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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher FowlerTom Percival|title=Word MonkeyThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= ItWill's the first of August life is difficult, in the middle a multitude of a cool wet summer in East Angliaways. I decided not to swim at He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the pool in favour most basic of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrivedthings like food, and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this bookhis dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, I realised it was because (working a cash-in-hand job on a) I wanted to finish reading this book building site and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shackhad an accident. No spoiler alertsThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler and Will'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosiss life seems bleak in every direction. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by And yet, he still has a man who repeatedly reminds you that he tiny amount of hope. He is dyinggood at art, and you know clings to the moments of joy when he actually is drawing, that feel like a light at that pointthe end of a long, because he does. He diddark tunnel.|isbn=08575296251398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077699Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close A Letter to the village of Greystone, in Devon. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than 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?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CC9W7GLR|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to wonder whether it was better to be at home, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinecompelling premise. On top And this is one of the ice was a polar bearthem. As the ice bumped onto the sand, the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the ice. Kit was all for making a run for it, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then another. He obviously needed to be taken home on the bus and given a good meal and somewhere to sleep. What else would you do?|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North0008517061|title=House of OdysseusDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=54|genre= Literary Fiction Crime|summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a few months after where we left off. In little uncertainty about the palace future of Odysseushis life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with delicate care Queen Penelope continues Livia or does Livia move to rule without Little Sky despite her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever reservations about whether or not this is the future she remains surrounded by suitors vying wants for herself and her daughter? For the throne of moment they’re enjoying life in the Western Isles. Having survived – politically present and physical – putting the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is future on the brink of a fragile peaceback burner. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270451786482126|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Karin SmirnoffElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Life has more Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to offer than people hold seventy- prime numbers for examplefive 'luxury'. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to apartments - when they discovered the small town bones of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rushchild beneath a doorway. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forwardThere was no skull. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without traceWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian difficult as Ruth knows, but it quickly becomes obvious Nelson doesn't, that Svala she is pregnant with his child as a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware result of the part Salander played in her father's deathone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5B0008551324|title=The Last Person in the WorldDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Matthew TreeNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finnspolice. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and had money he's prepared to throw around on tell the police where the body of a Rolex watch, vintage wines missing person is buried and a state-of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintanceswho was responsible for her death. Finns had no intention of going on to UniversityThis person, unlike our storyteller who had a place at Wolverton College in Wellingfordhe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the UK's third most prestigious universitypolice doing what he wants. Before going up, And what he took up a loose invitation wants is to be transferred to an open prison to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorset.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The House at serve the End remainder of the World|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel that there is no one on your side, you can either suck it up, saddle up his sentence and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on get an island that sits snugly in a small chain of tiny dots on the map and live out your days in peace and solitudeearly parole date. ThatNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn's what Katie thought she was doing when t think so and she shut down her old life to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; and all would have been even prepared to do the aforementioned peace other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankindanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1662453159
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher0008405026|title=ThornhedgeA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=It''You had a right 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 retake your place.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known and well belovedhalt. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower Now, her mother, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentHelena, Thornhedge is not and her storyfather are dead in their bed. Instead Initially, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was it looks like a new-born baby and secreted away to straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the land positioning of fairie where the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her childhood boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was spent being taught how going to draw magic from her veins be an open-and cast spells-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1803364238
