Changes

|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL0008517061|title=Radio Free OlympiaDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Jeffrey DunnStig Abell

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Petr is an orphanFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Rescued by There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the strangefuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, reclusive BearLivia and her daughter Diana, he is brought as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up far from bustling cities his off-grid and busy human society, relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. future she wants for herself and her daughter? After Bear dies and a brief sojourn For the moment they’re enjoying life in human company, the present and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes putting the future on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encountersback burner.

|isbn=16358662431786482126|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing HandbookJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth Elly Griffiths

|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'I quickly apartments - when they discovered that putting words and numbers on the bones of a child beneath a page wasn't enoughdoorway. Creating a pattern that There was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a great deal of trial and error, patience, and perseveranceno skull.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me Was this a knitting pattern for which she'd paid good money. ritual killing or murder? The first line of the instructions began: ''Cast off 100 stitchesInevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson...'' It was clear that no good could come of this - the instructions didn's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't get any better - and (finally) PayPal obliged , that she is pregnant with his child as a refund when result of the seller refused as she couldn't afford the repaymentone night they spent together some three months ago. The pattern looked prettyHer condition will be obvious before long, but the creator didn't have the basic knowledge and skills not least because Ruth is prone to enable her to connect with her knitters. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''sudden bouts of sickness.

|authorisbn=Adam Baron and Benji Davies0008551324|title=Oscar's LionThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to have his mother – approach the police. Neither side likes or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready any respect for schoolthe other. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees Davie Hardie is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, struggling in prison and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat s prepared to tell the police where the bully that ruined body of a birthday party missing person is buried and who was responsible for Oscar the other monthher death. And it can shapeshiftThis person, so he can take it to school promises, is someone big and it can get him out of a problemwill be worth the police doing what he wants. And it's wonderful what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to have around serve the house – not limiting remainder of his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, sentence and so onto get an early parole date. OKNot much to ask, is it can? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful timethink 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.|isbn=0008596751

|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR0008405026|title=Good Girls DieA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Ayura AyiraJane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happenedbed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a very bright studenthalt. Now, her mother, a bit too nerdy if truth be toldHelena, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her father are dead in case it's contagioustheir bed. ItInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and herboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Then he did: Lavender What looked as though it was very good at math going to be an open-and Reggie asked if she would tutor him-shut case is now a complex double murder. She readily agreedKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shockothers (such as Derwent's boss, she even allowed him to give her a lift homeUna Burt) are less convinced.

|authorisbn=V Castro0571379877|title=The Haunting of AlejandraKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet

|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=''This was Edward Jevons is a part of her past that had to stop working-class young man, obsessed with herhis upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. She would be the one to confront this Robert's a theatre director. He'' At some point during her lifes also self-obsessed, demanding, Alejandra lost herselfhandsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. She feels as if she is playing parts for others Edward has been in her life – her husband love with Stanza since their university days - and her children – without ever giving any thought he's drunkenly confided how he feels to her own desires, her own future, her own identityRobert. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to all a relationship had begun between them but Alejandra, there he's not like most men: Edward is a darkness threatening left to consume her. More and more she is visited by a ghost, a weeping woman stumble upon the two of them kissing in a fraying white gown dripping with water, who leaves distress in her wakedark passageway.|isbn=1803365617

|author=Richard KadreyJo Callaghan|title=The Pale House DevilLeave No Trace

|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Ford 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 Neuland are a couple very high profile case that draws a lot ofunwanted 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, wellpotentially, guys for hire I guessout of a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, though really Laura and Anjali met on the way I thought first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them through the book was as inseparable for a couple quarter of strange detectives! a century. One of them Olivia is livingruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you see, aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the other is undead, group and so one of she becomes a GP. When we first meet them kills the living, they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the other kills tragedy or the undeadconsequences. (Only not each other, obviously)Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. TheyThis time, it're on s their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a job city banker in New York that goes badlyyour mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and so they head out to jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the West coast to try to lay low for a while East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and find some other work injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to keep them goingthe London School of Economics. But when Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that appears most rich people expect poor people to be haunting stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family historycard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and this turned into permanent employment as a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!|isbn=1803363894trader.

|authorisbn=Helen Cooper1035021803|title=The Taming of the CatAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case youShe're seeing s back now because of a connectionrequest for help from her beloved aunt, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheesesCarole. AnywayFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, Brie is shunned, scorned dead andthe circumstances seem suspicious, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match to say the other mice he lives withleast. They nibble up paper wrapping from Arthur was the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on reason why Freya had not been back to the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one nightvillage: Arthur, when he she feels all alone and cast out, let her down badly. It's almost Even though they were in business together as if there were another character from fable who had had antique hunters, she has not felt able to tell stories to keep themselves alivebe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. This makes Brie After the top dog split, she worked in the mouse communitya cafe, though, as all met and married James (on the others had rebound from the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat love of her life, who was distractedmurdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010

|isbn=B0CDZRGT1MAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Super Short StoriesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Flash FictionFictions that Disrupt|author=Mark C WallfischBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=''Got a minute Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are shortcome.''

