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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author= Kay ChronisterSylvie Cathrall|title= Desert CreaturesA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating= 45|genre= Dystopian Science Fiction|summary= With There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillcompelling premise. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, And this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work one of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hopethem.|isbn=18033649980356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Fowler0008517061|title=Word MonkeyDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary= It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East AngliaFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. I decided not to swim at There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the pool in favour future of going to my beach hut. The weather closed inhis life with his vet girlfriend, rain arrivedLivia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and I decided not relaxing life to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted move in with Livia or does Livia move to finish reading Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this book is the future she wants for herself and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. her daughter? No spoiler alerts, For the moment they’re enjoying life in the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – present and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisputting the future on the back burner. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.|isbn=0857529625
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15290776991786482126|title=The Raging Storm Janus Stone (Two RiversDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Ann CleevesElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in apartments - when they discovered the middle bones of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in child beneath a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devondoorway. There was no skull. Rosco had the status of Was this a national treasure: a renowned adventurerritual killing or murder? Inevitably, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good eggIt' s difficult as Ruth knows, but as weNelson doesn'll find outt, he could be more than a little bit close that she is pregnant with money and his background isn't exactly an open bookchild as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CC9W7GLR0008551324|title=On the Beach: The Winter VisitorDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to be at home, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto approach the shorelinepolice. On top of Neither side likes or has any respect for the ice was a polar bearother. As But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the ice bumped onto police where the sand, the bear woke body of a missing person is buried and with wobbly legs moved from the icewho was responsible for her death. Kit was all for making a run for This person, he promises, is someone big and it, but Teal knew that will be worth the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then anotherpolice doing what he wants. He obviously needed And what he wants is to be taken home on transferred to an open prison to serve the bus and given a good meal remainder of his sentence and somewhere to sleepget an early parole date. What else would you Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do?the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North0008405026|title=House of OdysseusA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction Crime|summary= It''What could matter more than love?'' The follows sixteen years since nine-year-up old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left offhalt. In the palace of Odysseus Now, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husbandmother, Helena, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned homeher father are dead in their bed. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the throne positioning of the Western Islesbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Having survived – politically What looked as though it was going to be an open-and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope -shut case is on the brink of now a fragile peacecomplex double murder. One Kerrigan is convinced that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektraexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, seeking refugeUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=0356516075
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270450571379877|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsKellerby Code|author=Karin SmirnoffJonny Sweet|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He'Life has more s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to offer than people - prime numbers run errands for example''. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rushhim. The criminal underworld Edward has not been slow in coming forward. Salander's niecelove with Stanza since their university days - and he's mother is the latest woman in the area drunkenly confided how he feels to have vanished without traceRobert. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her nieceMost men in Robert's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager whorelationship had begun between them but he's unaware not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of the part Salander played them kissing in her father's deatha dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CCCPJJ5BJo Callaghan|title=The Last Person in the World|author=Matthew TreeLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?
|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1399613073
|title=Moral Injuries
|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day boy at the London-based public of medical school where he met Ralph Finnsand their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a boarder and had money bonus when you aim to throw around on be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Rolex watch, vintage wines Laura is a perfectionist and a state-trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of-the-art sound systemgroup and she becomes a GP. Both were probably quite surprised when When we first meet them they became almost friends 're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and certainly more than acquaintancesit's going to end in tragedy. Finns had no intention of going on to University, unlike our storyteller We don't know who had a place at Wolverton College in Wellingfordsuffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, the UKit's third most prestigious university. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsettheir teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0241636604|title=The House at the End of the WorldTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=When If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you experience overwhelming tragedy 're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and feel that there his background is no one on your sidethe East End, you can either suck it upwhere he was familiar with violence, saddle up poverty and ride injustice. There was no posh public school on or you his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can retreat only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to your own private fortress on be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an island that sits snugly in internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a small chain of tiny dots on trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the map and live out your days in peace and solitudeEnglish country village where she grew up. ThatShe's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down back now because of a request for help from her old life to start afresh on Jacobbeloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's Ladder; close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and all would have the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the aforementioned peace and solitude village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were it in business together as antique hunters, she has not for felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the pesky US Government occupying Ringrocksplit, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in rebound from the name love of science her life, who was murdered) and Freya and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankindJames have now divorced.|isbn=1662453159
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T KingfisherAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=ThornhedgeAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary=''You had a right Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to retake your placecome.''