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F Walker|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary= This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a general flavour.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=17876366070571379877|title=The TrapKellerby Code|author=Catherine Ryan HowardJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningtheatre director. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and looking uses Edward to run errands for a way to get homehim. Some are lucky Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and manage he's drunkenly confided how he feels to get one of the few taxis availableRobert. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages. The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly Most men in the light of Robert'the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a long way short of her home. She relationship had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - begun between them but her phonehe's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance not like most men: Edward is left to beg stumble upon the bus driver to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and two of them kissing in high-heeled shoesa dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405957174Jo Callaghan|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=From When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the first pagecase alongside her sidekick, we know that Nadine Walshthe AI detective Lock. It's party will not end welltheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. The victim - But when there is a man - second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is dying when we first meet him suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and Nadine consciously makes no effort a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to call the ambulance he so desperately needstheir AI Future Policing project. What we don't know is who Will they be able to solve the man is case in time, or why Nadine prefers to have him die. I'd better give you will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1399613073|title=Nowhere IslandMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelveOlivia, he is so determined to escape Laura and Anjali met on the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – first day of medical school and find their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a home for himselfcentury. He Olivia is en route to yet another fostererruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him you aim to his futurebe a cardiothoracic surgeon. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in Laura is a perfectionist and a camp on an island between trauma doctor. Anjali is the two directions free spirit of the group and she becomes a motorway, GP. When we first meet them they're at a place inaccessible drug and definitely ignored enough alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to provide for their safety and seclusionend in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home Twenty-five years later there, albeit so much more successfullywill be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combineThis time, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080's their teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085300250241636604|title=Murder in the FamilyThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Cara HunterGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=It was If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in December 2003 that fifteenyour mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-year-old Maura Howard came home stripe suit and found his background is the body of her stepfatherEast End, Luke Ryderwhere he was familiar with violence, in the garden of their West London homepoverty and injustice. He had an injury There was no posh public school on the back of his head which could have happened if CV - but he'd slipped down had been to the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberateLondon School of Economics. Twenty years later, no one Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has been charged a facility with his murder and it's now the subject numbers which most of ''Infamous'', a true-crime showus can only envy. A group of experts has been brought together to review the evidence and He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to take the investigation furtherbe stupid. More to the pointIt was his ability at what was, they're going to do this live on cameraessentially, episode by episodea card game which got him an internship with Citibank. There's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewingEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
 
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Judith Eagle1035021803|title=The Stolen SongbirdAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=CaroIt's mother, a world-famous whistler, twenty years since Freya Lockwood has failed been back to return home the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingbeloved aunt, Carole. Her other motherFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, RonnieArthur Crockleford, is having dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwellsay the least. So who is going Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesthe village: Arthur, she feels frustrated and confused and worried, let her down badly. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst be near the man or pursue the profession she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there tooloved. But After the split, she soon finds herself caught up worked in a mysterycafe, as she discovers a painting met and married James (on the rebound from the love of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcaselife, who was murdered) and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks Freya and terrorising peopleJames have now divorced. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529195977AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=None of this is TrueAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Lisa JewellBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=On her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fair. She, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Mary's hospital. That's where Opening up new ways of thinking about the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are in the midst shape of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst theythings to come.'re not I'exactlyve heard it said that 'technology' rowdy, theyis what happens after you're enjoying themselveseighteen. Josie, on the other handWell, holds her handbag close to her tummy and you get the sense I must confess that Walter's not too happythere have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. HeI've kept up reasonably well with what's not used advantageous to spending this much money on a meal - me but I'm left with the feeling that it is Josie's birthday after allgetting 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
|isbn=1803365110|author=Chuck TingleSunny Singh|title=Camp DamascusHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorThrillers |summary=Love The Hotel Arcadia is love; although humans continue to be confused a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by this sentimenta terrorist group. Gay conversion therapy Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans to make it Sam, a crime wartime photographer andAbhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the UShotel, nearly 700 000 adults have received it. Although it is both he forms a secular bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and a religious prejudice, Chuck Tingle, in his new horror, ''Camp Damascus'', peels back the skin keeps on venturing out of Christian her room to try to capture what''pray s happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the gay away'' camps phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to show see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the reader the horror lurking withinterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18031363831529153298|title=Tin SoldiersThe List of Suspicious Things|author=David ChadwickJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something of a cloud. What actually happened out there is gossiped about It's 1979 