Homebound

 By: Portia Elan  

Location: FIC ELA

Genre: Sci Fi, LGBGT, Fantasy, Historical- ALL GENRES!

so it is Genre Bending!

Six hundred years. Five interlocking lives. One computer game.

And the many paths that can lead us home.

It’s 1983 and Becks can’t wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. But for now she has work to do: her programmer uncle, the only person who understood her, has left her a half-finished game to complete.

What Becks is coding will outlast her by centuries and shape the lives of a scientist, an astronaut and a desperate pirate captain in ways she cannot imagine. It will connect these four pioneering women across centuries, vast oceans and far-distant planets and introduce them to a remarkable robot destined to gather together this disparate crew.

Homebound is a coming out and coming-of-age story, a wild and precarious sea adventure, a space odyssey. As it slips through time, loss, creativity, found family, it journeys deep into humanity’s future and capacity for love.

Review by Misty Reads

This is a wonderful book. Technically a literary sci-fi, but really more of a genre-bending story. It’s set across nostalgic 1980s scenes, the not-too-distant 2080s, the centuries that follow, and finally a far distant future nearly 600 years later which strangely feels nostalgic and reads almost like a medieval fantasy.

It’s an ambitious epic, written incredibly well, and clearly well thought out and executed. There are four main characters, but it never feels like too many. I grew very attached to all of them that is a sign of how strong the character writing is. These different POVs and multiple timelines gradually weave together to make sense of the whole, all while asking profound questions about where human civilisation is headed and what it means to exist. When the planet is destroyed, your home gone, and the future uncertain, what do we live for?

Some of the technical elements went over my head (coding, AI and other technological references ) but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the story. It’s not a five-star read for me, only because I didn’t feel the deep emotional impact I expected from such an epic. Still, the ending left a gentle warmth in my heart. That was lovely.

I’d recommend this to people who enjoy:

- Kazuo Ishiguro’s books or other literary sci-fi focused on human connection and love
- Adventure stories
- Books set in the 1980s
- Found family themes

Kill Billionaire

 By: Anders Lustgarten  

Location: FIC LUS

Genre: Thriller

Why did I buy this- one reason only- the Cover!

 Alex said this: Read it. Revolt. Rebel. Redistribute the wealth. 👊

This is a fantastic story, full of humour, realness, and a driving narrative that we should fight back and stop allowing ourselves to be walked all over by those that choose to control our world with their riches.

Perhaps one reason not enough people kill billionaires is it’s actually quite tricky...

An electrifying, ultra-contemporary heist, a wild and hilarious story that is also dangerously prescient.

When her home is destroyed in wildfires, fourteen-year-old Australian outback genius Kayla Connolly decides to hunt down the culprits of climate change: billionaires.

She teams up with Mr P, a giant ex-soldier from Tuvalu whose home is being flooded by rising sea levels. Together, they find ingenious ways to kill a property developer building on protected wetlands and a mining company CEO poisoning the earth with toxic chemicals. They also find an unexpected ally in Nancy, a wealthy elderly woman with a shocking past.

The trio’s mission soon develops a life of its own, taking them first to California to crack billionaire tech bros and then to London for superrich oil executives, spawning a global movement along the way. In pursuit are the FBI and Detective Sergeant Kate Anderson of Scotland Yard, but Kate is having doubts about whether Kayla is even in the wrong. Will Kayla be able to stay ahead of the game and pull off one final, remarkable hit?

Japanese Gothic

 By: Kylie Lee Baker  

Location: FIC BAK

Genre: Horror

It’s sensational, eerie, mind-bending, emotionally layered, and so beautifully written that you feel every whisper, every shadow, every blade. I wholeheartedly recommend it. I’m certain this will stand as one of the best fantasy horror releases of 2026

Outstanding review by Nilifer Ozmikek

A mind-exploding, bone-shivering gothic nightmare wrapped in Japanese mythology, samurai legacy, and time-bending terror — this book is an exquisitely strange, intoxicating, and utterly original experience. It’s the kind of story that freezes your blood like black ice while melting your last remaining brain cells with its wild, labyrinthine twists. If you’re open to something daringly unique, unsettling, and beautifully crafted, this novel delivers a literary punch straight to the soul.