Question: how do I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you review flash fiction? How do you give 're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a flavour few decades of a fully rounded little story if that story is told technology in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to draw out themes me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from all the flash fictions in a book me. Some of them? it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really isnunderstanding whether I't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. Thatm reading someone who knows what they's re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a single page in your average paperbackway I could understand.

|isbnauthor=1732898766Sunny Singh|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Hotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they're running for their lives The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in the Forest of Fine Reputean unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Their greatest fear has come about: Hiding from the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. He's right behind themterrorists who are rampaging through, spewing hotkilling everyone on site, sour milk from his nostrils. (Please don't try this at home: it won't end well.) Fortunatelythere is Sam, they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a ladder of moss wartime photographer and vines was lowered for themAbhi, they escapedthe hotel manager. They climbed up As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the Tree Wee homes high up residents who are still alive in the tangled woods where hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they lived with only ever talk over the phone, their Grand Wees, Nester Nook friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and Granny Crannythey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X

|isbn=14722639361529153298|title=The FigurineList of Suspicious Things|author=Victoria HislopJennie Godfrey

|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She was alone: her mother's not what's worrying Miv's family, Greek by birththough. Women have been disappearing. Well, had left the family home and refused to returnthey've been murdered, but Mary and Hamish (Helenato have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's parents) felt overheard that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip father wants to move the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits'Down South'. She grew to love her grandmother and the familyWhen you's maidre from Yorkshire, DinaDown South is a frightening, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfatherforeign place, retired general Stamatis Papagiannisbest avoided. He was proud of his close connections to For Miv, the Junta move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and expected his family she'll do anything to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate themprevent that. His prejudices included HelenaShe's red hair and green eyes - inherited from not worried about the dangers or that her fatherMum's Scottish ancestorsstopped talking - to anyone.

|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow1398524085|title=VerticalHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ThereCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's something about tall buildings that just captures my imaginationfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Who doesn't love a good view from up high Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, after Etty. are all? Even worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the drabbest office building is somewhere Ibody of Greg'm intrigued s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to get inside if itmake that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intriguedwhat really happened.|isbn= 1803363991

|authorisbn=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold1035906708|title=Finding BearDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, April had been on Bear Islandbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, a lot further north than many people would ventureNew York, in December 1923 and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that only moved to Athens when she called Bearwas thirteen. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the islands Bear was last left onStates. For a bear doing very BearWhen she was back in Athens -y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, supposedly so that she and could get appropriate training for her father return to voice - she was raised under the Arctic Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and hope that in a world made no secret of very white and very dangerous thingsher preference for her elder sister, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continueJackie.|isbn=0008582017

|isbnauthor=1804183210Christopher Edge|title=No Reserve|author=Felix FrancisBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up Lucas and his friends are all booked in for auction, but Peter Radwaya movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the chairmannickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, hadnthey't arrivedre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, so he continued his session. many snacks! To say However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot adventure they couldn'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and respected in the racing industryt even imagine. Jennings was in But as they lurch from one of film genre to the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that next, can they figure. out what on earth is going on? Both were happy that Will they had insurance in place. The following morningever get back to the cinema, the horse was dead in its stall.and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|author=Sarah WilsonRachel Greenlaw|title=This One Wild Compass and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured worldBlade

|genre= LifestyleTeens|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my answer is ''This! Precisely thisheart.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild  Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and precious life plundering the way I want towrecks. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In Mira, like her book that takes Oliver's words as mother before her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges , is one of the source) she pushes us seven who swim out to think about whether we really ''are'' living survey the life we want ruins – the best life rescuing any survivors and any treasure that we could be livinglies within. Her answer is an unequivocal ''noBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, we are notthey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Don't care what you're doingDesperate 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 guide her, she thinks you (wesets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, I) could be doing more…And sheas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's effing furious about territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the fact that we are notfuture of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=17856338480008664730

