Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|author=Tori BovalinoTom Percival|title=The Devil Makes ThreeWrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary= Working all summer in her boarding schoolWill's library life is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets difficult, in a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herselfmultitude of ways. What makes it worse He is bullied because he has 'the man who requested wrong shoes', he has the books: Mr Birch. The boarding schoolwrong shoes because his dad can's headmaster, t work and a man Tess hates. As a petty act doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of revenge for making her find things like food, and deliver such his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a large request, Tess sticks postcash-in-it notes hand job on each of a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the booksfact that his mum and dad are separated, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think ofand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. They're never meant to reach him And yet, he still has a tiny amount of coursehope. Her plan He is good at art, and clings to get her anger out the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like thisa light at the end of a long, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for herdark tunnel.|isbn=17890981301398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09BG8V3Q6Sylvie Cathrall|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary= ''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!'' is the latest release in the ''Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Avery. This series of fun picture books aims There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to take the pain out of potty training children and replace it with some fun. It's a worthy aim, as any frustrated parent will tell youcompelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B098FFFBH90008517061|title=SnowcubDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Graham FulbrightStig Abell|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal worldFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. She gets There’s perhaps a great deal little uncertainty about the future of support from his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her family: father Pip Harrisondaughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her twin, Nick. daughter? Kate runs For the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia moment they’re enjoying life in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toysthe present and putting the future on the back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Angharad Walker1786482126|title= The Ash HouseJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersCrime|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he is used to Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the system, used site was going to different places and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the rules bones of The Ash Housea child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. These rules centre on Was this a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmasterritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores It's difficult as Ruth knows, working but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered by the arrival result of the Doctorone night they spent together some three months ago. By the end of the story, lives Her condition will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be the same againobvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1912626977
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Yancey Williams0008551324|title=Crosshairs of the The DevilYou Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from EddieIt's point of view - in room 315 of unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, police. Neither side likes or has any respect for palatable companythe other. Nothing But Davie Hardie is going to keep Eddie from his stock-struggling in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his lifeprison and he's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|author=Philip Reeve|title=Utterly Dark and prepared to tell the police where the Face body of the Deep|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=In a word, rich. There missing person is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scilliesburied and who was responsible for her death. There are troll people on it This person, and sea-witcheshe promises, is someone big and legends of it will be worth the Dark family that has police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are serve the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes remainder of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitionsask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and Andreweshe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of even prepared to do the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or notanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1788452372
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Erling Kagge0008405026|title=Walking: One Step At A TimeStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre= LifestyleCrime|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turnedhalt. Now, her mother, Helena, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mineand her father are dead in their bed. In my defence Initially, I will say that as it looks like a reader of this type of book straightforward murder/suicide but there is 's something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why). Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to positioning of the South Pole, the North Pole bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and the summit of Everesther boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. He knows a thing or two about walking. However, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, What looked as though it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means was going to walk. It be an open-and-shut case is now a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walkingcomplex double murder. There Kerrigan is no convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie'contents' page and I havens disappearance: others (such as Derwent't counted. In small format paperbacks boss, each essay is only a few pages longUna Burt) are less convinced. Perhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|isbn=0241357705
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ian Mark and Louis Ghibault0571379877|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quickEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, for he's a slight boyobsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out of his sightStanza. That Robert's because Jacka theatre director. He's mother knew all about monstersalso self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and look what happened entitled and uses Edward to her – she diedrun errands for him. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the ogre's death, a dwarfish wizard Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days -type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll be given a book that tells him all s drunkenly confided how he needs feels to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact withRobert. The book Most men in Robert's name? position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he''Monster Hunting for Beginners''..s not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=0755501942
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Keith GrayJo Callaghan|title=The ClimbersLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Sully When a man is found crucified on the best tree climber top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the villagecase alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. He has what It's known amongst the kids as 'reach'their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But what happens when there is a second body found crucified a new kid shows up in town? A new kidfew days later, called Nottingham, who clambers up some of the hardest trees Kat is suddenly struggling with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatened, a potential serial killer and not only a very high profile case that, that his chance draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to name solve the finalcase in time, unnamed big tree in or will Kat find herself taken off the park by being the first to conquer itcase and, might be snatched from his hands. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friendpotentially, or maybe even all out of his friends, to do soa career?|isbn=1781129991139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emma Carroll1399613073|title=The Week at World's EndMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=FirstOlivia, Laura and Anjali met on the titlefirst day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. We're in World's End Close Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie bonus when you aim to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and with a trauma doctor. Anjali is the boy over free spirit of the roadgroup and she becomes a GP. But When we could also be first meet them they're at Worlda drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's End, because something taking a great chunk of going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the fun away is tragedy or the fact consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore, and not much else is able to make the news. That said, Vie has news of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shedthree friends. Anna has, in no short This time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said sheit'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed to leave, and implied her life was at risks their teenage children who are involved. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=0571364438