At its core, the story follows two young people separated by centuries yet bound by a single impossible door — a door that threads together their tragedies, their families, and their destinies. The same house. The same threshold. Two different eras.

The first timeline begins in October 2026. Lee Turner is spiraling after a horrifying blackout: he’s convinced he killed his college roommate James… yet he can’t remember how, why, or what he did with the body. With panic clawing at his throat and pills numbing his memories, Lee flees to Japan, where his father has just purchased an isolated house swallowed by sword ferns and wild ginger. All he can do is wait — wait for the police to call, wait for the body to surface, wait for the truth he fears will crush him.

But the house has other plans for him.

While Lee tries to navigate the suffocating tension with his father and his father’s unsettling girlfriend — who keeps whispering horrific folktales like they’re family heirlooms — something truly impossible happens. A window appears where no window has ever been. And behind it stands a young Japanese girl holding a sword, her expression sharp enough to slice through the barrier of time.

Her name is Sen.

Sen lives in 1877, in the same house, with her mother, her brother, and her samurai father — a man exiled after the fall of the samurai and hunted by imperial soldiers. Sen trains relentlessly under his harsh expectations. Honor is her currency. Obedience is survival. Earning her father’s approval means everything.

When she realizes she is a ghost from the past — and that her death is only days away — Sen accepts her fate with a warrior's discipline. But she seeks one final thing: an honorable end worthy of her father’s praise.

As their worlds collide through the doorway, Lee and Sen form a fragile, haunting connection. Lee wants her help to reach the spirit of his mother, who vanished in Cambodia and was presumed dead. If he can connect with Sen, perhaps he can connect with the one ghost who has haunted him since childhood.

But digging for truth — in any century — always comes with a price.

And sometimes the secrets waiting behind the veil are far more monstrous than the horrors already consuming their lives.
The real terror isn’t the ghosts. It’s the truth.

Overall, while a few twists are somewhat foreseeable, the atmosphere of walking through a fog-choked forest with no map is the book’s greatest strength. The slow burn works beautifully, and the integration of Japanese folklore — the legend of Urashima Tarō, the sorrowful tale of Otohime — adds a shimmering, haunting layer that binds everything together. The mythology doesn’t just enhance the story; it becomes its heartbeat.

I adored the chilling ambiance, the exploration of dysfunctional family dynamics, and the aching loneliness that drives these characters toward each other. There’s a raw fragility beneath the terror that makes this novel more than horror — it becomes a tragic meditation on identity, devotion, and the dangerous things we inherit.

.

From Sunday Times bestselling author Kylie Lee Baker comes a wildly inventive take on the much-loved haunted house horror interwoven with Japanese mythology, where two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.

2025
Lee can't remember exactly where he hid the body, but he can remember the blood. Hiding out at his father's centuries-old home in Japan, Lee knows something is wrong with him, and he knows it has something to do with his mother's disappearance almost a decade ago.

1877
A female samurai, Sen, stalks the borders of her home to protect her family from slaughter after the abolition of the samurai class. She's not sure how they'll ever survive, not without her father, who has returned from war with a different soul behind his eyes.

When Lee and Sen find one another through a door between their worlds, they're both looking for answers. But what they find in the creaking old house they share is beyond what either of them could imagine . .

Wild Reverence

 By: Rebecca Ross   

Location: FIC ROS

Genre: Romantasy

 It is a prequel but can be read as a stand alone

I didn’t just read Wild Reverence — I lived inside it. From the first page, I felt that quiet, undeniable pull that only a truly special book has, the kind that makes you forget the world around you. Rebecca Ross took me on a journey that was at once intimate and epic, and I came out of it both breathless and strangely healed, like I’d been walking through someone else’s myth and found pieces of myself along the way. Nilufer

Born ​in the firelit domain of the under realm, Matilda is the youngest goddess of her clan, blessed with humble messenger magic. But in a land where gods often kill each other to steal power and alliances break as quickly as they are forged, Matilda must come of age sooner than most. She may be known to carry words and letters through the realms, but she holds a secret she must hide from even her dearest of allies to ensure her survival. And to complicate matters . . . there is a mortal boy who dreams of her, despite the fact they have never met in the waking world.

