'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Louise Yates
|title=Frank and Teddy Make Friends
|rating=3.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Professor Frank Mouse loves to build things in his workshop, but he's envious of the wild creatures that make things in the company of others. He does what any sensible engineer does: he makes a friend for himself. Teddy and he have a lovely time building things together, until Teddy's attempt to do something nice for Frank goes wrong, and the two friends fall out. Thankfully, a reforming of the friendship isn't too far away, and the two chums are back stronger than ever.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083694</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary='The Hare with Amber Eyes' vibrates with that rush of desire to uncover family history that often follows the death of someone you love. It is also a meticulously researched book of wide ranging scope. When I first picked it up, it looked worryingly erudite, and I had visions of becoming lost in a sea of names, places and ideas. So I was amazed to find myself reading it in one sitting, completely absorbed, and losing a whole day in the process. Edmund De Waal had me hooked from the bottom of page one when he admits to kicking the gate of the Japanese language school he was attending in frustration at his lack of fluency. He then thinks sheepishly: 'what it was to be twenty-eight and kicking a school gate.' This funny, disarming comment put me on his side from the off.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539551</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tricia Rayburn
|title=Siren
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=17-year old Vanessa has always been looked after by her more adventurous, outgoing older sister Justine. So when her sister is found dead while they're on vacation in Winter Harbor, and Justine's boyfriend Caleb goes missing, she's devastated. Desperately searching for answers to Justine's demise, she returns to Harbor seeking answers, and teams up with Caleb's brother Simon to find them. Then the weather gets strange, and other bodies start turning up… can they solve the mystery?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571260063</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Hoffman
|title=The Left Hand of God
|rating=3
|genre=Teens
|summary=Cale is fourteen and his life so far has not been one to envy. Brought to the Redeemers' Sanctuary as just a toddler, he's lived within its militant religious fanaticism for all the years he can remember. Beaten, brutalised and half-starved, Cale and his fellow acolytes are being raised to fight an ongoing and bloody war against heretics. Cale is of special interest to Bosco, a Redeemer Lord Militant, and we soon realise why. Cale is intelligent, ruthless, quick, and has the ability to kill without remorse. He is an asset.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141333553</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jan Jones
|title=The Kydd Inheritance
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Nell's Kydd's father died in a hunting accident and her brother, Kit was uncontactable, seemingly lost, on his way back from India. This left her uncle, Jasper Kydd in charge of the family estate and he appeared to be doing all in his power to wreck Kydd Court and make Nell's life a misery. Her mother coped with it all by retreating into her own world, where she couldn't be reached either. When an unwelcome offer of marriage is forced upon her, Nell knows that she has to take action and that's when the very unsettling Captain Hugo Derringer arrives. He's an old friend of Kitt's, but what exactly is he doing in the area and can Nell trust him?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709091710</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Julie Hearn
|title=Wreckers
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=The story of Pandora, whose actions are the cause of all the ills in our world, is well-known. As Julie Hearn has one of her characters say, men remember it because they feel better if they can blame her, and that other female villain, Eve, for all their woes and crimes. But supposing Hope wasn't the last thing in that plain wooden box? What if something else, something slow and ugly and steeped in evil, skulked in the shadows right at the bottom? And what if someone today lifted the lid, as Pandora did, and allowed that last, terrible evil to escape?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729292</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Colin Pascoe
|title=Troika
|rating=3.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=At the beginning of his story he had been what he called 'a normal person', married with a job in a care home. One day when he was out with his dog he walked into an area of absolute quiet, which then went black and all feeling left his body. It would be a month before he returned home and unsurprisingly, everything had changed. But it wasn't just the loss of his job and his wife's disbelief of his explanation for his absence that was different. He had changed too. He had knowledge that would prove to be dangerous.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755212878</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Spicer
|title=The Temptress: The Scandalous Life of Alice, Countess de Janze
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Happy Valley in Kenya was an idyllic setting. The high altitude made for a benign climate and the farms were owned by colonial settlers who became the 'White Mischief' set of the nineteen forties. They farmed their estates, partied the night away and extra-marital affairs were the norm. Author Paul Spicer's mother was loosely involved with the set and he uses the connection to good effect to tell the story of the life of Alice, Countess de Janzé – a beguiling and volatile woman who always thought more of her animals than of her children.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847399142</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alon Hilu
|title=The House of Rajani
