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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyTom Percival|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I shall start with Will's life is difficult, in a word multitude of adviceways. When youHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes're being hounded by a circus master, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and a magician, doesn't have enough money for even the soul most basic of a tiger thatthings like food, and his dad can's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in t work because he lost his job at the brain of your teddy bearcollege, and your best friend - was working a fallen angel cash- is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in hand job on a fantasy trilogybuilding site and had an accident. Still - never mindThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, the angeland Will's efforts will involve you entering life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a dream world tiny amount of flight hope. He is good at art, and cloud citiesclings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and backend of a long, and friends new and old will be on board to helpdark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendSylvie Cathrall|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a pigstyLonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, sharing an all too thin party wall with has settled into his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how rustic life was supposed to turn outat Little Sky. As he spends There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his days wrestling life with his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into vet girlfriend, Livia and her school uniformdaughter Diana, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life as moving in the provinces is not as bad as she together would like mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to believe, and desperately attempting move in with Livia or does Livia move to talk his mother out of Little Sky despite her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet reservations about whether or not this is really the last thing he needs. And yet, future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the worst is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him moment they’re enjoying life in the novel writing stakes present and a query over putting the big C – it's going to be a tough year for future on the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himburner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Kate1786482126|title=FallenThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=A 17 year Builders were demolishing an old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly goodhouse in Norwich -looking boy, who she's immediately drawn the site was going to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn together. This isnhold seventy-five 't Stephenie Meyerluxury's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gareth Hinds|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out apartments - when they discovered the bones of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Learchild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. For me, even as Was this a trained actorritual killing or murder? Inevitably, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought to beDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which itIt's held is only mirrored by its own over-longdifficult as Ruth knows, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in Indiabut Nelson doesn't, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known that she is pregnant with his child as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, result of the mysterious Mrs Ungerone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, relating a story not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected wayssickness. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester0008551324|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=In 2003 a map was bought It's unusual for $10 million, anyone from the Hardie family to approach the highest price ever paid publicly police. Neither side likes or has any respect for a historical document, by the Library other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of Congress, where it a missing person is now on permanent public displayburied and who was responsible for her death. No ordinary mapThis person, he promises, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificatesomeone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. It And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the sole survivor remainder of a thousand copies printed his sentence and to get an early in the 16th centuryparole date. Not much to ask, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. is it? The sale new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that he was inspired to discover more, DS Max Craigie and this book anyone who works with him is the resultkept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur 0008405026|title=Is it Just Me or Has A Stranger in the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=35|genre=HumourCrime|summary=It''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a wet kitchen floorhalt.'' Surely that is the wackiestNow, her mother, Helena, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the worldher father are dead in their bed. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authorsInitially, instead with quite it looks like a potty mouth on them they will lambast straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the modern world, positioning of the entire banking system, all those who failed to see bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all was going to revert to highbe an open-interest, highand-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the expenses trainexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, and back up the rich listsUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton0571379877|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for Edward Jevons is a day at the seasideworking-class young man, Mr Gum falls out obsessed with his best friendupper-class friends, causing carnivorous carnage all over the placeRobert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. Meat is getting thrown around like itHe's going out of fashionalso self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and we have uses Edward to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise the power of run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and put things he's drunkenly confided how he feels to rightsRobert. Especially as this book does 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 contain like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a magic unicorn called Elizabethdark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Loose WomenJo Callaghan|title=Here Come the GirlsLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=This When a man is found crucified on the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV seriestop of a hill in Nuneaton, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised on DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the covercase alongside her sidekick, this book is an entertaining night with the girlsAI detective Lock. It turns out that they're just like uss their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yet But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of the celebrity facesunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. The women are universally warm-hearted and supportive: there Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will be many a lonely woman who reads this book Kat find herself taken off the case and feels as if she sat down with , potentially, out of a group of friends for the evening.