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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorTom Percival|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[Alice EclairWill's life is difficult, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]]in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', Alice Eclair had to prove herself as a spy he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and as a master at all doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things French and fancy and fondantlike food, as the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer on his dad can't work because he lost his job at the French railways. Herecollege, we start on was working a bateaucash-mouche in Paris, -hand job on a building site and even though had an accident. Throw into that mix the espionage isn't a complete success it proves to Alice fact that his mum and her handlers that things dad are afootseparated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And there will never be more feet than yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at the World's Fairart, reviving the huge expo that gave the city the Eiffel Tower and this time showing all her interwar glories off clings to the world. Once again Alice will have to present the front to moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the world end of being a humble yet world-class cake decoratorlong, while seeking out cluesdark tunnel. At stake? Pioneering flight technology that the enemy just cannot be allowed to smuggle out…|isbn=18399409721398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Amanthi HarrisSylvie Cathrall|title=Beautiful PlaceA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary= Padma, There are few greater joys than a young Sri Lankan, has returned book which lives up to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative yearscompelling premise. It And this is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villathem.|isbn=17846319300356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nigel Baines0008517061|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4.5|genre=Emerging ReadersCrime|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. His father was There’s perhaps a magicianlittle uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenlyher daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and now Cooper doesn't quite know who relaxing life to be, move in with Livia or how does Livia move to be. Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on anymore!|isbn=1444960261the back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15420372391786482126|title=Death in HeelsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Kitty MurphyElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Set against Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the backdrop site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of Dublina child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's drag scenedifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn''Death in Heels'' tells the story of Fi McKinnery and her best friendt, Robyn, who that she is about to debut pregnant with his child as drag queen Mae B. What is meant to be a night result of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queen, Eve, takes to the stage to mock Mae Bone night they spent together some three months ago. As if the night could Her condition will be obvious before long, not get any worse, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in a gutter. Fi least because Ruth is adamant that Eve was murdered, yet the drag community, and the Guards, accept it as an accident. Fi takes it upon herself prone to solve the mystery as she fears for her friends, but instead ruins relationships as she delves deepersudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004652700008551324|title=The Lensky ConnectionDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Conrad DelacroixNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When we first meet Major Valeri Grozky, itIt's June 1995 unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's at prepared to tell the police where the Serafimov Cemetry in St Petersburg. He's body of a pallbearer missing person is buried and who was responsible for his elder brother, Timur, whose her death was drug-related. Valeri and Timur's fatherThis person, Ketohe promises, is also a pallbearer someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he's disgusted by what his son had becomewants. Valeri thinks differently: And what he's determined wants is to be transferred to an open prison to make serve the remainder of his own stand against organised crime sentence and avenge Timur's deathto get an early parole date. Within a matter of months, his obsession will have cost him his marriage Not much to Marisha and created a dubious link with Natassja Petrovskayaask, a journalist. is it? SheThe new Deputy Police Constable doesn's determined to expose any and all corruption - t think so and she's less concerned than she ought even prepared to be about her own safety. To her, he's a good source. For do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him, itis kept well away from what's a way to get information published, which wouldn't otherwise be possiblehappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=13997022890008405026|title=A World of Curiosities Stranger in the Family (Chief Inspector GamacheMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Louise PennyJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=After a harsh winter, the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache She was never found and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québecinvestigation ground to a halt. Gamache had offered help to a young woman after the murder of Now, her mother: he'd been less certain about , Helena, and her charismatic brotherfather are dead in their bed. For Jean-GuyInitially, it had always been looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the other way aroundpositioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Now they're both in the village What looked as though it was going to be an open-and neither can fathom what's happening-shut case is now a complex double murder. Armand will soon find Kerrigan is convinced that theythe explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent're not just in Three Pines but in his home and in his lifes boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BHR8KWSK0571379877|title=DukkhaThe Kellerby Code|author=Martin HydeJonny 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's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jo Callaghan|title=Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Sam wakes up chained in When a basement. He rails against his captor and man is found crucified on the injustice top of his imprisonment? Why? a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It''Why?'' s their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But of coursewhen there is a second body found crucified a few days later, he knows why. Sam Kat is an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and dirty life by going to a retreat and emerging as very high profile case that draws a neophyte Buddhist monklot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Recently returning Will they be able to join solve the community case in his old neighbourhoodtime, he knew his past would be hard to escape but he hadn't imagined it exploding into this new life in quite such or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a violent fashion.career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY1399613073|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World ClockMoral Injuries|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiChristie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Frederick (or FredOlivia, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like Laura and Anjali met on the ticking first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a clock was playing over and over in his mindcentury. It happened every time he came Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to visit his grandfatherbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now Laura is a perfectionist and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymorea trauma doctor. