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| − | =='''8 JULY'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |isbn=0008350388
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| − | |title=We Need to Talk About Money
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| − | |author=Otegha Uwagba
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| − | |rating=5
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| − | |genre=Politics and Society
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| − | |summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
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| − | ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
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| − | Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
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| − | =='''13 JULY'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Sarah Langan
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| − | |title=Good Neighbours
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| − | |rating=4.5
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| − | |genre=Thrillers
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| − | |summary= If you're of a certain vintage, it's hard to read the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a sing-song ''that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rocker, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going ok. Until it isn't. One hot, clammy, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess of dirt and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to come.
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| − | |isbn=1789098211
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| − | }}
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| − | =='''14 JULY'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Eshman Smith
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| − | |title=Word of Another Nature
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| − | |rating=3.5
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| − | |genre=Politics and Society
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| − | |summary=''Why does mass protest continually fail to fundamentally change thedirection of the modern world?''
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| − | This is the question Eshman Smith asks in Word of an Other Nature. He's right to wonder since we as humans often seem to be making a pretty bad job of our efforts to create a world of peace, stability and prosperity for all.
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| − | |isbn=B093B2L1Z4
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| − |
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| − | =='''15 JULY'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Emily Critchley
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| − | |title=The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers
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| − | |rating=3
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| − | |genre=General Fiction
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| − | |summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the author's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?
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| − | |isbn= 1911427091
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| − | =='''22 JULY'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)
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| − | |title=Girls Who Lie
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| − | |rating=3
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| − | |genre=Thrillers
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| − | |summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and crime books before now. You think, seeing on the map that we're set in Akranes, and finding it's only twenty kilometres from the capital city, that this author is clutching at the few final straws left. However just because the book aims for the usual small-town feel, it's not just in Akranes that our interests lie. Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for her date evening, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the girl back, and a couple of delighted adopters. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one place, the woman's car was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six months, the body has been discovered, in a third, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depression, and very little maternal feeling in her body. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?
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| − | |isbn=191319373X
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Claire North
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| − | |title=Notes from the Burning Age
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| − | |rating=4
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| − | |genre=Science Fiction
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| − | |summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth.
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| − | |isbn=0356514757
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| − | =='''3 AUGUST'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Darren Shan
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| − | |title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3
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| − | |rating=4.5
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| − | |genre=Confident Readers
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| − | |summary=So. Having done the impossible and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Crypt, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has ''grop'' to think about. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those is. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this series.
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| − | |isbn=B093J9TF73
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| − | =='''5 AUGUST'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=John Boyne
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| − | |title=The Echo Chamber
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| − | |rating=5
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| − | |genre=General Fiction
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| − | |summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.
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| − | |isbn=0857526219
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Louise Candlish
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| − | |title=The Heights
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| − | |rating=4.5
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| − | |genre=Thrillers
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| − | |summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. She's on site, visiting a client for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the way. There are lots of things, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murder.
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| − | |isbn=1471183483
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| − | =='''19 AUGUST'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Doug Johnstone
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| − | |title=The Great Silence
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| − | |rating=4
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| − | |genre=Crime
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| − | |summary=For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname of a family of undertakers. Undertakers and private investigators. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, she married a scot and ended up helping to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been in the family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join the academic staff next term.
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| − | |isbn=1913193837
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| − | =='''2 SEPTEMBER'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
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| − | |title=Julia and the Shark
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| − | |rating=4
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| − | |genre=Confident Readers
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| − | |summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.
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| − | |isbn=1510107789
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| − | =='''7 OCTOBER'''==
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| − | {{Frontpage
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| − | |author=John Gwynne
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| − | |title=The Shadow Of The Gods
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| − | |rating=5
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| − | |genre=Fantasy
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| − | |summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Saga, set in the era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered for all to see. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battle.
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| − | |isbn=0356514218
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| − | }}
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| | <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE --> | | <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE --> |
| | You can work your way through the newest review, category by category, starting [[Newest Animals and Wildlife Reviews|here]]. | | You can work your way through the newest review, category by category, starting [[Newest Animals and Wildlife Reviews|here]]. |