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston0241636604|title=Julia and the SharkThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=JuliaIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, our preyou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-teen heroinestripe suit and his background is the East End, has been packed off where he was familiar with her parents violence, poverty and their cat from the family home in SW England injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE London School of the Scottish islandsEconomics. Here be Vikings, that kind Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of Scottish islandus can only envy. Dad is going He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be automating the lanternstupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland sharkgot him an internship with Citibank. And JuliaEventually, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one nightthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1510107789
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Freya Sampson1035021803|title=The Last LibraryAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to start a story about a library, since I am a librarianthe English country village where she grew up. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought She's back now because of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put request for help from her hair in a bunbeloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett)Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didn't immediately throw circumstances seem suspicious, to say the book out of least. Arthur was the window, because I found I was interested in June, and reason why she lived as she did. Her mum used Freya had not been back to be a librarian at the village library: Arthur, but when she got sickfeels, June gave up on going to University and stayed at home to take care of let her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local librarydown badly. And even Even though her mum sadly died some years agothey were in business together as antique hunters, she is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum's old bookshas not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. June is stuck After the split, but little does she knowworked in a cafe, everything in met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life is about the change, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=183877369X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008370982AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Rock Paper ScissorsAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Alice FeeneyBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home said that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the ideatechnology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Like AmeliaWell, he knows I must confess that their marriage has there have been under strain: hemore than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I's a screenwriter and heve kept up reasonably well with what's never shy of making it clear advantageous to Amelia that heme but I'd prefer to spend time m left with the novels hefeeling that it's hoping to adapt than with herall getting away from me. Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with the dogs, many Some of whom have been abused, it is never easy- frankly - quite frightening. Still - she's won Of course, I could research the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in possibilities and the passenger seat - probabilities and then doing end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the same thing to come back latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a couple of days laterway I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Doug JohnstoneSunny Singh|title=The Great SilenceHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk The Hotel Arcadia is a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a good job of bringing terrorist group. Hiding from the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creatureterrorists who are rampaging through, though it sounds as though it ought to bekilling everyone on site, it there is merely the surname of Sam, a family of undertakers. Undertakers wartime photographer and private investigatorsAbhi, the hotel manager. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, she married a scot and ended up helping As Abhi continues to try to run care remotely for the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been residents who are still alive in the family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved hotel, he forms a bond with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish Sam who refuses to be cowed by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jennyevents, 46, is haunted by and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisonerphotography. And grand-daughter is about Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to graduate with a first-class physics degree help her keep safe and join they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the academic staff next termterrorists.|isbn=1913193837086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19015149781529153298|title=There's a Problem With DadThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Carlos AlbaJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is different for George Lovelace and he can't really understand whyPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) HeShe's not what's always done everything he ought to: steady workerworrying Miv's family, husband and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports daysthough. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him? Women have been disappearing. Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such a Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'gooddisappeared'doesn' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make t sound quite so many breath-taking gaffes? frightening. ItMiv's upset because she's almost become a cliche these days overheard that her father wants to suggest that someone who move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a little different is frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'on the spectrumll do anything to prevent that. She', but George Lovelace has all s not worried about the symptoms of Aspergerdangers or that her Mum's Syndrome: highstopped talking -functioning autismto anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louise Candlish1398524085|title=The HeightsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Ellen doesnCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband't expect to see Kieran that days fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. She Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's on sitefather, Duncan Ackerley, visiting a client in the river. It was an easy assumption for a lighting consultation the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when she spies him in a building across he couldn't stand the wayguilt. There The Salter children are lots of things, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, not convinced but this isnthere't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, s little else they can do but get on with their lives and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murderwonder about what really happened.|isbn=1471183483
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084217141035906708|title=Mrs MarchDiva|author=Virginia FeitoDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=The problem began just after the publication We tend to think of George March's most successful novel Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to dateAthens when she was thirteen. Everyone Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed father changed it to 'Callas' to either be reading make it or had already done somore manageable in the States. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this raised under the first time he's based Nazi occupation by a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except preference for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a weakher elder sister, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchJackie.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=John BoyneChristopher Edge|title=The Echo ChamberBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when Lucas and his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who friends are all booked in for a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoevermovie marathon at their local cinema, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signallingplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants they're looking forward to save the world's homeless with out-lots of-date foodexciting films, and a fit young lad doing many, many snacks! However, as the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapistsmovie starts, lawyers, random transgender types – they very quickly realise that all have two something about this new film format is very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests they are swept up into an almost farcical approach adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, howevernext, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the fact this is bloody funny.cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=08575262191839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241989094Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Perfect Life|author=Nuala EllwoodCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling 'I can hear the song of the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclaysea. The boys are a bit call of a handful which is why shethe deep, the answering beat in my heart.''s making this trip on her own. The house would be perfect for them.