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do Anjali is tell the timefree spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. And time isnWhen we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it't good for anything..s going to end in tragedy. We don'' And that was why he was looking at t know who suffered the clock beside tragedy or the bedconsequences. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the clock chimed only six timesthree friends. There was nothing for This time, it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?s their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=37562287110241636604|title=CDCThe Trading Game: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'A Confession|author=Hans BodmerGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''The history re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the development of IT could fill books London School of several hundred pagesEconomics.'' Author Hans Bodmer Stevenson is quite right about thatbright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He has chosen also realised that most rich people expect poor people to tell us about the shortbe stupid. It was his ability at what was, but explosiveessentially, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he workeda card game which got him an internship with Citibank. It's a fascinating tale Eventually, told in this turned into permanent employment as a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdotetrader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293566601035021803|title=The SanctuaryAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Emma HaughtonC L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It was 's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the quiet which woke Zoey English country village where she grew up - or. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, ratherArthur Crockleford, is dead and the absence of circumstances seem suspicious, to say the noise which was a constant in New Yorkleast. Here it Arthur was silent and the heat was overwhelmingreason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. When Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she looked out of has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the window all profession she could see was the desertloved. How did she get here? Zoey was house-sitting for Uncle Dan and his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been out with Franny and Rocco last night. She knew that she'd had quite a lot to drink but how could she have got to After the desert from New York? She had no memory of getting on a plane but as split, she thought back, worked in a memory of sirenscafe, flashing lights met and of being pushed into a car snagged married James (on the edge rebound from the love of her mindlife, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher GoldenSunny Singh|title=Road of BonesHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorThrillers |summary=The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a thousand miles across Siberia, it's one of the world's most notorious routesterrorist group. For months of Hiding from the year it's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding itterrorists who are rampaging through, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremittingkilling everyone on site, apocalyptic-level mudthere is Sam, which dries into rutteda wartime photographer and Abhi, puddly dustthe hotel manager. I don't think google streetview updates it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian minerals, and because he wanted As Abhi continues to try to give too many people a lesson, it legendarily cost a life every metre it covers. You can easily find documentaries about it online, but that's a bit rich, care remotely for one of our main charactersthe residents who are still alive in the hotel, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing he forms a recce bond with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – Sam who's mostly there refuses to encourage the project be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to fruition try to claw back some of the funds he'd invested in the paircapture what's prior TV projectshappened through her photography. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain Although they only ever talk over the company of a local beautyphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and fetch up at they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the guide's childhood villageterrorists. And that's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18387761841529153298|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most RoyalThe List of Suspicious Things|author=S J BennettJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It''The Queen, like the sunrise s 1979 and the tidesMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, was generally a reliable way of marking timehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv' It seemed to begin as a colds family, though. Women have been disappearing. Hardly surprisingWell, reallythey've been murdered, as Prince Philip had been suffering for a couple of days but seemed to be getting betterhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Hopefully, the Queen thought, Miv's upset because she's overheard that her cold would go father wants to move the same wayfamily 'Down South'. SheWhen you'd probably caught it re from one of the great-grandchildrenYorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. UnfortunatelyFor Miv, it didn't get better and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown flu. She move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and the Duke were due she'll do anything to go to Sandringham by train prevent that day but the doctor put his foot down. HeShe'd have preferred that the queen have a few days' bed rest before venturing out but had to be satisfied with s not worried about the thought dangers or that theyher Mum'd go by helicopter the following day. It was annoying: people would be ready for her today and Her Majesty did not like s stopped talking - to disappointanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones1398524085|title=Conversations with NatureHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Spirituality and ReligionCrime|summary= One of the comments made when I Charlotte Salter was offered this beautiful book for review was that itexpected at her husband's not very longfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Having read the book twice overHer children, sons Niall, I'm brought back inescapably to the Spanish proverb that Life may be shortPaul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but it - strangely - her husband, Alec, is broadnot. In this case I Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg'm brought s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to the idea make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the length of life is not the point; the point is its depthguilt. Peter Owen Jones dives deepThe Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|isbn=1912992418