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1399613073|title=Fortune CookieMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Fudge Cassidy Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the Cupcake kid are best friendsfirst day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. If the names remind you of Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a certain film then bonus when you'd aim to be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got the idea froma cardiothoracic surgeon. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge Laura is loud mouthed a perfectionist and opinionated and Cupcake a trauma doctor. Anjali is quiet the free spirit of the group and thoughtful – but the combination worksshe becomes a GP. TheyWhen we first meet them they've just started re at secondary school a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plateit's going to end in tragedy. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obviousWe don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Add to this Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that her father couldn't cope with will impact the problems and he now has another familythree friends. ItThis time, it's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of moneytheir teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts0241636604|title=The Madness of Queen MariaTrading Game: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in Europeyour mind, Maria was destined you're unlikely to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historythink of someone like Gary Stevenson. Married to her uncle Infante PedroA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them)where he was familiar with violence, poverty and became Queen in 1777injustice. A conscientious woman, she There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had the misfortune been to be born in during the 'age London School of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacyEconomics. Instinctively Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a supporter facility with numbers which most of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to state affairsbe stupid. It was his ability at what was, she was no Queen Elizabethessentially, no Catherine the Greata card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and wore her crown rather reluctantlythis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Hughes1035021803|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Well, with It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a title like thatrequest for help from her beloved aunt, need I bother with a plot summary? Carole. A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows heFreya's former mentor and Carole's in the ultimate waiting roomclose friend, with a strange array of animals (a batArthur Crockleford, a toadis dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, a sea urchinto say the least...) Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, all waiting forlet her down badly... well Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, somethingshe has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. YupAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, as you didn't need tellingmet and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, he's deadwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>
}}
{{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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Beth DurstSunny Singh|title=IceHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensThrillers |summary=Cassie lives on The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an Arctic research station in Alaskaunnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. She loves Hiding from the ice terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the wilderness hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her remote home and sheroom to try to capture what'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with s happened through her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanksphotography. However Although they only ever talk over the phone, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she can't their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote keep safe and unloving and her grandmother left they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very youngterrorists. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry1529153298|title=The Wide-Mouthed FrogList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Do you know the joke about the wide-mouthed frogIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? You must have heard it I mean, honestly... It) She's not what's a classic. Itworrying Miv's one that you really need to tell in personfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide openthey've been murdered, but to hopefully spark your memory, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, and the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying have 'disappeared'Ooh, you dondoesn't see many of those round here, do you?sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' Is overheard that her father wants to move the family 'm hardly doing it justice, but itDown South's very cheesy and funny. Anyway When you're from Yorkshire, this Down South is a book of frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that jokeher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel Vreeman1398524085|title=Don't Swallow Your GumHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband'''BANG'''s fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. That's the sound of copious urban myths being shot downHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. '''BANG'''are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. ThatShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the sound of the old wives slamming the door, as their tales get revealed as baselessriver. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn'''CLICK'''t stand the guilt. ThatThe Salter children are not convinced but there's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make as little else they can do but get closed down. All noises come due to this brilliant bookon with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annie Taylor1035906708|title=VioletDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Violet is a very special hippo. She is extremely small We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but that does not make her adoptive she was born to Greek parents Albert in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and Mavis love only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her any father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the lessStates. However, they are slightly worried When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that Violet has she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a very unusual habit mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of turning pink without warning and her preference for no explicable reasonher elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonChristopher Edge|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=Arthur Transcombe is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a middle-agedmovie marathon at their local cinema, grey-haired, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - on a place that has the outsidenickname of 'The Black Hole'. He hasAll big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, howeverand many, managed to achieve some success with his poems. many