It's Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the same month but now we're in Wimbledon ruins – rescuing any survivors and we encounter any treasure that lies within. But when the same young womanCouncil Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, only this time shethey capture the island's job hunting leader and living in her sister, GeorgieMira'sfather. Desperate to save him from death, spare roomMira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, where shesets 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, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's been since territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she broke up with her boyfriend, Connorholds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanJames Sherwood Metts|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=SoThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. Having done the impossible AI and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Cryptautomation have been proceeding apace, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has ''grop'often replacing jobs they' re paid to think about. But before do and other tasks that, soireestook time to accomplish. Soirees! ArchieJust as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, much new ways to Inez's amusementspend time, doesn't even know what one of those isalong came an awful pandemic. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathedLife was pretty much shut down and, even after an uncomfortable encounter along with Kurtisit, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in all the first volume of this seriesmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. |isbn=B093J9TF731736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B07GZ81J7CMatthew Tree|title=When Fred the Snake Got Squished and Mended|author=Peter CottonWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet FredTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. WellSo Tim applied himself to his studies, actually, youcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=A G Slatter|title=The Briar Book of the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary='' There're going s a part of me that wants to be meeting Fred-Fred keep this just to myself for reasons which will become however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all too obvious very quicklymine, at last. But Ijust want to enjoy it for a while.'m getting ahead ' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of myself: Ithe Briar'd better tell you s, a bit more about Fredfamily of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Fred Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is a snake the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes are going to warm to him. He arrived as such since she was young, her training as a present in a box with holes so that he could breathe steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and immediately became part of potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the familytown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for dead, putting her at the heart of a walkmaelstrom of chaos. And that was where Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the problem started. Fred didnBriar witches't legacy, everything they have any road sense. Or brakessacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova1529900360|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isnhadn'tbeen Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, as any parent will tell youSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. But really, why shouldn 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 be? We all have to learn about our bodily functions just as we have to learn about everything else when we are small. Why shouldnwas Robin, Delaware't potty training be as much fun ass partner, saywho 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, learning about why though. Two lovers were murdered in the sun swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the moon take turns in Italian. But which of them was the skyprimary target? |isbn= B098BJZYHH
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876344931529395224|title=All Her FaultLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Andrea MaraSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happenSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, Milo, to go on His father was a play date. She was concerned that he GP and Rowlands didn't have any friends at his new school. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School want to follow in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little later. What could be better? Onlyfootsteps, particularly when Marissa arrived at he considered the house, expecting to meet Jacobstrain that being on-call put on his father's mother, Jenny, life. When he was seventeen he took the door opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was answered by Estherconvinced this was the job for him. Before long, who didn't know Jenny or Jacobhe was at Liverpool University. The phone number sheIt hadn'd t - as with so many students - been given for Jenny his dream since he was not recogniseda child. Milo had disappeared. And so had JennyIf anything, he's nannyd wanted to be a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North0861541774|title=Notes from the Burning AgeA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=At its core DCI Domenic Jejeune''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a spy thriller, short holiday in Singapore to meet up with as many double crossesan old ally, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or FlemingGuy Trueman. However, as Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with the best novels, it wears many masks a knife - and its most affecting one is that of he killed a new and timely genreGhurka. Initially, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells he faced a charge of a world devastated by climate change where humans manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have been forced planned to start anew and live alongside nature without any of murder the man. Now he could be facing the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming)death penalty. There is Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, diplomatic incident and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earthwouldn't help Danny at all.|isbn=0356514757