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B0CCCVRSGXSunny Singh|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F WalkerHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Short StoriesThrillers |summary= This The Hotel Arcadia is Richard F Walker's second volume of short storiesa luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. There Hiding from the terrorists who are thirteen in all rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and I took something from each of themAbhi, the hotel manager. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve As Abhi continues to try to be among care remotely for the others or brings down residents who are still alive in the overall quality. It can hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be tricky cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to review short stories without giving too much awaycapture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, so I'll just pick two their friendship grows as Abhi tries to talk about help her keep safe and I think they give a general flavourboth wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876366071529153298|title=The TrapList of Suspicious Things|author=Catherine Ryan HowardJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get homeWomen have been disappearing. Some are lucky and manage Well, they've been murdered, but to get one of the few taxis availablehave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Others squash onto the night bus Miv's upset because she's overheard that will only go as far as one of her father wants to move the outlying villagesfamily 'Down South'. The woman all regret the 'taxi problemWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, particularly in the light of 'the missing women'best avoided. For one young womanMiv, the final stop on the bus leaves move would mean leaving her a long way short of her homebest friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had not worried about the chance to beg the bus driver to let dangers or that her use his. ThereMum's no option but stopped talking - to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoesanyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14059571741398524085|title=A Death at the PartyHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Amy StuartNicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine WalshCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party will not end wellbut never turned up. The victim Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - a man strangely - her husband, Alec, is dying when we first meet him not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the ambulance he so desperately needsriver. What we donIt was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't know is who stand the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him dieguilt. IThe Salter children are not convinced but there'd better give you a s little more background so that you else they can understand do but get on with their lives and wonder about what's happeningreally happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1035906708|title=Nowhere IslandDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet GilLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. Just twelveAll big movie fans, he is so determined they're looking forward to escape lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the care system – the system movie starts, they very quickly realise that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself. He something about this new film format is en route to yet another fosterervery different, when he jumps and they are swept up into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his futureadventure they couldn't even imagine. That future seems But as they lurch from one film genre to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on an island between ? Will they ever get back to the two directions of a motorwaycinema, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, 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…real lives?|isbn=18045400801839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008530025Rachel Greenlaw|title=Murder in the Family|author=Cara HunterCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found ''I can hear the body song of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden of their West London homesea. He had an injury on the back The call of his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down the steps but deep, the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberateanswering beat in my heart. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it's now the subject of ''Infamous'' Rosevear, a true-crime showremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. A group Mira, like her mother before her, is one of experts has been brought together the seven who swim out to review survey the evidence ruins – rescuing any survivors and to take any treasure that lies within. But when the investigation further. More Council Watch lays a trap to end the pointwrecking, theycapture the island're going s leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to do this live on cameraguide her, episode by episodeshe sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. There's no dump 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 whole box set - and no shortage heart of cliffhangers. Itthe smuggler's compelling viewingterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Stolen SongbirdPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Caro's mother, Things have been a world-famous whistlerbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, has failed often replacing jobs they're paid to return home from her recent work trip abroad do and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North tasks that took time to take care of her sister who is unwellaccomplish. So who is going Just as they were beginning to look after Caro? Sent get used to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated all this technological change and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans starting to think of building herself some equipment other, new ways to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's housespend time, along with came an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there tooawful pandemic. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryLife was pretty much shut down and, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcasealong with it, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=05713631481736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529195977Matthew Tree|title=None of this is True|author=Lisa JewellWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=On her 45th birthdayTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fair. She, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out that not only are Alix drunk 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 in the midst chronic underachiever whose dreams of a joyful, monied group being exceptional at any of friends his artistic passions all failed miserably and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdy, they're enjoying themselveswho had endless crises of self confidence. JosieSo Tim applied himself to his studies, on the other hand, holds her handbag close to her tummy cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and you get the sense that Walter's not too happy. He's not used to spending this much money on a meal - set himself high but it is Josie's birthday after allachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18031363831529900360|title=Tin SoldiersThe Ghost Orchid|author=David ChadwickJonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in Vietnam under something the swimming pool of a cloudremote property in Bel Air. What actually happened out there is gossiped about He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and nobody she is sure exactly what took place, but married to an act of heroism leading to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice extremely rich man and disgrace seems to be it's not the consensus. Wat himself is keeping his cards close to his chest, as he always doesItalian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B1529395224|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=A J LewisSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful SwallowsSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Idyllic as this might sound, it's His father was a bordello GP and EttoreRowlands didn's mother died t want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he was born. He's not been short of mothers, though considered the strain that being on- but for someone of call put on his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, itfather's difficult to obtain decent employmentlife. The stint working with When he was seventeen he took the preparation opportunity of anchovies didn't doing work out experience with a family friend who was a vet and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boatswas convinced this was the job for him. Ettore Before long, he was nothing if not resourceful at Liverpool University. It hadn't - and determined as with so many students - and it been his dream since he was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitorschild. He was even saving some moneyIf anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0861541774|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies A Nye of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{FrontpagePheasants|author=Jamie Littler|title=ArkspireSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Two sisters, Juniper DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and Elodieformer colleague, born fifteen minutes apartDanny Maik, are growing has taken a short holiday in Singapore to be chalk and cheesemeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Juniper is an eager hunter Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlandshe killed a Ghurka. