YA / CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Unraveller by Frances Hardinge.
Macmillan paperback £8.99
Frances Hardinge is a unique writer with astonishing world-building skills, and although her books are classified as children’s / YA, the compelling, complex fantasies she weaves transcend categorization.
Radditch is a land beset by ‘Cursers’; people whose hatred has hatched a ‘curse-egg’ which has the power to transform humans into animals or trap them in inanimate objects. In a world where anyone can create life-destroying curses, only one person has the power to unravel them: a young lad called Kellen. He does not fully understand his talent, but uses it to help those who have been cursed, including his ally and closest friend, Nettle. But Kellen himself is cursed, and unless he and Nettle can release him, he is in danger of unravelling everything - and everyone - around him.
A heart-wrenching, mesmerising story of revenge, redemption, trauma, healing, and the power of therapy, beautifully woven from gossamer-fine language. For readers aged 11-100!

Call of the Titanic by Lindsay Galvin.
Chicken House paperback £7.99
Lindsay Galvin’s excellent novel Darwin’s Dragons was one of our top picks in 2021, and Call of the Titanic is another brilliant story which takes a real historical event and adds a little sprinkle of magic and mythology, being inspired by the story of real-life survivor of the Titanic, Sid Daniels.
Young cabin steward, Sid, is proud to be working on the Titanic, the greatest steam liner ever built. Meanwhile, feisty Clara stows away on a much smaller ship, the Carpathia. Here, she meets a giant bear of a dog: Rigel, who has a reputation for mischief.
What none of them can foresee is how they'll need each other on the night Titanic collides with an iceberg. Or that an even more extraordinary creature might also answer their call . . .
An exciting and original adventure perfect for readers of 8-12 years.

ADULT BOOKS
FOOTMARKS by Jim Leary.
Icon Books, hardback £18.98
Looking at archaeological sites, it’s easy to think of them as snapshots frozen in time, static moments fixed in place. Jim Leary’s intention with this lively, accessible book is to put the life and movement back into history, and he has his own personal reasons for doing so. He does this by looking at footprints, paths, roads, rivers, transhumance, and waves of migration to provide a compelling and very readable picture of a past world continually in motion, from the very beginnings of human history onwards.

Set in Italy in the 1560’s and inspired by Robert Browning’s narrative poem ‘My Last Duchess’, this is a vividly-imagined account of the life of Lucrezia, daughter of a Renaissance prince. Lucrezia has led a sheltered life within the walls of her father’s grand Palazzo, until she is abruptly married off, aged 15, in a strategic alliance to Duke Alfonso. But Lucrezia soon realises that her husband does not have her best interests at heart, and she will have to summon deep reserves of resilience if she is to survive this marriage.
O’Farrell has created a fabulously colourful world, seething with intrigue, and our journey with this young, rebellious heroine is underlaid with dark menace and peril.

All the gossip and grime of Georgian London are vividly brought to life in this warm-hearted historical novel.   That Bonesetter Woman tells the uplifting story of clumsy, plain Endurance (Durie) Proudfoot, who has inherited her father’s gift for ‘bone-setting’. But her father thinks it’s no job for a woman and Durie is sent to London to chaperone her beautiful, flighty sister Lucinda. While Lucinda dreams of fame and fortune on the stage, Durie sets up a bone-setting practice, quickly ascending to undreamt-of heights and becoming the toast of fashionable society! But what goes up must come down… Will Durie endure?
An addictive, joyful read, filled with quirky characters and fascinating historical detail!