A group of experts has been brought together to review Notes in the evidence and to take the investigation furthermargins are sanctioned. More You get to fold down the point, they're going to do this live on camera, episode by episodecorners of pages. There's no dump You suspect that smears of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangersbutter would not be a problem. ItI ''loved''s compelling viewingthis book already.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rob Keeley
|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hector.
The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
|isbn= 1783064617
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{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleJenny Valentine|title=The Stolen SongbirdUs in the Before and After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585}}{{Frontpage|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=Dungeon 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
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{{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
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803365110|author=Chuck TingleStuart Douglas|title=Camp DamascusLowe and Le Breton Mysteries - Death at the Dress Rehearsal
|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
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{{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.
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{{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.
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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.
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{{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.
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{{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.
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{{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.
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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?
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{{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
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{{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.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=024162343XAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Stolen HistoryAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Sathnam SangheraBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Science Fiction|summary=I was ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the bad company other people got into at schoolshape of things to come. '' I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'godve heard it said that 'technology'is what happens after you're eighteen. Where was the proof? In history lessonsWell, it was probably worse stillI must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British armyve kept up reasonably well with what's successes (and occasional failures, advantageous to me but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called I'm left with the coloniesfeeling that it' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first places all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Looking backOf course, I still believe could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the problem' politelylatest conspiracy theorist. I wish needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''could understand.
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|author=Amanda CraigSunny Singh|title=Three GracesHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionThrillers |summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the state-of-terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the-nation novelhotel manager. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who can catch hold of are still alive in the atmosphere hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of the day and her room to try to capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: shewhat's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this pointhappened through her photography. She has such a gift for weaving Although they only ever talk over the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her characters in a way that feels natural keep safe and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselvesthey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn= 140871468X086154742X
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|isbn=14483093791529153298|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)The List of Suspicious Things|author=David MarkJennie Godfrey|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It's something of a surprise to find that you1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv're deads family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, particularly when youthey're thinking that you're actually on a break with your wife and childrenve been murdered, but thatto have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's what happened overheard that her father wants to DS Aector McAvoymove the family 'Down South'. Whilst he was relieved to find that he was stillWhen you're from Yorkshire, officiallyDown South is a frightening, aliveforeign place, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoahbest avoided. Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but For Miv, the partially clad man whomove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'd dashed from her flat in the early hours of the morning when it was obvious ll do anything to prevent that someone was tampering with her car, was not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoyShe's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected worried about the dangers or that Pharoah was sweet on Aectorher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
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|isbn=09571811671398524085|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian LewisHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Alan MarshallNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=ArtCrime|summary=There Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday all worried but this time- strangely - her husband, Alec, in trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewisis not. I searched online Shortly afterwards, Etty and could only Greg, find ‘used’ versions the body of this book and Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the print I wanted was ‘not available’river. Oh, dear - It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then a few doors down from committed suicide when he couldn't stand the apartment, I found a gift shop guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with a stack of brand new books - their lives and a framed print of the picture I wantedwonder about what really happened.
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|authorisbn=Simon Fox1035906708|title=DeadlockDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|isbn=1839944420
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|author=Shalini Boland
|title=The Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsomeManhattan, accomplishedNew York, clever, funny; total in December 1923 and utter husband-materialonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. She is all he could possibly want Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and setStates. When the muchshe was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down she was raised under the aisle Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely made no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting secret of her preference for her to become his wifeelder sister, Jackie.|isbn=1662507089
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mark EdwardsChristopher Edge|title=Keep Her SecretBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary= Matthew Lucas and Helena his friends are all booked in Icelandfor a movie marathon at their local cinema, rekindling their university romance some twenty-odd years after they first meta place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. The alien-landscape All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of the lava fields exciting films, and black beaches is breath-taking and Helena seems intent on getting many, many snacks! However, as the perfect photograph to encapsulate the joy she movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is feeling in this momentvery different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even if it kills her… which it nearly does when the edge of a ravine gives way and Helena finds herself clinging imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the rockface with just the snagged strap of her rucksack between her and a 500 foot drop to certain death below. Convinced she next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to diethe cinema, Helena must purge herself of the shocking secret she has been keeping and makes a panicked, cryptic declaration to Matthew. Just moments later their heroic, and frankly very well prepared, Icelandic tour guide swoops in and hauls Helena to safety and Matthew is left wondering what he just learned about Helena.real lives?|isbn=166250893X1839942738
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