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts Initially, he faced a charge of Arkspire, perhaps even manslaughter but evidence came to become the child in line light that suggested that he might have planned to inherit the power of murder the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warman. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of Now he could be facing the whole familydeath penalty. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de MoraesAlexander McCall Smith|title=Old Gods New TricksThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapesThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, larks run by Ness and adventures involving flooding operating as an alternative to all the school aircon with fart powderonline apps in providing a more personal, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisancetailored service. But just when Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteachercould come and look after the business, the world changesas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-Katie is coming out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phonesa break up with a bad boyfriend, and all that powers so jumps at the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from uschance to come home to Edinburgh. And so she begins her epic questthis new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters from myth that have past form who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in stealing from the Godsrunning a business, ie the semior in match-deitiesmaking, giantsbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=178845295X1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alexia Casale0811771741|title=Sing if you Can't DanceInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=ItMelissa Leapman's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate 'InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle collection of a dance performance that was going knits from toys to change her lifeblankets. But she comes back fightingSome will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, desperate to avoid cosy afternoons in front of the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life thatfire's as normal as she can possibly managevariety. Meanwhile thereThe projects are divided by the time they's a new (cute!) boy in schoolll take to complete - less than five hours, her music A Level performance piece five to try ten hours, ten to sort outtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and just the dayuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-tomedia-day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigateworthy projects' but that's me being picky. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801
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{{Frontpage
|author=Helen PetersDean Koontz|title=Friends and TraitorsThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=EnglandBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, WW2he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Two young girls are new at Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the country pile called Stanbrook. thing that has trashed his house! One The thing is Nancy, destined Benny is the very last person to be in service deserve all her life it seems, like the female generations before herthis bad luck. The other He is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathsnice person. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it soA really nice person. But something So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is amissa new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a rum 'ungood person. Midnight deliveries are received under cover Spike is going to take care of secrecyBenny, talk is made and will certainly take care of meetings with GermansBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and not only that, Harper (a local Spitfire factory has been attackedwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=17880046471662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241996104Adam Stower|title=Coming to Find You|author=Jane CorryMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers |summary=Nancy's mother Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse sleep and her step-brother, Martinwell, has been convicted whatever takes his fancy next of their murder. We first meet Nancy outside the court, after Martin receives a life sentencetwo. The barrister tells her that sheBut he's received a 'silent sentence' - shebad magician's not cat, so his favourite bun has been found guilty of anything but will have to live with what happened for the rest of her life. Of courseturned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother - and the papers are making catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the most regular back garden, but into a world of itfrightening adventure and whiffs. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one favourite epithet much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he''rich bitch'' might not be printed but is undoubtedly spoken.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529413680B0C47LV1PC|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)Fragility|author=Martin WalkerMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and BrunoCan you make a ''Yo birthing person's there to see the show with some friends. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelinjoke? And if you could, is the man playing one of question should you make it? Or is the main characters question if you did, would it land? The catch is seriously injured when he departs from that the scriptanswer for both could well be.... no. Luckily, his doctor ''Fragility'' is there and set as the man is whisked away in a helicopter. A local doctor (and friend city of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as he's a senior government employeePortland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the man who runs Frenchelon - restrictions imposed during the military has stepped in. One daughter lives nearby and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holiday.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291963881529431735|title=The TrialWinter Visitor|author=Rob RinderJames Henry|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Grant Cliveden was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good and honest It's February 1991 and looked up to by just about everyoneEssex is bitingly cold, so there was public uproar when he was murdered in plain sight at which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the Old Baileymore surprising. ThereHe's just one man in d been exiled on the frame Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his murder ex- Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in courtwife, charged with Clivedensaying that she's murder. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers ill and ithasn's Taylor-Cameron and his pupil, Adam Green, who eventually represent himt long to live. KnightIt's determined hard to plead not guiltyfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the contraryboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Essie FoxAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The FascinationGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= The Victorian era Eli is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, busy lad – by the Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of media set day an apprentice in the era that the hallmarks wondrous library we've come to associate start by visiting with it are familiar to him, and in the evening a helper at the point of being cliched, hackneyed evendessert cafe his gran owns and runs. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite that Eli lives with his lovely gran, something about it still grabs me too – and something about this book's description did as well.|isbn=1914585526}}{{Frontpage|author=Andrew Cartmel|title=Death for there is a generation missing in Fine Condition|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and in particular a series called Sleuth Houndthe family. She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profitA few short years ago, sometimes Eli'tweaking' thems parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to add value, navigate the world in somewhat fraudulent waysthe company of a magical beast. One day she discovers This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them in bad incident at the background of eatery leads to a photograph on her drug dealer's living room wallconfession from gran, and so she sets about discovering where this collection Eli knows his only hope isto dare to enter what he most hates, and how she can steal it! It's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when with the sole aim the owner prize of magic at the end – the collection comes looking for their books?only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=17890989470571382231
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