snacks! (Being a guest speaker at However, as the Cheltenham Literary Festival movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is no mean feat)very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. He But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is also a babe magnet!going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass 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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham McCannJames Sherwood Metts|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is Things have been a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill bit sticky for the streetsEarthlings. Jack is happy because it's his birthday AI and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Maxautomation have been proceeding apace, whooften replacing jobs they's a ''licking re paid to do and a running other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and a barking, racingalong with it, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreMatthew Tree|title=Love and KissesWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Tamsin Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. They'd been best friends since forever chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and were the good girls. Neither missed school, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin who had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to universityendless crises of self confidence. All that seemed So Tim applied himself to change when she met Alex. Wellhis studies, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into her, from the building site where he workedset himself high but achievable ambitions. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox1529900360|title=Blood BornThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=To give support to a vulnerable gang-rape victimIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers Sturgis was reluctant to drive Giverny Hart to the courthouse ask for his help on the day she is due to testify against the notorious Harbourn brothersdifficult cases. But when Anya arrives at His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the house she finds Giverny close to death and faces help of a psychologist only worked for a battle against time to save herwhile. In the panic Finally, Anya fails to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse stillRobin, in trying to save the girlDelaware's lifepartner, Anya has interfered with a crime scene and the case falls apartwho nudged Milo into asking for help again. She blames herself for knew that the involvement was something that the Harbourn brothers being allowed to walk free and only hours later there is news of another attackman she loved needed. A pair of sisters have been stabbed and raped resulting in the death of one The next case did look simple, while the other clings to lifethough.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Leah Fleming|title=Remembrance Day|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady Two lovers were murdered in a wheelchair watches the unveiling swimming pool of the new war memorial a remote property in the village squareBel Air. ThereHe was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's pride in what has been achieved, in not the family who are gathered around her and there are memories tooItalian. Some are good but many are not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Layton1529395224|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in earlier volumeshis footsteps, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy was convinced this was the job for lots more double periods of Difficult Sumshim. They're supposed to be making presentations about what they did during the holidays too Before long, but Oscar hasnhe was at Liverpool University. It hadn't done any preparation and, frankly- as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he can't really remember what he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sumsd wanted to be a professional footballer. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb0861541774|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. SheDCI Domenic Jejeune's very politeclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, friendlyhas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and kind-heartedhe killed a Ghurka. Initially, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesn't have he faced a kingdom charge of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, manslaughter but there's always a feeling evidence came to light that suggested that she's not quite he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as good as them because she isnany interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't the princess of anywherehelp Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mij Kelly and Louise NisbetAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and keeps herself operating as an alternative to herselfall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Her things are Ness has asked her things younger cousin Katie if she could come and she look after the business, as Ness is too selfish planning to take a trip to Canada to share them get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with anyone elsea bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. One day And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an old man moves in Edinburgh we already love, thanks to Mouse's house. He used to be the happiest man in 44 Scotland Street and the worldIsabel Dalhousie novels, but now he's sadwith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. He's fed up of having given Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, givenbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, given all his life and never got anything back. He just sits quietly there's always her very helpful (and mopes. This makes Mouse miserablerather handsome) neighbour, William, so one day she decides to cheer him up by giving him lend a clementine...hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bland0811771741|title=The Very Cranky BearInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrafts|summary=Moose, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head into Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a cave collection of knits from toys to get out blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the rain'long, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep cosy afternoons in therefront of the fire' variety. When The projects are divided by the time they wake him up'll take to complete - less than five hours, he roars at themfive to ten hours, chasing them outside, so they decide ten to cheer him up somehowtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. Zebra paints stripes on him All the projects are attractive, Moose fashions antlers for him modern and Lion sticks a mane of straw on himuseable. Unsurprisingly, this makes Bear even crankier, so it I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's down to Sheep to save the dayme being picky...