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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BC3YTCMRTom Percival|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura AyiraThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Will''This story s life is not for everyonedifficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesnLavender Daniels was three weeks short t have enough money for even the most basic of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a very bright student, cash-in-hand job on a bit too nerdy if truth be told, building site and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagioushad an accident. ItThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% whitelife seems bleak in every direction. She had And yet, he still has a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice hertiny amount of hope. Then he did: Lavender was very He is good at math art, and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went clings to his house and the moments of joy when he raped her. In shockis drawing, she even allowed him to give her that feel like a light at the end of a lift homelong, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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|author=V CastroSylvie Cathrall|title=The Haunting of AlejandraA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=HorrorScience Fiction|summary=''This was There are few greater joys than a part of her past that had book which lives up to stop with hera compelling premise. She would be the one to confront And this.'' At some point during her life, Alejandra lost herself. She feels as if she is playing parts for others in her life – her husband and her children – without ever giving any thought to her own desires, her own future, her own identity. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to all but Alejandra, there is a darkness threatening to consume her. More and more she is visited by a ghost, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with water, who leaves distress in her wakeone of them.|isbn=18033656170356522776
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|authorisbn=Richard Kadrey0008517061|title=The Pale House DevilDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Ford and Neuland are a couple ofFormer Metropolitan Police detective, wellJake Johnson, guys for hire I guess, though really the way I thought of them through has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the book was as a couple of strange detectives! One future of them is living, you seehis life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and the other is undeadher daughter Diana, and so one as moving in together would mean a lot of them kills the living, compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and the other kills the undead. (Only not each other, obviously). They're on a job relaxing life to move in New York that goes badly, and so they head out with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the West coast to try to lay low future she wants for a while herself and find some other work to keep them going. her daughter? But when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill For the moment they’re enjoying life in the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family history, present and a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!|isbn=1803363894putting the future on the back burner.
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|authorisbn=Helen Cooper1786482126|title=The Taming of the CatJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case yousite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury're seeing a connection, apartments - when they live in a cheese shop and therefore all discovered the names used here seem to be the names bones of cheesesa child beneath a doorway. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives withThere was no skull. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. Was this a ritual killing or murder? And that story-telling will come in handy one nightInevitably, when he feels all alone and cast outDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's almost difficult as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse communityRuth knows, thoughbut Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as all a result of the others had the chance to half-inch one night they spent together some cheese while the cat was distractedthree months ago. But Her condition will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M0008551324|title=Super Short Stories: Flash FictionThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Mark C WallfischNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=It''Got a minute s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to be amused, entertained, approach the police. Neither side likes or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super shorthas any respect for the other. None But Davie Hardie is more than 300 words. You can read one struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a flashmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death.''''Some are funny This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Some are poignant. All are short.'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story And what he wants is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all be transferred to an open prison to serve the flash fictions in a book remainder of themhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? I don The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that there really isn't a fixed definition of flash fiction but Hardie demanded - make certain that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. ThatDS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's about a single page in your average paperbackhappening.
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|isbn=17328987660008405026|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk DragonA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus theyIt're running for their lives in the Forest of Fine Reputes sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Their greatest fear has come about: She was never found and the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing theminvestigation ground to a halt. He's right behind themNow, her mother, spewing hotHelena, sour milk from his nostrilsand her father are dead in their bed. (Please don't try this at home: Initially, it wonlooks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there't end wells something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious.) Fortunately, they were nearly at Nobby LobWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-lolly and- and when shut case is now a ladder of moss and vines was lowered for them, they escapedcomplex double murder. They climbed up to Kerrigan is convinced that the Tree Wee homes high up explanation lies in the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand WeesRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Nester Nook and Granny CrannyUna Burt) are less convinced.
