'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Sara Gruen
|title=Ape House
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Isabel Duncan is a scientist working with Bonobo chimps, teaching them sign language. John Thigpen is a journalist who comes to meet the apes and write a story about Isabel's work with them. He is moved by the apes, by their behaviour and Isabel's obviously very close relationship with them. Soon after he leaves, however, there is a bomb at the centre by a group of extremists who want to liberate the apes. Isabel begins a desperate hunt to try and discover where they've gone, and John finds himself also caught up, trying to discover the truth of what's happened.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444716026</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andrew Weale and Ben Cort
|summary=Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in a sack. This is one of the most popular images of Cleopatra in the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image of her emerging as a well polished seductress, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack for a considerable period of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised death, and beyond, to the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=A D Miller
|title=Snowdrops
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front cover, a snowy scene with majestic architecture in the background, is arresting and also suggests a thriller-type read. I was keen to find out why the book was called ''Snowdrops'' and hoped the author would enlighten me. He did - and it's nothing to do with flowers or gardening. It's rather chilling and altogether more interesting.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874537</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jane Lovering
|title=Star Struck
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Skye Threppel had a year of memories wiped out in a car accident which cost the lives of her best friend and fiancé. The physical scars were healing – although they were still very visible – but, eighteen months on, she struggled with meeting people and being anywhere but the cosy womb of her little terrace house in York. She used to be an actress but the accident has ruined her career and her confidence. It was a massive step when her friend Fe (that's short for Felix, by the way) persuaded her to go with him to the 'Fallen Skies' TV convention in Nevada - giving her a chance to meet Gethryn Tudor-Morgan, the actor she idolises.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931690</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jackie Martin
|title=Burglar Boy
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Burglar Boy'' opens with a big scene - Dean is halfway though robbing a house when the owner returns. Chased by an irate man with a good aim and a golf club, he barely makes it out in one piece. But he dutifully returns home and divvies up a pile of ill-gotten goods to Callum, his older brother, who rewards him for the risk and the bruises with a paltry fiver. Still, it's more pocket money than Dean is likely to see from his mother, who has lapsed further and further into a bottle of vodka since her most recent boyfriend left.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907552146</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Eleanor Moran
|title=Breakfast in Bed
|rating=2.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Amber is a chef in the throes of a sticky divorce who has quite enough on her plate (and the plates of her customers) without the terror of working for a wunderkind-slash-horrendous-dictator celebrity chef. So, because this is chick lit and the inevitable is, well, inevitable, that's just where she finds herself, landing a new job in the kitchen of Oscar Retford.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075154549X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Max Pemberton
|title=The Doctor Will See You Now
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The NHS is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion about, and this of course includes those of us who work for said organisation (the world's 3rd largest employer, don'tcha know). Max Pemberton is one of those people: a doctor, though despite what you might assume from the title, not a GP but a hospital medic. This is his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of a hospital, plus the odd excursion to rather misnamed Care Homes, and it's not a bad read.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dori Ostermiller
|title=Outside the Ordinary World
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although not keen on the title (a little clunky) I did feel that this was going to be a book I'd enjoy. Ostermiller has some fulsome praise for this debut novel including from the author [[:Category:Diane Chamberlain|Diane Chamberlain]]. And after reading the back cover blurb I can sense a similarity which is fine by me. (I thoroughly enjoyed all of Chamberlain's books). Would I enjoy this book as much?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830468X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Leon Jenner
|title=Bricks
|rating=3
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Let me start on a positive: this slim volume is exquisitely presented and has a lovely 'traditional' feel about it. Very covetable for book lovers. The front cover is also a bit of a paradox - what with the workmanlike one-word title ''Bricks'' and the almost mystical/biblical-esque graphics. Will this all help to draw the reader in, well, I'm not too sure.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444706284</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Hayley Long
|title=Lottie Biggs is (Not) Tragic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Lottie can’t understand what’s going on with the women around her. Goose has got the hots for a fellow cinema employee with a name which, spelt backwards, is rather unfortunate. Her mum has fallen for the bloke who arrested Lottie back in book one, and HIS daughter is a scary emo girl. There’s only one thing to be done… road trip! The central trio of Lottie, Goose, and Lottie’s hunky rugby playing boyfriend Gareth hightail it out of Cardiff – but can a change of scenery really solve the problems?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330523015</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gillian Philip
|title=Rebel Angels: Bloodstone
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Seth and Conal MacGregor have spent so long hunting for the Bloodstone for Kate NicNiven, their queen, that they're reached the present day in our world (after Firebrand took place in sixteenth century Scotland.) They still haven't found it, though, but they have got themselves involved with some wonderful new characters, notably sullen teenager Finn, who's unaware of her Sithe heritage but about to find
out with far-reaching consequences. Returning to the realm of the fairies with her in tow, and two others, the MacGregor boys are about to find even more trouble.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905537239</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Almond
|title=The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''This tale is told by 1 that died at birth by 1 that came into the world in days of endles war & at the moment of disaster... I am not cleva, so forgiv my folts and my mistayks. I am Billy Dean. This is the truth. This is my tale.''
The Monster Billy Dean tells the story of Billy, a boy born into the dystopia of a war-torn town and the product of an illicit liaison between a young woman and her priest. His birth coincided with an apocalyptic bombing and his parents have hidden him away from the ruins and the catastrophe in a single room, both out of shame and in the belief that his coming into the world and surviving at such a violent moment signifies a sacred future.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919055</amazonuk>
}}