132,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow0008385068|title=VerticalThe Midnight Feast|author=Lucy Foley|rating=34.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= ThereIt's something about tall buildings that just captures my imaginationmidsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. Who doesn It't love a good view from s their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It's all headed up highby Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, after all? Even Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the drabbest office building site. The heat is somewhere I'm intrigued oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to get inside if be settled and itwon's 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intriguedt be long before a body is found.|isbn= 1803363991
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi PinfoldAshley Hickson-Lovence|title=Finding BearWild East
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]Written in verse, April had been on Bear Islandthis is Ronny's story, a lot further north than many people would venture, young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and finding start at a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bearmostly white school. Back homeThe move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, things on the domestic and family front are so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a bit advancednew town, but not perfect for hera new school, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onkeep himself out of trouble. For He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and woundedrapper. Desperate But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to make sure he's OKbe part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, she and her father return Ronny begins to see the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white connections between rap and very dangerous thingspoetry, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – the power of creativity and that the friendship can continuecrafting your words.|isbn=00085820170241645441
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18041832101635866847|title=No ReserveThe Lavender Companion|author=Felix FrancisJessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLifestyle|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldnIt't have been on s strange, the rostrum when things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the colt - as yet unnamed - came up book for auction, but Peter Radwayyou. Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the chairman, hadnauthor't arrived, so he continued his sessions [https://www.pinelavenderfarm. To say that he was shocked when com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the bidding reached three million pounds would be an understatementhomepage. A lovely animal I don't eat cakes and desserts - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each otherI wanted that cake viscerally. Brian Kitman and Elliot (There'Mitchs a recipe in the book, which I' Mitchell were well-known m avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and respected I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the racing industrymargins are sanctioned. Jennings was in one You get to fold down the corners of the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that figurepages. Both were happy You suspect that they had insurance in placesmears of butter would not be a problem. The following morning, the horse was dead in its stallI ''loved'' this book already.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah WilsonRob Keeley|title=This One Wild and Precious LifeChildish Spirits: the path back to connection in a fractured world10th anniversary special edition|rating=3.54|genre= LifestyleConfident Readers|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He'What is it you plan to do with your one wild s a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and precious life?'' I get enjoyment, not to love that line so much because my answer is lecture or hector. The ''This! Precisely this.Childish Spirits'' I'm lucky enough to be living my series is one wild and precious life the way I want toof his greatest achievements. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes OliverIt's words as her title (though I a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can't see that she acknowledges cope with anything the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''nospirit world throws at her, we are not''. Don't care what you're doingand Edward, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about a spoiled lordling and the fact that we are not.first spirit Ellie encounters|isbn=17856338481783064617
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1839948493Jenny Valentine|title=A World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak Us in the Before and Luisa UribeAfter
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionTeens|summary=In the interests of full disclosureElk and Mab are best friends, I must tell you or more than that I'm even, their friendship is a once in a sucker for dogslifetime connection. In nearly eight decades, I've never met They meet as children one I didnday on a trip out but unfortunately they don't trust and Iget each other've loved most of thems contact details at the time. I wish I felt the same about human beingsBut then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. So Something has happened though, any book about dogssomething terrible and tragic, I'm going to sit down and devour. Then I'm going to go back now they must work through their grief, and read it properly. And so it was with ''A World of Dogs''their friendship, with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since thentogether.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405951680Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=The Safe House|author=Cameron WardDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OKMeet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friendseems, Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the Australian outback for sport where a couple team of monthswarrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. After Unfortunately for Kit, the problems sheonly thing he'd had at works seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, it seemed like just the break she eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. She was no longer a data analyst Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to goading from the country token bully of her birth his world and in need of the space to get over the traumatic end of her relationship with Charlesstumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. A few weeks What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the ticket.actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|isbn=1839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel HarrisonSaima Mir|title=Bad DollsVengeance|rating=43.5|genre=Short StoriesThrillers|summary=It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple was instantly intrigued by the premise of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing this novel – an organised crime syndicate in the books from north of England run by a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to Muslim woman. The fact that it was the point that second in a series I couldnhadn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! Donread didn't worry - this short story collection isnstop me – I've jumped midway into a few series before (on page and screen) and it needn't like be a hindrance if it's good enough. And that! It doesnwasn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have a problem here. Vengeance swiftly brings you up to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepyspeed, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with griefnever felt lost.|isbn=18033639320861541561