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)Alexander McCall Smith|title=Girls Who LieThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the dark corners of Iceland have featured online apps in their noirish thrillers and crime books before nowproviding a more personal, tailored service. You think, seeing on the map that we're set in Akranes, Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and finding it's only twenty kilometres from look after the capital citybusiness, that this author as Ness is clutching at the few final straws left. However just because the book aims planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for the usual small-town feel, it's not just in Akranes that our interests liea while. Six months ago Katie is coming out of a woman failed to turn break up for her date eveningwith a bad boyfriend, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not so jumps at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the girl back, and a couple of delighted adopterschance to come home to Edinburgh. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a suddenAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, in one placebringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the woman's car was found miles away Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a second placebusiness, and now, after six monthsor in match-making, the body but Ness has been discovered, full confidence in a thirdher abilities, even more remote place. Meanwhileand there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depressionWilliam, and very little maternal feeling in her body. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?lend a hand…|isbn=191319373X1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0925KS87N0811771741|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)InstaKnits for Baby|author=Neil LancasterMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=Tam Hardie had been determined Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to find blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the grave - and it took some finding - 'long, cosy afternoons in an overgrown old cemeteryfront of the fire' variety. It was a strange thing for ScotlandThe projects are divided by the time they's premier criminal ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to doten hours, but Tam was getting old ten to twenty hours and there were things he wanted to domore than twenty hours. OnlyAll the projects are attractive, his family didn't hear from him again after he'd said that hemodern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'd found the grave social- the one which said that it shouldn't be opened media- and his three sons began to worry. Tam Junior, Frankie and Dave wouldnworthy projects't normally go to the police but they werenthat't certain where their father had been and they were worrieds me being picky.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Emily CritchleyDean Koontz|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the author's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}} {{Frontpage|author=Sarah Langan|title=Good NeighboursBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary= If you're of Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a certain vintagereally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's hard to read possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a sing-song ''thing that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Maple Street He is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbsnice person. A really nice person. They're one of 18 households on So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the crescentdelivery to his house is a new friend, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rockerbad weather friend called Spike, she's who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled ingood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and itwill certainly take care of Benny's all going ok. Until it isn't. One hotenemies, clammyif he, sticky, sweaty summerBenny, and Harper (a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. Itwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a revolting mess of dirt and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to comewild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=17890982111662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lisa ThompsonAdam Stower|title=The Small ThingsMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Although Anna has friends at school, she feels like she never really fits in. Her family don't have enough money Murray is supposed to let her do after school activitiesbe a humble, tidy and so she feels like her life at home friendly cat, one who is boring in comparison able to theirs. When a new girl joins her classsleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Anna is asked to partner herwell, but things are complicated because whatever takes his fancy next of the new girltwo. But he's a bad magician's cat, Ellieso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, is unwell and so the catflap they both use can't attend school in person. Insteadchuck them out, she joins in with not into the class by using regular back garden, but into a robotworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. Can Anna overcome the challenge of making friends with someone through This time round it drops them into a robotViking land, and where a troll hunter is she even interesting enough expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be a good friend honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to Ellie?do…|isbn=17811296490008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388B0C47LV1PC|title=We Need to Talk About MoneyFragility|author=Otegha UwagbaMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is to that the answer for both could well be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a womanno.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
Otegha Uwagba came to ''Fragility'' is set as the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came firstcity of Portland, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-workingOregon, principled and determined that their children would have cautiously begins to emerge from the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten restrictions imposed during the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.covid pandemic
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876318691529431735|title=The Rising TideWinter Visitor|author=Sam LloydJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Lucy LockeIt's early life hadnFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins't been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in return all the aftermathmore surprising. SheHe's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine d been exiled on Penleith Beach, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, the child she had with DanielCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, DanielThe return has come about because he's partner and so-called best friend. Nick and Daniel have had a history together letter from the time they both spent in a childrenhis ex-wife, saying that she's home but itill and hasn's difficult t long to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concerned.}}{{Frontpage|author=Hannah Peck|title=Kate on the Case|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at thatlive. For Catherine Rodriguez is KateIt's idolhard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the author boot of our heroine's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''. Armed with a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride to the Arctic, to see her scientist mother for the first time in yonksstolen Ford Sierra. However, this is Is it a train ride with a difference, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining warning from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely Spanish gang or a case for a new young investigative journalist...|isbn=184812970X}}problem closer to home?