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''The House of Rajani'' is set in Jaffa, Palestine in 1895-96. The narrative alternates between the two main characters, both telling their stories in the first person. Luminsky and his wife travel from Europe to Jaffa to start a new life there. Luminsky has studied agronomy in preparation for his new life, and he and his wife have both been involved in the Zionist movement promoting an ideal of the Jewish people returning to their homeland. He is looking forward to putting his studies to good use, but is soon disappointed when he arrives by both the quality of the land occupied by Jewish colonists and their work ethic. Far from the ideal of self-sufficiency, they are buying fruit, grain and vegetables from the Palestinians. He is also frustrated by his wife’s lack of interest in having sex with him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535998</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sorrel Anderson
|title=The Clumsies Make A Mess of the Big Show
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is the third book about The Clumsies, two small mice who live in Howard Armitage's office, and manage, whatever the situation, to make a mess! A big show is being put on at work, and Howard's boss wants Howard to sing. The Clumsies decide to intervene, in order to help out Howard, and chaos ensues...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007339364</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jonny Steinberg
|title=Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York City
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=South African Steinberg has won awards with previous non-fiction books and after reading the praise from various sources (New York Times, J M Coetzee) I came to the conclusion that I was in for a serious and thought-provoking read.
The preface tells us that the two Liberian men - Rufus and the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances and for different reasons. But as they meet up years later and thousands of miles away from their homeland, their ''Little Liberia'' in New York City has a tall order: to contain and accommodate their big personalities and to a certain extent, their big egos. Can it cope?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Petersen
|title=Mouse Guard: Legends of The Guard
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=To start with, I have never heard of Mr Petersen and his Mouse Guard franchise. But I'm often up for an introduction to a fantasy cycle, and I always relish being welcomed to an author by the most esoteric, unusual, quirky and short route. My first entry to the His Dark Materials world was [[Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman|a collector's spin-off]], and I'm just as likely to start the Twilight series, if ever, with the latest brief whimsy. And for those of a similar mind-set, this collection of tales from the pens of guest writers and illustrators, serves as an odd-shaped doorway on to this particular universe.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681427</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Curtis Jobling
|title=Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Drew Ferran knows there's a monster roaming the land where his family farm – he just doesn't realise it could be inside him. Until a terrible creature attacks his beloved mother, triggering a transformation in him, and leading his father and brother to believe he’s responsible for her death. Forced to flee to the most godforsaken parts of Lyssia, Drew becomes quickly embroiled in the world of the Werelords. Can he survive?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141333391</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
|title=Horrid Henry's Thank You Letter
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I'm sure most of us have, at one time or another, found ourselves being forced to write a huge pile of thank you letters to distant relatives, perhaps even for gifts that we weren't all that excited to receive in the first place! This is the predicament that Henry finds himself in, and rather than knuckle down to get them over and done with he, of course, procrastinates as much as possible before coming up with an ingenious, money-making scheme!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001051</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Malcolm Fawbert
|title=Tales from Thimble Hall: Mrs Stopper's Bottle
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=One night Evie and Jacob, who lived at Thimble Hall, asked their mother for a story about a bottle and strangely enough, she knew a rather good one which was about a small shop not far from where they lived.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>160860344X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Molly Carr
|title=The Sign of Fear
|rating=3
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Mary Watson - a distant second to John Watson, who of course was a distant second to Sherlock Holmes. Fed up with staying at home while her new husband spends too much time at 221b Baker Street, or away with Holmes sleuthing, she gets to dabble her own feet in the underworld waters when a certain Professor Moriarty comes calling.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685006</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jon Stephen Fink
|title=A Storm In The Blood
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A Storm In The Blood'' is based on a true story involving the police force and the government of the day trying to suppress racial tensions in early 20th century London. It has resonance for our modern times as we grapple with similar situations and problems.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956544517</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ivy Devlin
|title=Low Red Moon
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Avery's parents have been murdered, they’ve been literally torn apart, and Avery saw the whole thing. But her minds blocked it out, all she remembers is seeing something inhumanly fast, flashes of silver, and blood, lots of blood. Whatever killed her parents is still out there, and is trying to kill her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140881398X</amazonuk>
}}