and nobody Margaret Thatcher is sure exactly Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what took place's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but an act of heroism leading to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and disgrace seems she'll do anything to be prevent that. She's not worried about the consensus. Wat himself is keeping his cards close dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to his chest, as he always doesanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B1398524085|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=A J LewisNicci French|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives Charlotte Salter was expected at The House of Beautiful Swallowsher husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Idyllic as this might soundHer children, it's a bordello sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and Ettore's mother died when he was bornher daughter, Etty. He's not been short of mothers, though - are all worried but for someone of his background in late-eighteenthstrangely -century Amalfiher husband, it's difficult to obtain decent employmentAlec, is not. The stint working with Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the preparation body of anchovies didnGreg't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boatss father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. Ettore It was nothing if not resourceful - an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and determined - and it was not long before then committed suicide when he had a successful business as a guide for visitorscouldn't stand the guilt. He was even saving some moneyThe 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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1035906708|title=After DeathDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Michael Mace, Head We tend to think of SecurityMaria Callas as Greek, at a top secret biological research facilitybut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuaryNew York, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – December 1923 and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleaguesmoved to Athens when she was thirteen. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'feel'' everythingto make it more manageable in the States. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymoreWhen she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|isbn=1662500467}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jamie LittlerChristopher Edge|title=ArkspireBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Two sisters, Juniper Lucas and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, his friends are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader all booked in illicit magicfor a movie marathon at their local cinema, including relics from prior major wars left out in a place that has the Badlandsnickname of 'The Black Hole'. Elodie is intent on getting closer All big movie fans, they're looking forward to power in one lots of the religious districts of Arkspireexciting films, and many, many snacks! However, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of as the Watchermovie starts, the closest to a ruler the district hasthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Being trained in But as they lurch from one film genre to the magic that only five people next, can use would definitely change the status of they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the whole family. But in finding something oddly magicalcinema, Juniper might just be able and to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…their real lives?|isbn=02415861431839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de MoraesRachel Greenlaw|title=Old Gods New TricksCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' 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 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 is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets 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 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=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought Things have been a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, bit sticky for the world changesEarthlings. SuddenlyAI and automation have been proceeding apace, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the schooloften replacing jobs they's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, re paid to do and all other tasks that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake)took time to accomplish. TrixieJust as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, luckilynew ways to spend time, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from usalong came an awful pandemic. And so she begins her epic questLife was pretty much shut down and, to gather all the people that can steal along with it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie all the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and many daily social interactions on which they depend so on known as the trickstersheavily.|isbn=178845295X1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexia CasaleMatthew Tree|title=Sing if you CanWe't Dancell Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= 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 failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated 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=TeensFantasy|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but thatThere's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle a part of a dance performance me that was going wants to keep this just to change her lifemyself for however long I can. But she comes back fightingThis secret magic of my own, all mine, desperate at last. I just want to avoid enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the pity staresworld, and desperate to get back to lies Silverton; a life thattown under the protection of the Briar's , a family of witches 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 normal such since she was young, her training as she can possibly managea steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. Meanwhile thereWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's a new (cute!) boy in schoolleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her music A Level performance piece to try to sort outway left, right and just centre, Ellie uncovers the day-rare ability to-day traumas of all communicate with the challenges dead, putting her body continues at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to throw at her another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to navigate. So even though she cando as the Briar witches't dance anymorelegacy, might she be able everything they have sacrificed to sing her way through instead?survive, is under threat.|isbn=05713738011803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Helen Peters1529900360|title=Friends and TraitorsThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=34|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=EnglandIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, WW2Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. Two young girls are new at His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the country pile called Stanbrookhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. One is NancyFinally, destined to be in service all her life it seemswas Robin, like the female generations before herDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school She knew that the involvement was something that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathsthe man she loved needed. The girls are chalk and cheesenext case did look simple, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it sothough. But something is amiss, and first separately and then Two lovers were murdered in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be swimming pool of a rum 'unremote property in Bel Air. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is made of meetings with Germans, married to an extremely rich man and it's not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attackedthe Italian. But surely which of them was the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhandprimary target?|isbn=1788004647