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kes Gray and Lee WildishDean Koontz|title=Mum and Dad GlueThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingParanormal|summary=A young boy's parents are splitting upBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He's going through the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worryloses his job, feeling unsurehe loses his fiancee, blaming himselfand his house gets trashed. Oh, angerand someone has delivered a really weird, denialdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and then trying 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 get them to stay togetherdeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. His method So fortunately for this isn't Benny it turns out that the usual response though: he looks delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for glue being a good person. Spike is going to stick his mum take care of Benny, and dad together. Thankfullywill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he , Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds some wise and kindly advice in the processherself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clara VulliamyAdam Stower|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=It's Pearl's bedtimeMurray is supposed to be a humble, but she says she's really busy tidy and isn't going friendly cat, one who is able to sleep. She just wants to play and play eat and eat and playsleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. When But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the bear with sticky paws rings catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the doorbellregular back garden, he whisks her away on an amazing but into a world of frightening adventure - although as you might expectand whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, the bear has where a little more energy troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Pearl Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and eventually she does get a little sleepy.he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen MackeyB0C47LV1PC|title=MikiFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=ItCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''s coldjoke? And if you could, dark and icy, and Miki and Penguin are trudging through is the snow. But question should you make it's Midwinter Eve, when wishes come true. They wish for a tree, lights, someone strong to power ? Or is the lightsquestion if you did, and finally a star would it land? The catch is that will shine brightly foreverthe answer for both could well be.... Miki is taken deep below the ice to find the star, whilst up top Penguin and new friend Polar Bear start to worry about herno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034095065X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Justin Scroggie1529431735|title=Eye Spy: Uncovering the Secrets of the World Around YouThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=TriviaCrime|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day I was driven past a pair of speed regulation signs, positioned at the exit end of a one-way street but facing the illegal way up it. Not all signs, of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994487</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jose Saramago |title=Small Memories|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Having been born in 1922 and lived through so much of the twentieth century, with an authorIt's view of change February 1991 and peopleEssex is bitingly cold, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced a lot. Civil Wars in the neighbouring Spain; the growth of his country - which still left it as western Europe's poorest. Here he allows us witness to his mind drifting through his childhood, in the country and in Lisbon, and provides a subtle and gentle memoir.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Eoin Colfer|title=And Another Thing ... Douglas Adamsmade Bruce Hopkins' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6) |rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Of return all the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows than manysurprising. Why try and write a new HitchhikerHe's Guide to d been exiled on the Galaxy book, when way before the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task? And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described Costa del Sol as Monty Python doing a sci-fi Terry Pratchett, and with their cups of tea and dressing gowns, could only be described as very English? Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when it comes to knocking up wanted drug smuggler for a storydecade.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harlan Coben|title=Tell No One|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I've been meaning to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben The return has come about because he's workhad a letter from his ex-wife, because if the reviews are to be believed and you are a fan of the saying that she'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrument' thriller, the man is quite simply not capable of turning out a duff novel. But you know how it is, what with one thing and another and a bulging pile of books to be read s ill and reviewed, I just somehow hadnhasn't managed long to give him my full attentionlive. Until now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft|title=Margrave of the Marshes|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=John Peel was without doubt one of the most important disc jockeys of all time. Born in Merseyside in 1939It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning home stripped to join Radio London and then become one of the original Radio 1 team, where he stayed until his death 37 years later. I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day (even if I didn't always enjoy it myself) underwear and his readiness sent to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted to hear, and I always enjoyed reading his columns a watery grave in the music weeklies and later Radio Times. Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards the end, recall some boot of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come to mind), and thought his build-'em-up, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after a whilestolen Ford Sierra. So I approached this book with an open mind as a fan, but not an uncritical one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez |title=Perfumes: The A - Z Guide|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. The only thing that could be conceivably better than reading ''Perfumes'' would be to read it while sampling the scents Is it reviews, but even without the olfactory component, ''Perfumes'' is a delight: Turin (warning from a lyrical scientist) and Sanchez (an analytically enthusiastic collector) not only treat perfume creation as high art, but turn perfume criticism into an art form (Spanish gang or at least a sophisticated genre of writing) too. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681278</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Malouf |title=Ransom|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Taking his theme from a small part of Homer's Iliad, Malouf tells the story of the king of Troy, Priam's grief-stricken voyage into the Greek camp problem closer to ransom Troy's wealth for the body of his fallen son, Hector, killed by the equally grief-stricken Achilles whose great friend Hector had killed in battle before Achilles took his cruel revenge. Malouf tells the story in sparse, yet lyrical and poetic fashion suggesting the personal stories behind the epic themes that Homer related. It is an exquisitely written piece managing to be both deeply moving as well as a great piece of story telling.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184159</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven M Gillon|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the event. It's been of variable quality, but the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publicly. I'd come to the point of wondering if there was anything new to be said, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened from an unusual and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnson's Presidency.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>}}home?