'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Brent Weeks
|title=Lightbringer: The Black Prism
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Gavin Guile is the Prism, the only person able to split light into its entire spectrum of colours, which makes him the most powerful man in the world. Peace between the seven Satrapies relies on his power, his charm and wit. And a fragile peace has been maintained for the past sixteen years, since the False Prism War that devastated the world.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149903X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Pippa Funnell
|summary=In this book, drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources including chronicles, songs, sermons, travel diaries and peace treaties, as well as the existing literature from earlier generations, Phillips explores in depth the contradictions and the diversity of holy war, of friendships and alliances between Christians and Muslims, the launches of crusades against Christians, and calls for jihads against Muslims. In doing so he has written what is not so much a general history, but had vividly brought to life a rich tapestry of figures and events, while devoting equal attention in his narrative to the Christian and Islamic point of view. This traces the crusading impulse from the conquest of Jerusalem in the First Crusade, launched by Pope Urban II in France in 1095, to today, and in the process helps us to understand the origins of some of the sensitivities which have led to many of the conflicts still raging in the world today.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595078X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Seth Hunter
|title=The Price of Glory
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=This is the final book in Seth Hunter's trilogy about the naval adventures and private life of Captain Nathan Peake. While the other two books, The Time of Terror and [[The Tide of War by Seth Hunter|The Tide of War]], were fairly self-contained stories in themselves, the running thread of Nathan's private life continues over the three books and isn't really resolved until the final few paragraphs in The Price of Glory.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755343115</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Margaret Henderson Smith
|title=Ne Obliviscaris: Do Not Forget
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Poor Harriet Glover. She's caught between her attraction to two men. There's Mark (coincidentally he's a Glover too), her long-term partner and father of her two children. The girls are grown up now but he still hasn't made up his mind about whether or not he and Hat should get married - and truth to tell Hat isn't that certain either. In theory it sounds like a good idea and would regularise matters but she's utterly smitten by Joris Sanderson, the headmaster of the school where she's a teacher. There are times when she thinks that, joy of joys, he's attracted to her, but then there are so many other women in his life that she's far from certain whether he's going to seduce her or sack her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845494067</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Henry Fisher
|title=When I Dream Of ABC
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Apple, ball, cat, dog... yawn... zzz? Not here. ''When I Dream Of ABC'' is an alphabet book, sure, but with a playful glint in the eye and delightful illustrations that makes it a joy to read, whether you're learning your alphabet, not ready yet, or already know it backwards and forwards.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849561028</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Robinson and Sarah Horne
|title=Vile - A Cautionary Tale For Little Monsters
|rating=3.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=At the University of Vile, monsters get up to all sorts of monstrous things. Mischief, rudeness and naughtiness are required for educational success. If you're not picking your nose and making a racket, you're for the high jump, missy. Then, one day, two monsters get themselves into a dilly of a pickle when they fall down a hole. They couldn't possibly... (whisper it) co-operate... to get out, could they?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0745961673</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Neville Colvin and Peter O'Donnell
|title=Modesty Blaise: Sweet Caroline
|rating=3.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Meet Modesty Blaise. You've had countless opportunities to meet her before, mind - she was daily in the London Evening Standard from 1963 to 2001, and this is the eighteenth collection of her comic strip. She's a feisty, unfettered femme fatale with a bottomless fortune and a great supply of both friends and enemies. We see these combine here in four stories, when an enterprising gang of murderous blackmailers force Modesty to become their enemy, an old friend's name is used to dupe her into letting go her criminal secrets from her past, and when a new-found friend, fresh from saving her life in a gliding accident, comes up against some hoodlums.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566735</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Buchan
|title=The Island of Sheep (John Hannay)
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Hannay is feeling old. He looks at himself and his contemporaries and sees a spread of complacency. Luckily - or perhaps very unluckily - an old pledge will come to haunt him. His earlier career in Africa saw Hannay and his friends swear to protect a man from others - and now a second generation of animosity is ripe for Hannay to step in and be a protective detective. Add in a supposed treasure hoard, and who knows where his last journey might end up?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697156X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karen Wilkin
|title=Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=I'm all in favour of Edward Gorey becoming a bigger name, especially here in the UK, where his output is certainly less lauded than in his native USA. It's evident from the bright, glossy pages here that he was an extraordinary talent. Polymath and know-all in real life, in his ink drawings he can show the complexity of someone like Dore, while using his draughtsmanship to pen macabre whimsy, like an old-fashioned love-child of Mervyn Peake and Edward Lear.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0764948040</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rupert Kingfisher
|title=Madame Pamplemousse and the Enchanted Sweet Shop
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is not a stereotypical fantasy. Madeleine, the heroine, is not required to find mystical items or defeat evil beings in order to save the world. And although she lives in a world where magic exists, she does not have any other-worldly powers herself. She is quite simply, despite her young age, an extremely good cook. Mind you, this quaint little book is set in the centre of Paris, so to be gifted in ''la gastronomie'' probably does count as magic - the French see these things differently, after all. No, she is just a little girl who is bullied at school by someone who seems determined to humiliate and hurt her by preying on her natural shyness. The bullying is skilfully done, by emphasising Madeleine's gift for creating wonderful meals and turning it into a reason to pity her. Fortunately for our heroine, she is noticed crying in Notre-Dame Cathedral, and is comforted by a kindly sweet-shop owner, Madame Bonbon. But is this woman really so kind? And doesn't Madeleine know she shouldn't take sweets from strangers?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408805057</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jed Rubenfeld
|title=The Death Instinct
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's three years since we were all blown away by [[The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld|The Interpretation of Murder]] but Jed Rubenfeld is back with the sequel, which takes place ten years later. And what a decade that has been, with the appalling tragedy of the First World War and the influenza outbreak which followed. There's a hope that things are getting better as New York moves into the twenties and Stratham Younger and Captain James Littlemore meet up for the first time in ten years. They're in Wall Street on September the sixteenth – just as a quarter of a ton of explosives is detonated in the worst terrorist attack in the country's hundred and fifty year history.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755343999</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rosie Thomas
|title=Lovers and Newcomers
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Friendship is precious and in this book six middle-aged friends put it to the test as they go to live with each other in an old country house. Each of them is eager to escape the outside world and cover up the cracks of strained relationships and unsuccessful lives. Afraid of growing old and leaving dreams unfulfilled, they do their best to feel young and free once more. However, far from being the wonderful and perfect solution they desired, living together means only more difficulties and new tensions emerge. They must battle with forbidden desires, heartbreak, broken relationships and the fear of old age. To make matters worse their isolated retreat is soon interrupted by an unexpected discovery from the past and with it the unwelcome attention of the outside world. Friendships are challenged, new ones are made and some are lost forever.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007285949</amazonuk>
}}
