[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
Clara suffered from ''Osteogenesis imperfecta'': these days it would probably be called brittle bone disease and whilst there is still no cure, treatments have advanced. At the beginning of the twentieth century it meant that Clara was confined to her home, living life through a window and the tales her mother, Charlotte, brought home. Both became far too knowledgeable about bones and the sounds they made on breaking. Charlotte would ''list bones like continents''. Clara would only escape the house after her mother's death - of a tumour at the age of thirty nine - and in her wanderings discovered Kew Gardens. Her growing knowledge of tropical plants led to the offer of a job stocking a newly-built glass house at Shadowbrook in Gloucestershire. [[House of Glass by Susan Fletcher|Full Review]]
===[[Under the Ice (DCI Jansen) by Rachael Blok]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
It's eleven days to Christmas and the cathedral city of St Albans is looking particularly festive with a covering of snow, but this belies the atmosphere: the body of a young girl has been found frozen in the local lake. DCI Jansen's only lead comes from Jenny Brennan - but can you put any credence on statements made by the sleep-deprived mother of a four month old child, particularly one who claims to have seen visions? Can you believe her statements that she's been sleep-walking in the middle of the night when she find evidence that the police have missed? When another girl goes missing the tiny city is in melt-down and for Jenny it all seems close to home. Far too close to home. [[Under the Ice (DCI Jansen) by Rachael Blok|Full Review]]
===[[The Light Between Worlds by Laura Weymouth]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
Five years ago Evelyn, Philippa and James Hapwell escaped to the safety of their air raid shelter as bombs fell all around the streets of London. In the terrifying darkness waiting for their parents to join them, Evelyn prayed to be anywhere else.
A plea that was answered by The Woodlands. One moment in grey London and the next surrounded by a rich green forest, the three children were transported from one world trapped in war, to another on the brink of its own. [[The Light Between Worlds by Laura Weymouth|Full Review]]
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]
When Dak's dad dies very suddenly, from a heart attack, Dak is left feeling lost and alone. His mum is lost inside her own grief, struggling to take care of herself, let alone care for Dak, and so he escapes to the local aquarium - somewhere that both he and his dad had loved. But then he discovers that actually, his dad has turned into a clownfish and is living at the local aquarium! What will Dak do when the aquarium's future is in question, and he may potentially lose his dad all over again? [[Clownfish by Alan Durant|Full Review]]
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''What If It's Us'' is one of those books that just gives you a boost when you need it. A feel good, fun and easy read. I was surprised at the collaboration of Silvera and Albertalli – one known for happy endings, the other for tragedy – but they really work together well. Each takes a character and their voices are so distinct, so real, that you are immediately sucked in. [[What if It's Us by Becky Albertelli and Adam Silvera|Full Review]]
===[[Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery) by Quentin Bates]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
Gunna wasn't too keen when she was taken off police duties to become a bodyguard. It wasn't just the sheer inconvenience of it - away from home for however long the job took and with no contact with the family - she wasn't the only one to have doubts about the man she was guarding. Invited to Iceland by prominent politician Steinunn Strand, Ali Osman was either a saint who devoted himself to helping refugees escape the carnage in their Middle Eastern homeland, or a money-laundering gunrunner. The truth was probably a combination of the two, but whichever or whatever was correct, there's money on Osman's head and this is the reason why he and Gunna are holed up in an isolated house outside Reykjavik, with Gunna toting a gun under her fleece and with a group of armed police in a nearby house. [[Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery) by Quentin Bates|Full Review]]
===[[Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
Evan Hansen spends a lot of time indoors by himself. This worries his mother, who has engaged a therapist to try to help Evan with his extreme anxiety issues. Evan's therapist assigns him the task of writing a daily letter to himself as a way of getting Evan to think more constructively about himself and the world around him. But Connor Murphy, a rather scary boy at school, finds one of Evan's letters and gets the wrong end of the stick because Evan has mentioned Zoe, the girl he has a crush on and who is Connor's sister. [[Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich|Full Review]]
===[[Agatha Raisin and the Dead Ringer by M C Beaton]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
St Ethelred's Church in the idyllic Cotswold village of Thirk Magna has a team of dedicated bell ringers, with the keenest being twins Mavis and Millicent Dupin and when we first meet them they're preparing for the bishop's visit. Now you might be expecting an older, perhaps rather grey man, but this bishop is a little different. One description is 'sex on legs' and even Agatha Raisin is a little smitten - at first - but there's the merest whiff of a scandal about the bishop. It's the mystery of the bishop's ex-fiancee, local heiress Jennifer Toynby, who disappeared very suddenly and neither she nor her body have ever been found. [[Agatha Raisin and the Dead Ringer by M C Beaton|Full Review]]
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]
It is the middle of the night when twelve year old Louisiana Elefante's granny wakes her up to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they must leave home immediately. Granny is prone to middle of the night ideas so initially Louisiana is not too worried by this but then gradually she realises that this time it is different. This time Granny intends that they will never return. Separated from her friends, Raymie and Beverly and her cat, Archie, Louisiana is devastated and desperate. She is determined that she will find her way home somehow. But as her life becomes entwined with the people living in a small Georgia town Louisiana starts to worry about the ''curse'' Granny told her was upon her head and fears that she is destined only for goodbyes. [[Louisiana's Way Home by Kate DiCamillo|Full Review]]