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lauren St JohnStuart Douglas|title=Finding WonderLowe and Le Breton Mysteries - Death at the Dress Rehearsal|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=RooDuring location filming for his 1970's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was youngsitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', and now she finds herself awoken in leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across the middle dead body of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead a woman on his way to the corner shop to buy edge of a lottery ticketreservoir. When asked what other family she hasThe police seem happy to assign it as an accidental death, she can only name her auntbut something about the whole thing bothers Lowe, Joniand he enlists the help of a fellow actor, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly ofJohn Le Breton to help him investigate matters further. But she has no one elseThey travel across the country during their days off filming, uncovering more possible murders and so off she goes , seemingly, a link to live with her unreliable auntdeath during the Second World War. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in But is there really a link between the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! deaths? Poor Roo!And will they manage to uncover who is responsible before more people lose their lives?|isbn=05713761691803368209
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1448309743B0CYV674G2|title=The Devil Stone Swanton Morley (DCI Christine CaplanJohn Tanner)|author=Caro RamsayDavid Blake|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In It seemed like an open-and-shut case. A man, covered in mud and blood - and carrying a knife, comes into the police station shouting that he hasn't killed the village of Cronchie on man. A body at the West coast of Scotland, five members bottom of a wealthy family are found murderedfreshly dug grave at Swanton Morley church - he's been stabbed to death. The only item missing from the home DCI John Tanner is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed just back from Otterburn Househis honeymoon, death will followwhich coincided with the birth of his daughter Samantha. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, thatYou would think he's d be grateful for an easy conclusion given that two of them answer but the words 'perverse' and 'John Tanner'discoveredwere made for each other. He' s sleep-deprived to the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald point of falling asleep at work but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in 's determined to keep going - probably because he can'shadow' himt get any sleep at home.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Kay Chronister1787333175|title= Desert CreaturesYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating= 45|genre= Dystopian FictionPopular Science|summary= With a world that I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanityGoing to Hurt}}, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid glorious mixture of insight into the workings of water or a nuclear holocaustthe NHS, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fearshumour and autobiography. ''You Don'Desert Creaturest Have to be Mad...'' by Kay Chronister is a new promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the fears that exist for humanity today. It laughter is directed at a shocking novel that still manages to find hopesituation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.|isbn=1803364998
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher FowlerOnyi Nwabineli|title=Word MonkeyAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary= ItAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's the first increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East AngliaAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. I decided not Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to swim at the pool in favour of going regain her confidence and to my beach hut. The weather closed inget her life back, rain arrived, and I decided not suing her step-mother to do that eithertake down the content about her. When I finished reading this bookAnuri is battling alcoholism, I realised it was because (a) I wanted failing to finish reading this book start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and (b) I did not want to do receiving money from them for doing so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alertsMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler new focus of Ophelia'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosiss online empire. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dyingCan she save her sister, and you know he actually is perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at that point, because he does. He did.the same time?|isbn=08575296250861546873
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077699David Chadwick|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesHeadload of Napalm
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeThrillers|summary=''It's all bloody peculiarSeptember 1973 in Hicks, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it California. Hicks is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle a Mojave desert town of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and dead, in Las Vegas both a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, significant drive away. Not much happens in DevonHicks. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: A silver mine and a renowned adventurer, round defence contractor are the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' main local employers but as weotherwise, there'll find out, he could be more s not much of note other than a little bit close with money dive bars and his background isn't exactly an open bookJoshua trees. Life is quiet, until.... Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?|isbn= B0D321VJ76
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRTom Percival|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be at homeWill's life is difficult, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on in a snowy beach when a large slab multitude of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelineways. On top He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the ice college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a polar bearbuilding site and had an accident. As Throw into that mix the ice bumped onto the sandfact that his mum and dad are separated, the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the iceWill's life seems bleak in every direction. Kit was all for making And yet, he still has a run for it, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then anothertiny amount of hope. He obviously needed is good at art, and clings to be taken home on the bus and given moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a good meal and somewhere to sleeplong, dark tunnel. What else would you do?|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire NorthSylvie Cathrall|title=House of OdysseusA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Science Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more There are few greater joys than love?'' The follow-a book which lives up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left offcompelling premise. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope And this is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King one of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refugethem.|isbn=03565160750356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270450008517061|title=The Girl Death in the Eagle's Talonsa Lonely Place|author=Karin SmirnoffStig Abell|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Life Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example''settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the small town future of Gasskashis life with his vet girlfriend, where the soLivia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-far-untapped natural resources of grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the area have sparked a gold rush. future she wants for herself and her daughter? The criminal underworld has not been slow For the moment they’re enjoying life in coming forward. