'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Charlotte Moore
|title=Grandmother's Footsteps
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Verity's husband has died suddenly and she decides to sell Knighton, the house she has lived in for large parts of her life, where she was born and brought up and where she has lived for thirty years with her husband and daughter. She must sort out all the possessions and papers stored there, and this prompts her reflections on the past, including her not so happy marriage. She also realises that now Simeon is dead, she can reveal a family secret to her daughter Hester.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0140278311</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tim Dee
|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow. He's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, with some health problems but more than enough family and friends to get him by, and still a very active interest in yachting, regattas and more. Meet, too, Frances Woodsford. She's reaching middle-age, living with her brother and mum in Bournemouth, and working for the local baths as organiser of events, office lackey and more. I suggest you do meet them, although neither ever met the other. Despite this they kept up a brisk and lively conversation about all aspects of life, from the late 1940s until his death at the beginning of the 60s. And as a result comes this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up a world of social history and entertaining diary-style comment.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Beverley Eikli
|title=Lady Farquhar's Butterfly
|rating=3
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Olivia - Lady Farquhar - has recently been widowed. This does not upset her in the least; indeed, as becomes clear through the novel, her husband was an unpleasant bully who subjected her to all kinds of abuse. Unfortunately, however, the terms of his will have ensured that her beloved toddler Julian has been taken away to live with his uncle Max until such time as Olivia marries someone considered to be above reproach. For that reason, she is seriously considering marrying Nathaniel, a clergyman who has helped her for many years. The only problem with that is that she finds him increasingly repulsive...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090579</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jim Butcher
|title=First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=In ''First Lord's Fury'', the concluding part in Jim Butcher's six-part ''Codex Alera'' series, the land of Alera is struggling under the weight of an invasion by the Vord. The First Lord of Alera has been killed in battle and with his son already dead and his grandson away fighting in Canea, there looks likely to be a power struggle within the Alerans themselves. Many Alerans have switched their allegiance to the Vord, sensing that victory over them is impossible and believing that may be the only way to escape death. This gives the Vord access to Aleran furies, a powerful force that is the Alerans main weapon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498513</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Elizabeth Chandler
|title=Dark Secrets 2
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Those of you who read my review of the [[Dark Secrets: Legacy of Lies and Don't Tell by Elizabeth Chandler|first Dark Secrets]] bind-up will know I absolutely loved that book. This is a similar proposition – two average-sized teen novels packaged together in a very good value volume. Both are set in Wisteria, Maryland. Both feature teenage girls looking for closure on past events, with dark secrets buried in their past – and both are guaranteed to capture the imagination of their target audience of teen girls, and of a fair few other readers besides.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1416994629</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=L J Smith
|title=Forbidden Game
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=While looking for a game to play for her boyfriend's birthday, Jenny Thorn comes across a strange shop she's never seen before. Going in, she talks to a handsome boy who sells her a mysterious game in a plain box. But when she and her friends open the game to play it, they're transported to a world where the boy is the Shadow Man, and the consequence of losing the game can be deadly. The group of teens are left fighting against their worst nightmares as they try to defeat the sinister Shadow Man and escape – but when some of them finally do get out, they realise that it's just the beginning of the nightmare for them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387381</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Dowswell
|title=The Cabinet of Curiosities
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Lukas Declercq begins work as an apprentice to his uncle, a court physician to the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague, it's only after an absolutely hair-raising journey. Robbed at knifepoint and left naked and penniless, he fell in with a much more streetwise child, Etienne, who helped him blag his way across the country.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800462</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tabitha Suzuma
|title=Forbidden
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Maya is sixteen, pretty, sociable and wise beyond her years. But she's never been kissed. Lochan is seventeen, drop-dead gorgeous and most of the girls at his school have crushes on him. He's also highly intelligent, at the top of his class and heading off to a good London university and on the cusp of a bright future. But he's never kissed a girl. You'd think then, that when these two teenagers kiss for the first time, it would be the beginning of a gorgeous first love affair, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. Because Maya and Lochan are brother and sister...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862308160</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Fred Saberhagen
|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Holmes and Watson are called in by a bereaved father who's convinced a pair of spiritualists have deceived his wife by holding a séance in which their daughter seemed to return. When the pair attend a second séance, the girl comes back again, and it's clear that this is no ordinary trick. Holmes gets assaulted and kidnapped, and Watson realises that for the second time in their investigative career they're dealing with vampires. He's left with only one choice, and turns to Holmes cousin, the legendary Prince Dracula, for aid.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566778</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rebecca Skloot
|title=The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five children, died of cervical cancer at the age of 31. However, a sample of her cancer cells taken the same year lived on, grew and reproduced. Often referred to as HeLa cells, cells with their origins in the original sample are still being used in medical and scientific research today, nearly sixty years on. Many of the scientific breakthroughs that have been made using HeLa cells are hugely profitable. But her children have spent their lives in low waged jobs and on welfare, unable to afford basic health insurance. Understandably they feel a lot of anger at this injustice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230748694</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Walter Mosley
|title=Devil in a Blue Dress
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Easy Rawlins is a little down on his luck, having just been laid off from his job and with a mortgage payment due. So when DeWitt Albright walks into Joppy's bar and offers him money for finding a young woman who has gone missing, it seems like the perfect opportunity for him to keep his house, as well as to pass some time. Of course, what Albright doesn't mention is that the reason he's looking for this woman is that she's run off with a large amount of someone else's money and quite a few people on the streets of Los Angeles are prepared to kill to get that money back.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686830</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alberto Barrera Tyszka
|title=The Sickness
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This literary novel is a slow burner. But the very first page gives an insight into the beautiful language used throughout such as 'Medical people rarely used adjectives. They don't need to.' And later on there's another lovely sentence loaded with meaning and originality - 'Blood is a terrible gossip, it tells everything, as any laboratory technician knows.' The opening chapter is located in a consulting room where a rather tense conversation is taking place. The answer is extremely important to one man.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694508</amazonuk>
}}