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19164599431035906708|title=Squeakily BabyDiva|author=Beth WebbDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Much We tend to think of Maria Callas as mothers love their babiesGreek, there's something they all dread - a squeakily baby. He's so tired but he can't - or won't - go she was born to sleep: insteadGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, he just lies on his blanket in December 1923 and ''wails''only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. The sea offers Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to help. It rocks Baby gently and the waves sing 'Callas'hush, hush''. Think of gentle wavelets falling onto a sandy beach and you have to make it more manageable in the sound perfectlyStates. The mermaids join When she was back in Athens - ''la lou, la lay...'' And supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a moment it seems to have worked as Baby closes his eyes. Then a seagull '''shouts''' mother who mercilessly exploited her and we know exactly what's going to happen nextmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robin StevensChristopher Edge|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=May Wong is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a long way from her family in Hong Kongplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. She’s stuck in her schoolAll big movie fans, Deepdeanthey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and desperate to get awaymany, and do something useful to help end the war and to get home. She just knows that she would make the perfect spymany snacks! And when she finds herself turned away by the Ministry, she takes matters into her own handsHowever, along with a boy she meets outside as the Ministrymovie starts, Eric. They both go undercover in a large country housethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, pretending to be evacuees, in and they are swept up into an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Nazisadventure they couldn't even imagine. But there as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imagined, and suddenly ? Will they find themselves in ever get back to the middle of a murder scenecinema, with even more to try and to unravel and solve.their real lives?|isbn=02414298621839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1919635017Rachel Greenlaw|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer|author=Kitt TownsendCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't 'I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a bad ladremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, so why like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island'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 running around London committing is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a series 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 robberies? And how did he learn foreign islands to crack safes? Youthe heart of the smuggler'll s territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{Frontpage|author=James Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to wait do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilersawful pandemic. But I'll answer Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the first one: for his grandmother..many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398515388Matthew Tree|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=First Timothy 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, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete failed miserably and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list who had endless crises of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience storeself confidence. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa So Tim applied himself to open his car door studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and Tamon the dog jumped inset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529153050A G Slatter|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim BensonThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=45|genre=HumourFantasy|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to seem more and more like an adrenaline sportmyself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I was nudged towards just want to enjoy it for a while.''Britain Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's Best Political Cartoons , a family of 2022witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the 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. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the year: dead, putting her at the cartoons run heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from 4 September 2021 one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine trust and determine what there will be to come in do as the 2023 edition?Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Gray1529900360|title=The Dark RoomGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because youIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'd watched them die several years ago, s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but then you come across a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place he felt responsible and time? This is what happens even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to Leonard in this storyask for his help on difficult cases. He is an exHis assertions that there were only open-and-crime reporter shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a newspaperwhile. Finally, it was Robin, and since leaving journalism heDelaware's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds oldpartner, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at homewho nudged Milo into asking for help again. One of these photographs turns out to show She knew that the involvement was something that the murder scene of a young woman he met some years agoman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, and who he ''thought'' he had watched die though. Two lovers were murdered in front the swimming pool of him one night a remote property in a hotelBel Air. He'd felt guilty ever since that night, was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and lost everything because of it - his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadn't really died s not the night she Italian. But which of them was with him, what on earth actually happenedthe primary target?|isbn=154203535X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith1529395224|title=The Miraculous SweetmakersLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Frost FairSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn''The River Thames had frozen t want to death follow in its sleep.'' And thus his footsteps, particularly when he considered the Frost Fair could happen – people trading strain that being on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasinacall put on his father's father life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with his gingerbread a family friend who was a vet and confectionery shopwas convinced this was the job for him. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won'tBefore long, as he dies in Chapter Onewas at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, eitherchild. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powersIf anything, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her 'd wanted to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has be a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its coreprofessional footballer.|isbn=0008496056