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|isbn=14722639360571379877|title=The FigurineKellerby Code|author=Victoria HislopJonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her motherEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, Greek by birthobsessed with his upper-class friends, had left the family home Robert and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (HelenaStanza. Robert's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritagetheatre director. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the familyHe's maidalso self-obsessed, Dinademanding, but was wary - handsome and entitled and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannisuses Edward to run errands for him. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and expected his family he's drunkenly confided how he feels to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate themRobert. His prejudices included HelenaMost men in Robert's red hair and green eyes - inherited position would stay away from her fatherStanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's Scottish ancestorsnot like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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|author=Cody GoodfellowJo Callaghan|title=VerticalLeave No Trace|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ThereWhen a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's something about tall buildings that just captures my imaginationtheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Who doesn't love But when there is a second body found crucified a good view from up highfew days later, after all? Even the drabbest office building Kat is somewhere I'm intrigued suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to get inside if it's 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intriguedtheir AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn= 1803363991139851120X
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|authorisbn=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold1399613073|title=Finding BearMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]Olivia, April had been Laura and Anjali met on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people the first day of medical school and their friendship would venture, and finding keep them inseparable for a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with quarter of a polar bear – that she called Bearcentury. Back homeOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, things on the domestic and family front are which is a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily bonus when you aim to be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left ona cardiothoracic surgeon. For Laura is a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot perfectionist and woundeda trauma doctor. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to Anjali is the Arctic and hope that in a world free spirit of very white the group and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and dangerous thing – alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the friendship can continuethree friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=0008582017
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|isbn=18041832100241636604|title=No ReserveThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Felix FrancisGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldnIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you't have been on re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the rostrum when the colt pin- as yet unnamed - came up for auction, but Peter Radway, stripe suit and his background is the chairmanEast End, hadn't arrivedwhere he was familiar with violence, so he continued his sessionpoverty and injustice. To say that he There was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be an understatement. A lovely animal no posh public school on his CV - but three million pounds? Two men he had been bidding against each otherto the London School of Economics. Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were wellStevenson is bright - extremely bright -known and respected in the racing industryhe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Jennings was in one of the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed He also realised that the horse had been deliberately bid up most rich people expect poor people to that figurebe stupid. Both were happy that they had insurance in placeIt was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. The following morningEventually, the horse was dead in its stallthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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|authorisbn=Sarah Wilson1035021803|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back The Antique Hunter's Guide to connection in a fractured worldMurder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre= LifestyleCrime|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the one in which English country village where she asks grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya'What is it you plan to do with your one wild s former mentor and precious life?Carole'' I get to love that line so much because my answer s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild dead and precious life the way I want circumstances seem suspicious, tosay the least. Sarah Wilson is equally luckyArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. In her book that takes Oliver's words Even though they were in business together as her title (though I can't see that antique hunters, she acknowledges the source) she pushes us has not felt able to think about whether we really ''are'' living be near the life we want – man or pursue the best life that we could be livingprofession she loved. Her answer is an unequivocal ''noAfter the split, we are not''. Don't care what you're doingshe worked in a cafe, she thinks you met and married James (weon the rebound from the love of her life, Iwho was murdered) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are notand Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=1785633848
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|isbn=1839948493AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=A World of DogsAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Carlie Sorosiak Benjamin Greenaway and Luisa UribeStephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Science Fiction|summary=In ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the interests shape of full disclosure, I must tell you that Ithings to come.''m a sucker for dogs. In nearly eight decades,  I've never met one I didnheard it said that 'technology't trust and Iis what happens after you've loved most of themre eighteen. Well, I wish I felt the same about human beingsmust confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. So, any book about dogs, I'm going ve kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to sit down and devour. Then me but I'm going to go back and read left with the feeling that it properly's all getting away from me. And so Some of it was with ''A World of Dogs'', with ninetyis -six pages devoted entirely to my fourfrankly -legged friendsquite frightening. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself Of course, I could research the accidental owner of an American Dingo - shepossibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they's learned quite re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a lot about dogs since thenway I could understand.