|isbnauthor=1839948493James Sherwood Metts|title=A World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa UribePlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I'm Things have been a sucker bit sticky for dogsthe Earthlings. In nearly eight decades, I've never met one I didn't trust AI and I've loved most of them. I wish I felt the same about human beings. So, any book about dogsautomation have been proceeding apace, Ioften replacing jobs they'm going re paid to sit down do and devourother tasks that took time to accomplish. Then I'm going Just as they were beginning to get used to go back all this technological change and read it properlystarting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. And so it Life was pretty much shut down and, along with ''A World of Dogs''it, with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself all the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since thenmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|isbnauthor=1405951680Matthew Tree|title=The Safe House|author=Cameron WardWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friend, Rupert) Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to caretake a luxury property in the Australian outback for a couple of months. After the problems she'd had at workbe different from his father, it seemed like just the break she needed. She was no longer a data analyst for the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to the country of her birth drunk and in need chronic underachiever whose dreams of the space to get over the traumatic end of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the ticket.}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Harrison|title=Bad Dolls|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=It's been some time since I've read being exceptional at any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school his artistic passions all failed miserably and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear who had endless crises of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have self confidence. So Tim applied himself to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepyhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with griefset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1803363932B0CVFXPGP8

|isbnauthor=1394159544A G Slatter|title=Recycling for Dummies|author=Sarah WinklerThe Briar Book of the Dead

|genre=LifestyleFantasy|summary=''Recycling one ton There's a part of plastic me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can save up to 16.3 barrels This secret magic of oilmy own, all mine, at last.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut downI just want to enjoy it for a while.'' If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years.

As Within a just-post-WWII babyremote mountain pass, far away from the world, I faced lies Silverton; a dilemma: reducingtown under the protection of the Briar's, reusing a family of witches who protect the town and recycling the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is part of my DNAthe first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. NEVER throw away anything that might When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie''possibly'' come in handy now or in s cousin Audra becomes the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve Briar Witch, the purposetown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Almost everything can be used one more time As challenges come her way left, right and any purchase must pass centre, Ellie uncovers the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On rare ability to communicate with the other handdead, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking putting her at you) and dropping it in the kerbside binheart of a maelstrom of chaos. YesReeling from one family secret to another, I could go searching on the internet - Ellie must decide who to trust and get conflicting advice - but determine what I needed was a recycling bibleto do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.s|isbn=1803364548

|author=Lauren St John|title=Finding Wonder|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169}}{{Frontpage|isbn=14483097431529900360|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)Ghost Orchid|author=Caro RamsayJonathan Kellerman

|summary=In the village of Cronchie 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 West coast help of Scotlanda psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, five members of a wealthy family are found murderedit was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. The only item missing from She knew that the home is the Devil Stone: myth says involvement was something that if the stone is removed from Otterburn Houseman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, death will followthough. The only suspects are known Satanists but Two lovers were murdered in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two the swimming pool of them 'discovered' a remote property in Bel Air. He was the body. The Senior Investigating Office heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in married to an extremely rich man and it'shadow' hims not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?

|authorisbn= Kay Chronister1529395224|title= Desert CreaturesLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating= 43.5|genre= Dystopian FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary= With Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a world GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, postbeing on-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillcall put on his father's life. Whether it is a robotic takeover, When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a world devoid of water or family friend who was a nuclear holocaust, vet and was convinced this genre is a way was the job for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fearshim. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of postt -apocalyptic fiction that aligns as with so many of the fears that exist for humanity todaystudents - been his dream since he was a child. It is If anything, he'd wanted to be a shocking novel that still manages to find hopeprofessional footballer.|isbn=1803364998

|authorisbn=Christopher Fowler0861541774|title=Word MonkeyA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary= ItDCI Domenic Jejeune's the first of August in the middle of close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a cool wet summer short holiday in East Anglia. I decided not Singapore to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hutmeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. The weather closed Maik was involved in, rain arrived, a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and I decided not to do that eitherhe killed a Ghurka. When I finished reading this bookInitially, I realised it was because (he faced a) I wanted charge of manslaughter but evidence came to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want light that suggested that he might have planned to do so anywhere near my shackmurder the man. No spoiler alerts, Now he could be facing the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisdeath penalty. There is something very strange about being made Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to laugh by help as any interference from another police force could provoke a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, diplomatic incident and you know he actually is wouldn't help Danny at that point, because he does. He didall.|isbn=0857529625

|isbnauthor=1529077699Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesPerfect Passion Company