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02419961041529395224|title=Coming to Find YouLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Jane CorrySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Nancy's mother and step-Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse was a GP and her step-brotherRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, Martin, has been convicted of their murder. We first meet Nancy outside particularly when he considered the court, after Martin receives a life sentence. The barrister tells her strain that she's received a 'silent sentence' being on- shecall put on his father's not been found guilty life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of anything but will have to live doing work experience with what happened a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for the rest of her lifehim. Of courseBefore long, ithe was at Liverpool University. It hadn's made worse because Nancy's rich t - she inherited five million pounds from her mother as with so many students - and the papers are making the most of itbeen his dream since he was a child. If anything, he''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might not d wanted to be printed but is undoubtedly spokena professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294136800861541774|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief Nye of Police Novel)Pheasants|author=Martin WalkerSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and BrunoDCI Domenic Jejeune's there close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to see the show meet up with some friendsan old ally, Guy Trueman. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelin, the Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man playing one of the main characters is seriously injured when armed with a knife - and he departs from the scriptkilled a Ghurka. LuckilyInitially, his doctor is there and the man is whisked away in he faced a helicopter. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances charge of survival manslaughter but - as evidence came to light that suggested that he's a senior government employee, might have planned to murder the man who runs Frenchelon - . Now he could be facing the military has stepped indeath penalty. One daughter lives nearby Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her fatherwouldn's friends for a pre-arranged holidayt help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529196388Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Trial|author=Rob RinderPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Grant Cliveden was The Perfect Passion Company is a hero: dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a policeman who stood trip to Canada to get away for all that was good and honest and looked a while. Katie is coming out of a break up to by just about everyonewith a bad boyfriend, and so there was public uproar when he was murdered in plain sight jumps at the Old Baileychance to come home to Edinburgh. There's just one man in And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in courtIsabel Dalhousie novels, charged but with Cliveden's murdersome new characters who quickly begin to charm. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and itthere's Taylor-Cameron always her very helpful (and his pupilrather handsome) neighbour, Adam GreenWilliam, who eventually represent him. Knight's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contrary.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Essie Fox0811771741|title=The FascinationInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led collection of knits from toys to more than a few writers mishandling itblankets. There Some will be quick knits - others are of the 's such a glut long, cosy afternoons in front of media set in the era that fire' variety. The projects are divided by the hallmarks wetime they've come ll take to associate with it are familiar complete - less than five hours, five to the point of being clichedten hours, hackneyed eventen to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite thatthe projects are attractive, something about it still grabs me – modern and something useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about this book'social-media-worthy projects' but that's description did as wellme being picky.|isbn=1914585526
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew CartmelDean Koontz|title=Death in Fine ConditionThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=Cordelia 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 really loves classic paperback crime fictionweird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and in particular it'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. He is a series called Sleuth Houndnice person. A really nice person. She spends her time hunting So fortunately for Benny it turns out copies that she can sell on for profitthe delivery to his house is a new friend, sometimes 'tweaking' thema bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to add value, in somewhat fraudulent wayshelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. One day she discovers a near perfect collection Spike is going to take care of these books after seeing them in the background Benny, and will certainly take care of a photograph on her drug dealerBenny's living room wallenemies, and so she sets about discovering where this collection isif he, Benny, and how she can steal it! ItHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when the owner of the collection comes looking for their books?wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=17890989471662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529507987Adam Stower|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books Murray and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers |summary=I love ''The Repair Shop''Murray is 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 two. ItBut he's my go-to programme when I want to be cheered up. After a hard day, therebad magician's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they're worth. You seeboth use can chuck them out, not into the value is in what these possessions are worth to the people who own them regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and the memories they holdwhiffs. No expense appears This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be spared honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the experts spend as much time and effort as question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is required to achieve that the desired resultanswer for both could well be.... Regular viewers know the experts and theyno. ''Fragility''re all brilliant at explaining what it is they're doing. But how did they start?set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529431735
|title=The Winter Visitor
|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?