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in present and putting the area to have vanished without trace. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of future on the part Salander played in her father's deathback burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5B1786482126|title=The Last Person in the WorldJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Matthew TreeElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finns. It site was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder and had money going to throw around on a Rolex watch, vintage wines and a statehold seventy-of-thefive 'luxury' apartments -art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintancesdiscovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Finns had There was no intention of going on to University, unlike our storyteller who had skull. Was this a place at Wolverton College in Wellingfordritual killing or murder? Inevitably, the UKDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's third most prestigious universitydifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Before going up Her condition will be obvious before long, he took up a loose invitation not least because Ruth is prone to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetsudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0008551324|title=The House at the End of the WorldDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and feel that there he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is no one on your sideburied and who was responsible for her death. This person, you can either suck it uphe promises, saddle up is someone big and ride on or you can retreat it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in a small chain open prison to serve the remainder of tiny dots on the map his sentence and live out your days in peace and solitudeto get an early parole date. ThatNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn's what Katie thought she was doing when t think so and she shut down her old life to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; and all would have been even prepared to do the aforementioned peace other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankindanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1662453159
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher0008405026|title=ThornhedgeA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=It''You had a right 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 retake your place.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known and well belovedhalt. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower Now, her mother, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentHelena, Thornhedge is not and her storyfather are dead in their bed. Instead Initially, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was it looks like a new-born baby and secreted away to straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the land positioning of fairie where the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her childhood boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was spent being taught how going to draw magic from her veins be an open-and cast spells-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1803364238
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F Walker|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary= This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a general flavour.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=17876366070571379877|title=The TrapKellerby Code|author=Catherine Ryan HowardJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningtheatre director. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and looking uses Edward to run errands for a way to get homehim. Some are lucky Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and manage he's drunkenly confided how he feels to get one of the few taxis availableRobert. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages. The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly Most men in the light of Robert'the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a long way short of her home. She relationship had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - begun between them but her phonehe's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance not like most men: Edward is left to beg stumble upon the bus driver to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and two of them kissing in high-heeled shoesa dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405957174Jo Callaghan|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=From When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the first pagecase alongside her sidekick, we know that Nadine Walshthe AI detective Lock. It's party will not end welltheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. The victim - But when there is a man - second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is dying when we first meet him suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and Nadine consciously makes no effort a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to call the ambulance he so desperately needstheir AI Future Policing project. What we don't know is who Will they be able to solve the man is case in time, or why Nadine prefers to have him die. I'd better give you will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1399613073|title=Nowhere IslandMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelveOlivia, he is so determined to escape Laura and Anjali met on the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – first day of medical school and find their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a home for himselfcentury. He Olivia is en route to yet another fostererruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him you aim to his futurebe a cardiothoracic surgeon. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in Laura is a perfectionist and a camp on an island between trauma doctor. Anjali is the two directions free spirit of the group and she becomes a motorway, GP. When we first meet them they're at a place inaccessible drug and definitely ignored enough alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to provide for their safety and seclusionend in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home Twenty-five years later there, albeit so much more successfullywill be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combineThis time, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080's their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085300250241636604|title=Murder in the FamilyThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Cara HunterGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found 's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the body English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her stepfather, Luke Ryderbeloved aunt, in the garden of their West London homeCarole. He had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if heFreya's former mentor and Carole'd slipped down s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the steps but circumstances seem suspicious, to say the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberateleast. Twenty years later, no one has Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been charged with his murder and it's now back to the subject of ''Infamous''village: Arthur, she feels, a true-crime showlet her down badly. A group of experts Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has been brought together not felt able to review be near the evidence and to take man or pursue the investigation furtherprofession she loved. More to After the pointsplit, she worked in a cafe, they're going to do this live met and married James (on camerathe rebound from the love of her life, episode by episode. There's no dump of the whole box set - who was murdered) and Freya and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewingJames have now divorced.