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|isbnauthor=1405951680Sunny Singh|title=The Safe House|author=Cameron WardHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friend, Rupert) to caretake The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury property hotel in the Australian outback for an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a couple of monthsterrorist group. After Hiding from the problems she'd had at workterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, it seemed like just the break she neededhotel manager. She was no longer a data analyst As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the Metropolitan police residents who are still alive in London: she was Jess the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who was returning refuses to the country be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her birth and in need of the space room to try to get over the traumatic end of capture what's happened through her relationship with Charlesphotography. A few weeks in Although they only ever talk over the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the ticketterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison1529153298|title=Bad DollsThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=It's been some time since 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? Imean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv've read any horrors family, though. Women have been disappearing. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen KingWell, they've been murdered, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them but to the point that I couldnhave 'disappeared' doesn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! sound quite so frightening. DonMiv't worry - this short story collection isns upset because she't like s overheard that! her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. It doesnWhen you't have those jump scaresre from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, and I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! best avoided. But it is creepyFor Miv, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about womenmove would mean leaving her best friend, living normal livesSharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that at least in part, . She's not worried about the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to a hen party and a coping with griefanyone.|isbn=1803363932
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|isbn=13941595441398524085|title=Recycling for DummiesHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Sarah WinklerNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband''Recycling one ton of plastic can save s fiftieth birthday party but never turned up to 16.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send an apple core to landfill Her children, sons Niall, it will take between 6 months Paul and 2 years to decomposeOllie and her daughter, Etty. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a justare all worried but -poststrangely -WWII babyher husband, I faced a dilemma: reducingAlec, reusing and recycling is part of my DNAnot. NEVER throw away anything that might Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg''possibly'' come in handy now or s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the futureriver. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something It was an easy assumption for the police to make that would serve the purpose. Almost everything can be used one more time Duncan had murdered Charlie and any purchase must pass the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On the other hand, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - Ithen committed suicide when he couldn'm looking at you) and dropping it in t stand the kerbside binguilt. Yes, I could go searching The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on the internet - with their lives and get conflicting advice - but wonder about what I needed was a recycling biblereally happened.s
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|authorisbn=Lauren St John1035906708|title=Finding WonderDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was youngborn to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and now only moved to Athens when she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her door father changed it to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the corner shop to buy a lottery ticketStates. When asked what other family she has, was back in Athens - supposedly so that she can only name could get appropriate training for her aunt, Joni, voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who she knows mercilessly exploited her dad didn't think very highly and made no secret of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse preference for Rooher elder sister, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169Jackie.
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|isbnauthor=1448309743Christopher Edge|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)|author=Caro RamsayBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=In Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the village nickname of Cronchie on the West coast 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of Scotlandexciting films, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered. and many, many snacks! The only item missing from However, as the home is the Devil Stone: myth says movie starts, they very quickly realise that if the stone something about this new film format is removed from Otterburn Housevery different, death will follow. The only suspects and they are known Satanists but in many ways, that's swept up into an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discoveredadventure they couldn' t even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the body. The Senior Investigating Office next, can they figure out what on earth is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappearsgoing on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in and to 'shadow' him.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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|author= Kay ChronisterRachel Greenlaw|title= Desert CreaturesCompass and Blade|rating= 43.5|genre= Dystopian FictionTeens|summary= With ''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanityremote and partially forgotten island, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillsurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Whether it is a robotic takeoverMira, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaustlike her mother before her, this genre 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 way for humans trap to cathartically experience their most existential fears. end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira'Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister 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 new work 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 post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many foreign islands to the heart of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to find hopesave the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=18033649980008664730
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|author=Christopher FowlerJames Sherwood Metts|title=Word MonkeyPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= It's the first of August in the middle of Things have been a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at bit sticky for the pool in favour of going to my beach hutEarthlings. The weather closed inAI and automation have been proceeding apace, rain arrived, and I decided not often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that eithertook time to accomplish. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted Just as they were beginning to get used to finish reading all this book technological change and (b) I did not want starting to think of other, new ways to do so anywhere near my shackspend time, along came an awful pandemic. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'Life was' – pretty much shut down and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that pointalong with it, because he does. He didall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=08575296251736128426
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|isbnauthor=1529077699Matthew Tree|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yesTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month drunk and then turned up, naked chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon. Rosco who had the status endless crises of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''self confidence. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find outSo Tim applied himself to his studies, he could be more cultivated his abilities rather than a little bit close with money his daydreams and his background isn't exactly an open bookset himself high but achievable ambitions. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRA G Slatter|title=On The Briar Book of the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaDead
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingFantasy|summary=Kit and Teal were '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just beginning 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 shorelinemyself for however long I can. On top This secret magic of the ice was a polar bear. As the ice bumped onto the sandmy own, the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the ice. Kit was all for making a run for itmine, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then anotherat last. He obviously needed I just want to be taken home on the bus and given enjoy it for a good meal and somewhere to sleepwhile. What else would you do?}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire North|title=House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
The follow-up to Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the excellent Briar''Ithaca'' picks up s, a few months after where we left offfamily of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. In Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues first non-witch to rule without be born into her husbandfamily for generations and as such since she was young, who sailed to war at Troy her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and then by divine intervention never returned homepotions. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the throne of Briar Witch, the Western Islestown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Having survived – politically As challenges come her way left, right and physical – centre, Ellie uncovers the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought rare ability to Ithaca's shorescommunicate with the dead, Queen Penelope is on putting her at the brink heart of a fragile peacemaelstrom of chaos. One that shatters however with Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the return of OrestesBriar witches' legacy, King of Mycenaeeverything they have sacrificed to survive, and his sister Elektra, seeking refugeis under threat.|isbn=03565160751803364548
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|isbn=15294270451529900360|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsGhost Orchid|author=Karin SmirnoffJonathan Kellerman|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'Life has more s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to offer than people ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open- prime numbers for example'and-shut cases which didn'. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to t need the small town help of Gasskasa psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, where Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the so-far-untapped natural resources of involvement was something that the area have sparked a gold rushman she loved needed. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forwardnext case did look simple, though. Salander's niece's mother is Two lovers were murdered in the latest woman swimming pool of a remote property in the area to have vanished without traceBel Air. It He was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware not the Italian. But which of them was the part Salander played in her father's death.primary target?