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''It's The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all bloody peculiarthe online apps in providing a more personal, isn't ittailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, Sir?'' Well yes, it as Ness isplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle Katie is coming out of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned break upwith a bad boyfriend, naked and deadso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, in a small boatbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, anchored in Scully Cove close thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the village of GreystoneIsabel Dalhousie novels, in Devonbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Rosco had the status of Katie has no experience in running a national treasure: a renowned adventurerbusiness, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''. I ''nearly'' said 'allor in match-round good egg' making, but as weNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there'll find outs always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, he could be more than to lend a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open book. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?hand…|isbn=1846976596

|isbn=B0CC9W7GLR0811771741|title=On the Beach: The Winter VisitorInstaKnits for Baby|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaMelissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=For SharingCrafts|summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be at home, bored but warmquick knits - others are of the 'long, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab cosy afternoons in front of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinefire' variety. On top of The projects are divided by the ice was a polar beartime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. As All the ice bumped onto the sandprojects are attractive, the bear woke modern and with wobbly legs moved from the iceuseable. Kit was all for making a run for it, I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but Teal knew that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then another's me being picky. He obviously needed to be taken home on the bus and given a good meal and somewhere to sleep. What else would you do?

|author=Claire NorthDean Koontz|title=House of OdysseusThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre= Literary Fiction Paranormal|summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up Benny is having a few months after where we left offterrifically bad day. In the palace of Odysseus He loses his job, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husbandhe loses his fiancee, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned homehis house gets trashed. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically Oh, and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to Ithacahis home, and it's shorespossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Queen Penelope Benny is on the brink of very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a fragile peacenice person. One A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that shatters however with the return delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of OrestesBenny, King and will certainly take care of MycenaeBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and his sister Elektra, seeking refugeHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=03565160751662500491

|isbnauthor=1529427045Adam Stower|title=The Girl in the Eagle's Talons|author=Karin SmirnoffMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=''Life has more Murray is supposed to offer than people - prime numbers for example''. Lisbeth Salander has headed north be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to the small town of Gasskassleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, where the so-far-untapped natural resources whatever takes his fancy next of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forwardtwo. SalanderBut he's niecea bad magician's mother is cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the latest woman in catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the area to have vanished without traceregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. It This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian , to be honest, but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager whohe's unaware of the part Salander played in her fatherturned up and he's death.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249

|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5BB0C47LV1PC|title=The Last Person in the WorldFragility|author=Matthew TreeMosby Woods

|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Our narrator was Can you make a scholarship day boy at ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finns. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder and had money to throw around on a Rolex watchquestion should you make it? Or is the question if you did, vintage wines and a state-of-would it land? The catch is that the-art sound systemanswer for both could well be... Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns had no intention . ''Fragility'' is set as the city of going on to UniversityPortland, unlike our storyteller who had a place at Wolverton College in WellingfordOregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the UK's third most prestigious university. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorset.restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1529431735|title=The House at the End of the WorldWinter Visitor|author=James Henry

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy It's February 1991 and feel that there Essex is no one on your sidebitingly cold, you can either suck it up, saddle up and ride which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a small chain of tiny dots on the map and live out your days in peace and solitudedecade. ThatThe return has come about because he's what Katie thought had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she was doing when she shut down her old life 's ill and hasn't long to start afresh on Jacoblive. It's Ladder; and all would have been the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrockhard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, the neighbouring island stripped to his underwear and perpetrating all manner of mischief sent to a watery grave in the name boot of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankinda stolen Ford Sierra.|isbn=1662453159 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?

|author=T KingfisherAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Thornhedge|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=''You had a right to retake your place.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known and well beloved. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby and secreted away to the land The Glorious Race of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how to draw magic from her veins and cast spells.|isbn=1803364238}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F WalkerMagical Beasts

|genre=Short StoriesConfident Readers|summary= This Eli is Richard F Walker's second volume of short storiesa busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. There are thirteen Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in all and I took something from each of themthe family. There isn A few short years ago, Eli't s parents were both lost to the titular race, a single one that doesn't deserve globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to be among navigate the others or brings down world in the overall qualitycompany of a magical beast. It can be tricky This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to review short stories without giving too much awayenter what he most hates, so I'll just pick two with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to talk about and I think they give a general flavourpossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231