}}
{{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.''
I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleSunny Singh|title=The Stolen SongbirdHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=Caro's mother, The Hotel Arcadia is a world-famous whistler, luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingsuddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Her other motherHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, Ronniekilling everyone on site, there is having Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to go up North try to take care of her sister remotely for the residents who is unwell. So are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who is going to look after Caro? Sent refuses to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesbe cowed by events, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All keeps on venturing out of her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment room to practise her gymnastics are brought try to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian ladycapture what's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there toohappened through her photography. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside Abhi tries to help her mum's old suitcase, keep safe and all across London a fearsome gang called they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peopleterrorists. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291959771529153298|title=None The List of this is TrueSuspicious Things|author=Lisa JewellJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=On her 45th birthdayIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fairhonestly... ) She, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out that 's not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Marywhat's hospital. Thatworrying Miv's where the similarities endfamily, though: Alix. Women have been disappearing. Well, with her husbandthey've been murdered, Nathan, are in the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst theybut to have 'disappeared' doesn're not t sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she'exactlys overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South' rowdy, they. When you're enjoying themselvesfrom Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. JosieFor Miv, on the other handmove would mean leaving her best friend, holds her handbag close Sharon, and she'll do anything to her tummy and you get the sense prevent that Walter's not too happy. HeShe's not used to spending this much money on a meal - but it is Josieworried about the dangers or that her Mum's birthday after allstopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18033651101398524085|authortitle=Chuck TingleHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|titleauthor=Camp DamascusNicci French|rating=3.5|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Love is love; although humans continue to be confused by this sentimentCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Gay conversion therapy is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans to make it a crime Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie andher daughter, in the US, nearly 700 000 adults have received itEtty. Although it is both a secular and a religious prejudiceare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Chuck TingleAlec, in his new horroris not. Shortly afterwards, ''Camp Damascus''Etty and Greg, peels back find the skin body of Christian Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn'pray t stand the gay awayguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there'' camps to show the reader the horror lurking withins little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18031363831035906708|title=Tin SoldiersDiva|author=David ChadwickDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Vietnam Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under something the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Edge|title=Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a cloudplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. What actually happened out there is gossiped All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about and nobody this new film format is sure exactly what took placevery different, but and they are swept up into an act of heroism leading to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice and disgrace seems adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to be the consensus. Wat himself next, can they figure out what on earth is keeping his cards close going on? Will they ever get back to his chestthe cinema, as he always does. and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0C7J9D21BRachel Greenlaw|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J LewisCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens|summary=When we first meet our hero''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, his name is Ettore one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallowsany treasure that lies within. Idyllic as this might soundBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, itthey capture the island's a bordello leader and EttoreMira's mother died when father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he was born. He's not been short of mothersis secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, though - but for someone she sets off in search of his background a family secret that lies buried deep in late-eighteenth-century Amalfithe sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, itas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's difficult territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to obtain decent employment. The stint working with save the preparation future of anchovies didn't work out her home and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some moneythe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}