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams 0861541774|title=The Book A Nye of Hope Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54|genre=Politics and Society Crime|summary= The done thing is DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to read meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a book all the way through before you sit down to review itstreet brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. I’m making an exception here Initially, because I don’t want he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to lose any of light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the experience of reading this amazing book, I want death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to capture it help as it hits meany interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529504767Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in 1939 Edinburgh, run by Ness and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got operating as an alternative to her final destinationall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She needn't have worried though as Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she went to could come and look after the home of Mr and Mrs Russellbusiness, who couldn't have been kinder as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to herget away for a while. She even had her own room - all Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to herselfEdinburgh. Gradually she relaxed And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and began the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to enjoy her lifecharm. SheKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there'd help Mrs Russell with the baking s always her very helpful (and when it came rather handsome) neighbour, William, to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on the Christmas tree. The best surprise happened the following morning.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)0811771741|title=Red as BloodInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all the evidence seems Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to point towards her having been kidnappedblankets. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with Some will be quick knits - others are of the police'long, so instead he enlists cosy afternoons in front of the help of Arora, a financial investigatorfire' variety. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of The projects are divided by the police, and she calls her detective friend, Daniel, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Together, time they start 'll take to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearancecomplete - less than five hours, trying not five to arouse the suspicion of anyoneten hours, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might be, yet the ten to twenty hours and more they uncover, the more confusing things become.|isbn=1914585321}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0861541995|title=Wolf Pack|author=Will Dean|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north of Visbergthan twenty hours. She sees blood on All the road and a creature on its side near the pine trees. It will turn out to be Bronco, a Swedish Elkhoundprojects are attractive, who has been attacked by a wolf. Tuva takes Bronco modern and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vetuseable. Bronco didnI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 't make it but on the way, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for his niece, twentysocial-yearmedia-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missing. Sheworthy projects'd been working at Rose Farm and Moodysonbut that's journalist's instincts are soon brought to the fore. Rose Farm is now home to a group of survivalists but back in 1987 the then owner, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, and his two eldest children and then killed himselfme being picky. His newborn child, just four weeks old survived. Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alison HughesDean Koontz|title=FlyThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=This Benny is having a very impressive readterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, as it does and someone has delivered a lot of what mainstream teen really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and tween fiction still struggles withit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Its focus He is courtesy of a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the first-person narration from Flydelivery to his house is a new friend, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsybad weather friend called Spike, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a cleaner, a carer while at schoolgood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and a bundle will certainly take care of assumptions people lay on him. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mindBenny's enemies, then they decide if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a maths savant – they even believe wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they can get away with calling him Fly, which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses itare.|isbn=15253058321662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=3791388398Adam Stower|title=New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches Murray and Pastries|author=Laurel KratochvilaBun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CookeryConfident Readers |summary=This Murray is probably supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the most unusual baking books I've encounteredtwo. ItBut he's built around 99 recipes for breadsa bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, brioches and pastries but the recipes are interwoven with some thought-provoking writing on how bread - and baking - have changed in catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the twentieth regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and early twenty-first centurieswhiffs. We start with the basics - the equipment you'll need (there's nothing extravagant or indulgent) and the ingredientsThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where the author a troll hunter is particular. You might not have realised that different salts can change the flavour and sensation on the tongue of the finished product butexpected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, apparentlyto be honest, they do.but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew GivlerB0C47LV1PC|title=Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Book 1)Fragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Matt has a terrible life. Seriously—itYo birthing person''s awful. It 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 so bad that Dan the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years of a blissful life in exchange answer for his soulboth could well be.... no.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|rating=4
|genre=TravelCrime|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, by which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the way) Costa del Sol as a wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like drug smuggler for a good time to do itdecade. The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail return has come about because he's had a letter from Yorktownhis ex-wife, Virginia saying that she's ill and hasn't long to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015live. They had 73 days It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to do it - slightly less than a watery grave in the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more boot of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it onstolen Ford Sierra. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering Is it a warning from early-stage Alzheimer's.}}a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?