|summary=Moose has joined the animal firefighters, and he's very excited. He's set for a day of daring rescues, blaring sirens, and haring around town at top speed. He and his friends are awfully brave, and it's a good thing too, as they're going to have a busy day.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407116452</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Russell Hoban
|title=Soonchild
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Sixteen-Face John needs all sixteen faces to cope with his many fears. He's an Inuit shaman but all that shaman stuff got a bit too much - especially considering the fear thing - and so these days in the North, he spends more time drinking Coca Cola and watching TV than he does shamanising. It's less anxious that way. But there's a problem. John's wife, No Problem, is pregnant, and their Soonchild is refusing to come out. John must go on a dream journey to rescue the World Songs if Soonchild is ever to be born.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406329916</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Eddie Campbell
|title=The Lovely Horrible Stuff
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Money, in amongst all the cliched things it does, makes for peciluar detail for a graphic novelist like Eddie Campbell to include in a book about it. He has to make himself a company to qualify for creating a Batman strip to earn it, and has to pay $4 to buy $1 to draw (- then claim the tax back on the purchase to save himself some of it). It causes friction when his daughter earns too much, and when his wife's dad spends too much in a legal pursuit to have more. In the second half of this book it causes a journalistic piece of non-fiction as he takes a look at Pacific islanders who used man-sized stone discs as currency.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1603091521</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Scott Westerfeld
|title=Goliath
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=This is 1914 and there is a World War going on, but this is not the WWI we know of. While a lot of it concerns allies and enemies in common with our reality, disagreement also surrounds one's nature and attitude to technology - Clankers have mechanical, industrial inventions, while Darwinists have more natural help, from huge flying whale-type creatures down to lizards taught to personally deliver voice messages that mimic the sender, and fleets of attack bats and birds. On one such zepellin-type beast is Austro-Hungarian Prince Alek, caught up in the war against his will by his parents' death, and his best friend, about whom he actually knows far too little. He knows even less of another passenger it picks up - a scientist in electricity and mechanics, who says he is giving his ultimate prize - a machined weapon mighty enough to cease the war for good - to the Darwinists...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386806</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Thompson
|title=Communion Town
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Communion Town – one city but it may as well be many as each person's perception of it is coloured by their experiences within it. Each chapter introduces us to a different story, a different viewpoint and therefore, practically a different city. Starting with the ominous, creepy story of Nicolas, through stories encapsulating such themes as recaptured friendship, murder and an enigmatic take on the life of a private investigator, we start to piece together the nature of Communion Town... or do we?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007454767</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matt Rees
|title=A Name in Blood
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Artist Michelangelo Merisi is best known by a location: Caravaggio, his home town. He grew up acquainted with the ugly side of life and death, having witnessed the plague-ridden deaths of his father and grandfather on the same day. However he was also born with the ability to create beauty in his art. He's able to make a living adorning the churches and fine houses of Rome, but Caravaggio walks a fine line. On one side is the wildness and carousing he needs to feel alive and on the other is the need to placate the powers that be. When those powers happen to be a pope who's a Borgia and a patron who's a Borgia's nephew, then the line is very fine indeed. Add complications like a beautiful woman and a life-long commitment to preserving the well being of a headstrong noble, leading him to the knights of Malta, and a life of difficulty becomes one of impossibility. Then something else happens... Caravaggio completely vanishes from history, taking the intrigue up to a whole new level.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879199</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Beatrice Rodriguez
|title=The Fishing Trip
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Fox, chicken and their not-yet-hatched egg have run out of food. Chicken decides to go out to try and get them something to eat, leaving fox to take care of the egg. Poor chicken faces big, scary birds and a giant sea monster...will she ever manage to find any food? And what will she find if she does manage to get home again?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1877579246</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Simon Denman
|title=Connected
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Doug, a maths and computing undergraduate at Essex University, has just pulled the most amazing girl. So he's not really that interested in the file of fractals research best friend Kal has just sent him. But while Doug and Cindy are busily getting it on, something has gone horribly wrong for Kal and Doug emerges from afternoon delight to the horrific discovery that his friend has committed suicide. Miles away in the countryside, Peter is attending his brother's funeral. Martin was a musician but not a tortured artist and it seems inconceivable that he too would take his own life. But the trip, for Peter, is more than a family obligation - it's the chance of a break from a stale marriage and an opportunity to indulge in some guilty proximity to his newly-bereaved sister-in-law.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0089YQPI0</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer
|title=Between The Lines
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Delilah is a teenager who probably should have moved beyond fairy stories, but there’s one in particular that has her hooked. ''Between the Lines'' – a book within a book – is a classic story of a prince searching for true love and battling all sorts of dragons and demons on the way, and for Delilah it’s the perfect escape. Plus, the handsome hero, Prince Oliver, doesn’t hurt. Like Delilah he’s growing up without a father (though this matters far less to him than it does to her) and like Delilah he can feel something of an outsider, a little bit different from everyone else around. One day, as Delilah is reading the story for the umpteenth time, she gets the odd feeling that Oliver is talking back to her from the pages. But could there really be a whole other world that goes on between the pages when the book is closed, are they all just characters acting out the script of the story but different people when the spotlight is off, and is there a chance that, between the lines, there’s a lot going on that is not for readers to know about?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444740962</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Katie Davies
|title=The Great Dog Disaster
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Suzanne's dad is shouting again, loud enough to be heard through the kitchen walls into the house next door, where Anna lives. He must think he sounds like a stuck record, saying for the umpteenth time they can't and won't have a dog as a pet. But what if it's left Suzanne in a will? Unfortunately, what gets delivered is nothing like the dreamt-of Cheetah or Bullet, but the most lumpen, lazy, poo-smelly attempt at a dog ever. And unfortunately, the attempts to train and exercise it involves Anna in lots of poo-smelly-bit shoving, and so much time and effort it could even break their friendship...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385982</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Kerr
