|summary=The town of Port Bonita, located on the Pacific coast of Washington State, is the setting – and almost a character itself, such is its importance – of Jonathan Evison’s newest novel. In a massively ambitious narrative, we start at the Elwha River Dam in 2006, before just two pages later being transported back into the 1880’s, to see the town’s founding. A hundred pages or so later, we’re brought back to the 21st century, then returned to the 19th, and the cuts between scenes get faster and more furious as we seem to flip forwards and backwards in time without giving us much time to catch our breath. By 2006, the Dam is about to be destroyed, and we see the effect its construction has had on the local community and how the descendants of the original characters have turned out.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780331967</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ben Pastor
|title=Liar Moon
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Near Verona, northern Italy, autumn 1943: Captain Martin Bora is a German military policeman, known to have conducted previous murder investigations. He is asked to look into the death of one Vittorio Lisi, a prominent local fascist who was run over in his wheelchair on his own estate by a car. The number one suspect is his widow Claretta.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904738826</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert Swindells
|title=A Skull in Shadows Lane
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The war has ended but life is still pretty dour Josh and Jinty. Rationing is still in place and it's difficult to get enough to eat, let alone anything that's nice to eat. Most of the Yanks have gone home. And they're about to head into one of the coldest winters on record. Kicking around looking for some excitement, the siblings decide to explore the deserted cottage in Shadows Lane. Even though rumours say the house is haunted, they don't really expect to find anything. So the discovery of a human tooth in lane is rather more than they had bargained for. And when a skeletal face appears at the window, they hot foot it just as quickly as they can...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552564095</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dennis O'Donnell
|title=The Locked Ward
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Dennis O’Donnell spent 7 years working in a Scottish hospital and this is the account of his time there. It takes a special type of person to work in Mental Health services, and though O'Donnell ultimately leaves the Locked Ward, he clearly is one of those people, made all the more remarkable by the fact that this wasn’t his life long vocation, having previously worked as a school teacher (some might say an equally challenging role).
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093606</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael J Sullivan
|title=Theft of Swords
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=The central characters, Royce Melborn and Hadrian Blackwater are the Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid of fantasy. Royce is a dour thief and Hadrian an agile, soft-hearted mercenary, both of whom can be hired if the price is right or if their curiosity is piqued sufficiently. Both books in this volume begin with the same simple intention – to steal a sword from a tower. Different swords and different towers but they both go horribly wrong. Now this is where it gets difficult. I don’t want to give away spoilers so there won’t be much in the way of plot explanation in this review. Let’s just say that they’re framed for a royal murder and become more deeply embroiled in the far reaching consequences as the volume goes on, collecting companions en route.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>035650106X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
|title=The Future of Us
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's 1996 and Emma has just got a brand new computer and when her friend Josh gives her a free AOL CD he got in the mail, she looks forward to having an internet connection. However, she gets a lot more than she bargained for when the CD inexplicably gives her access to a website that appears to show her snippets of what is going on in her life, and that of her friends and family fifteen years into the future. The website's name? You guessed it: Facebook.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857076078</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler
|title=The Question Book
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=
Most of us have probably made at least one of those end-of-the-year lists of the best books, albums and parties we have been to in the previous twelve months. But can you, with some effort, locate the one you made in 1987? Have you ever constructed a graph of your ups and downs in a given period, and then decided to expand it by separating emotional, intellectual, sexual and financial aspects and colour coding them? Have you made a list of all your lovers, bosses or friends and then rated them from 1 to 10 on several dimensions each? Do you have one of the books that list ''100 things to do before you die'' or ''500 books to read in your life'' (and ticked off the ones you have done)? Did you ever spend a whole evening and half of a night filling in dubious 'personality' questionnaires on the Internet? Have you ever doodled something, decided that it beautifully expresses the deepest essence of your personality and then proceeded to draw such icons for all your friends?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685389</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Janette Jenkins
|title=Little Bones
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=While this might sound like the afterlife of a brilliant and unlikely cabaret mimic, it's not. It's a rich, evocative and engaging novel set in the last years of Victoria's reign, in the depths of her darkest London. Fate - and being abandoned by, in turn, her mother and older sister - leaves Jane Stretch living with and working for a doctor and his lumpen, housebound wife. Jane is alternatively called an 'unfortunate' and a 'cripple' for her disabilities and distorted frame, but she has enough bookish intelligence to pass herself off as an assistant to the doctor, who only ever does one operation - abortions, for music hall artistes. The plot is evidently gearing up to reveal how dangerous such a criminal business might be, for the both of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118194X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Christie Watson
|title=Tiny Sunbirds Far Away
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Tiny Sunbirds Far Away'' starts in Lagos but soon moves to the rural, oil producing Niger Delta. This allows Christie Watson's young narrator, 12 year old Blessing, to view the traditional ways afresh. It's a clever device and young Blessing is shocked by the rural conditions after a relatively luxurious life in Lagos with a good school and a modern apartment. But when her mother discovers her father on top of another woman, she takes Blessing and her older brother, the asthmatic Ezikiel, back to her family home.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163758</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Deirdre Madden
|title=Snakes' Elbows
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Barney Barrington, the millionaire pianist, is returning to live in his home town of Woodford, but the current local millionaire, Jasper Jellit, doesn't like it one little bit. Jasper revels in parading around town as the most extravagant millionaire, throwing ridiculous parties to show off his riches, and he resents the entrance of a competitor to the town. Barney, however, lives a quiet, reclusive life and wants no part in Jasper's shenanigans. But when a rare, beautiful painting comes up for sale they both decide they want it. Jasper, much like a spoilt child, will stop at nothing to get his way, but he may have a fight on his hands since there are a few animals who intend to save the day...!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057127336X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karen McCombie
|title=You Me and Thing: The Dreaded Noodle-doodles
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We first met Thing in [[You, Me and Thing: The Curse of the Jelly Babies by Karen McCombie|You, Me and Thing: The Curse of the Jelly Babies]] where he caused rather a lot of chaos with a large number of jelly babies. He's back again, and this time he really, really wants to go to school with Ruby and Jackson... it can only end in disaster!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571272592</amazonuk>
}}