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|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5B1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Last Person in the WorldSecret Life of a Vet|author=Matthew TreeSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph FinnsSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph His father was a boarder GP and had money Rowlands didn't want to throw around on a Rolex watchfollow in his footsteps, vintage wines and a state-of-particularly when he considered thestrain that being on-art sound systemcall put on his father's life. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns had no intention When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of going on to University, unlike our storyteller doing work experience with a family friend who had was a place at Wolverton College in Wellingford, vet and was convinced this was the UK's third most prestigious universityjob for him. Before going uplong, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his homedream since he was a child. If anything, Clouds Manor in West Dorsethe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0861541774|title=The House at the End A Nye of the WorldPheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and feel that there is no one on your sideformer colleague, you can either suck it upDanny Maik, saddle has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on with an island old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that sits snugly in he was facing a man armed with a small chain of tiny dots on the map knife - and live out your days in peace and solitudehe killed a Ghurka. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; and all would light that suggested that he might have been planned to murder the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for man. Now he could be facing the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, the neighbouring island death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of wouldn't help Danny at all mankind.|isbn=1662453159
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{{Frontpage
|author=T KingfisherAlexander McCall Smith|title=ThornhedgeThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=''You had The Perfect Passion Company is a right dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to retake your placeall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a lovely reimagining of trip to Canada to get away for a fairytale that is well known and well belovedwhile. But whilst there Katie is coming out of a princess trapped in break up with a towerbad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, sleeping under bringing us to an eternal enchantmentEdinburgh we already love, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadlingthanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who was stolen away by fairies when she was quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a newbusiness, or in match-born baby making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and secreted away to the land of fairie where there's always her childhood was spent being taught how very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to draw magic from her veins and cast spells.lend a hand…|isbn=18033642381846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX0811771741|title=Stories 2InstaKnits for Baby|author=Richard F WalkerMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrafts|summary= This is Richard F WalkerMelissa Leapman's second volume ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of short storiesknits from toys to blankets. There Some will be quick knits - others are thirteen of the 'long, cosy afternoons in all front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I took something from each of them. There isnperhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects't a single one but that doesn't deserve s me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=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 weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to be among his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the others or brings down very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the overall qualitydelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. It can be tricky Spike is going to review short stories without giving too much awaytake care of Benny, so Iand will certainly take care of Benny'll just pick two to talk about s enemies, if he, Benny, and I think Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they give a general flavourare.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787636607Adam Stower|title=The Trap|author=Catherine Ryan HowardMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=It's Murray is supposed to be a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs humble, tidy and looking for a way friendly cat, one who is able to get home. Some are lucky sleep and eat and eat and sleep and manage to get one of the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the outlying villagestwo. The woman all regret the But he'taxi problems a bad magician's cat, particularly in so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the light of 'catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the missing women'. For one young womanregular back garden, the final stop on the bus leaves her but into a long way short world of her homefrightening adventure and whiffs. She had intended This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to ring someone to come and collect her - be honest, but her phonehe's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his. Thereturned up and he's no option but ll have to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes.do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1405957174B0C47LV1PC|title=A Death at the PartyFragility|author=Amy StuartMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=From Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the first pagequestion if you did, we know would it land? The catch is that Nadine Walsh's party will not end the answer for both could wellbe.... The victim - a man - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he so desperately needs. What we don ''Fragility''t know is who set as the man is or why Nadine prefers city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to have him die. I'd better give you a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1529431735|title=Nowhere IslandThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet GilIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape He'd been exiled on the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find Costa del Sol as a home wanted drug smuggler for himselfa decade. He is en route to yet another fosterer, when The return has come about because he jumps into an anonymous car's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and lets it ride him hasn't long to his futurelive. That future seems It's hard to be in jeopardy feel any sympathy when someone steals Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother underwear and sent to a watery grave in a camp on an island between the two directions boot of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusionstolen Ford Sierra. Them, and Is it a warning from a mute girl also finding Spanish gang or a problem closer to home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080}}?