|title=Fell the Angels
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Cecilia had had more surnames than was usual for a young woman in the late nineteenth century. She was born Henderson but married Robert Castello and quickly came to realise that he was an adulterer with a drink problem. A woman's place was thought to be with her husband - even by Cecilia's wealthy parents - but they recognised that forcing her to go back to him could be problematical. As a compromise she was sent to Malvern to take a water cure and it was there that she came into contact with Dr James Gully. He was a good deal older than Cecilia but a relationship developed between the two - affection on Cecilia's part (probably the most of which she was capable) and love on his.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709098383</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Austin Ratner
|title=The Jump Artist
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Austin Ratner's debut novel, ''The Jump Artist'', first published in the US in 2009, is a fictionalised account of the extraordinary life of celebrated photographer, Philippe Halsman. Born a Latvian Jew, as a young man in 1928 he was walking in the Austrian mountains when he saw his father fall to his death. This would be traumatic for anyone, but the issues were compounded when he was accused of murder by the Austrian courts in what was probably anti-semitic and certainly xenophobic in explanation. Philippe's second trial, the first failing potentially because his mother had engaged a Jewish lawyer, details the fundamental lack of evidence and shoddy police work behind the accusation.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921599</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert K Massie
|title=Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas and Alexandra, and of Peter the Great, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of the late eighteenth-century reigning Empress.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jane Feaver
|title=An Inventory of Heaven
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mavis Gaunt was evacuated to Shipleigh in Devon during World War II and went to live with her aunt. It wasn't just an escape from the dangers of London - it was a welcome relief from her parents' loveless marriage and in her mind it became a heavenly retreat. In her twenties and with her mother dead there was nothing to keep her in London so she headed back to Shipleigh. She struck up an unlikely friendship with Frances Upcott, one of three children of a reclusive farmer and, almost against her will, found herself drawn into the life of the farm. It gave her a sense of belonging but it ended in tragedy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330006</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Theresa Breslin
|title=Spy for the Queen of Scots
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jenny is not only a lady-in-waiting to Mary, Queen of Scots; she's also one of her oldest and closest friends, brought up with her at the French court during Mary's long betrothal to the Dauphin. Jenny is fiercely loyal to Mary and so, when she overhears a whispered conversation about poison, she decides to turn spy for her queen. The French court is full of plotting and spying but, when Mary returns to Scotland after her young husband dies, Jenny discovers the warring clans of Scotland present her mistress with even more danger.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617054</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Beth Raymer
|title=Lay the Favourite: A True Story about Playing to Win in the Gambling Underworld
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It was a dream which brought Beth Raymer to Las Vegas, but the reality was that she ended up waiting tables in a low-end diner and living in a distinctly unsavoury motel. A chance meeting brought her into contact with Dink, the self-styled king of the city's sports betting and she moved into what was very much a man's world - of high-stakes gambling and a lot of people you wouldn't necessarily want your daughter to know. This is the story of how Beth learned the trade and moved into the world of the big money where gambling regulations don't apply. Being sharp was what it was all about.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555395</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jo Hodgkinson
|title=My Friend Nigel
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Billy is a bit fed up of his parents constantly practising their magic especially when most of their spells go wrong. He is a little curious about all of their strange assortment of ingredients though:
''Jellied bugs and pickled flies,''<br>
''Bubbling potions,''<br>
''Lizard tails,''
''And what was this?''<br>
''A little snail?''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849394040</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ted Kosmatka
|title=The Games
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=It's the near future and the Olympics go on, but not without changes. A new event has been added to those that we'd recognise: genetically engineered gladiatorial combat. This is no holds barred competition, with one rule: each country's gladiator must be devoid of any human DNA. Indeed, America is so good that their team has won all the last three games' golds, thanks to geneticist Dr Silas Williams, but this year is different. This year he has nothing to do with the design; someone sent a single design criterion to an experimental intelligence computer. (You just know that was a bad idea day don't you?) The design criteria is just one sentence, just words, but words can be misunderstood and misunderstanding can be devastating for more than just genetically manufactured gladiators.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781164142</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Maria Duenas
|title=The Seamstress
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Raised in Spain by her mother and unaware of her father's identity, Sira moves to Morocco following her true love, only to be left stranded and alone. However, there's a kind-hearted, rough diamond of a local who, via unorthodox and downright dangerous means, pushes Sira towards reliance on the one thing she's brought from Spain: her gift with the sewing needle. This propels her into a business serving the cream of Moroccan ex-pat society, and that includes Nazi officers' wives and mistresses; a clientele that has possibilities that certain powers seem very happy to utilise.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920029</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mira Grant
|title=Blackout
|rating=5
|genre=Horror
|summary=The last thing Georgia Mason remembers is her brother Shaun putting a bullet in the base of her neck. So how come she's alive and kicking and locked in some CDC facility somewhere?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499005</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jon Courtenay Grimwood
|title=The Outcast Blade
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=After defeating the armies that threatened Venice single handedly, the newly knighted Sir Tycho finds himself with status, wealth and the subject of much interest to the Venetian citizens. But all Tycho really wants is Lady Giulietta, niece of the city's steward. Giulietta, grieving her dead husband, is desperate to escape the backstabbing, poisonous world of the Venetian court, and isn't in the mood for Tycho's clumsy attempts to woo her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498475</amazonuk>
}}