Ten years ago, Vincent of Beckett wrote to Matilda on the darkest night of his life―begging the goddess he befriended in dreams to help him. When his request went unanswered, Vincent moved on, becoming the hardened, irreverent lord of the river who has long forgotten Matilda. That is, until she comes tumbling into his bedroom window with a letter for him.

As Fate would have it, Matilda and Vincent were destined to find each other beyond dreams. There may be a chance for Matilda to rewrite the blood-soaked ways of the gods, but at immense sacrifice. She will have to face something she fears even more than losing her magic: to be vulnerable, and to allow herself to finally be loved.

Kaila- review

This book made me believe in soulmates.

Classic romance and longing is back bitches. Romance, lore, and original magic mixed with beautifully poetic prose that feels timeless. I feel like we bottled the perfect 1920s classic romance in a bottle with fantasy. This was everything .

The Liars Daughter

 By: Megan Cooley Peterson  

Location:  FIC PET

Genre: Mystery

“The window is no more than two feet wide and maybe half a foot tall. I can't squeeze through it. It's meant to let in sunlight, not hope.”

Piper was raised in a cult.
She just doesn't know it.

Seventeen-year-old Piper knows that Father is a Prophet. Infallible. The chosen one.

She would do anything for Father. That's why she takes care of all her little sisters. That's why she runs end-of-the world drills. That's why she never asks questions. Because Father knows best.

Until the day he doesn't. Until the day the government raids the compound and separates Piper from her siblings, from Mother, from the Aunts, from all of Father's followers--even from Caspian, the boy she loves.

Now Piper is living Outside. Among Them.

With a woman They claim is her real mother--a woman They say Father stole her from.

But Piper knows better. And Piper is going to escape.

This story turned out to be a delicate and sorrowful tale, but ultimately, one of hope and recovery. Piper is a gentle character who has so much love in her heart, and only wants to make people proud of her. She wants to be seen and acknowledged, to be loved and adored. I really appreciated the author shedding light on how Piper's time in the Community affected those around her. It twisted the knife that was already protruding from my stomach, and then gave it a little extra shake when you begin to see the truth of what happened to her and her family. This is an amazing book that I think everyone should read. If this topic is usually sensitive to you, I do want to express that it doesn't go into anything graphic and it isn't a dark and evil book. It is a truly beautiful and delicate tale, and I highly suggest it be devoured.- Cryptbooks

From Crime to Crime

 By: Richard Henriques  

Location: NF 347.42 HEN

Genre: Forensics- Law and Crime

A must-read for fans of true crime and the judicial system.
The first half of the book is admittedly better than the second, but it is concise, well written and fascinating to hear about these famous cases from the perspective of the barrister.- Ruthy

'If Henriques were a fictional character, he would be a celebrity, the kind of dashing, hawkish QC who turns up in Agatha Christie novels and is recognised by everybody... There is an undeniable, lawyerly authenticity about Henriques's book. He takes us meticulously through his cases... It is fascinating to read.' - Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

Sir Richard Henriques has been centre stage in some of the most high-profile and notorious cases of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. After taking silk in 1986, over the course of the next 14 years he appeared in no fewer than 106 murder trials, including prosecuting Harold Shipman, Britain's most prolific serial killer, and the killers of James Bulger. In 2000 he was appointed to the High Court Bench and tried the transatlantic airline plot, the Morecambe Bay cockle pickers, the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, and many other cases. He sat in the Court of Appeal on the appeals of Barry George, then convicted of murdering Jill Dando, and Jeremy Bamber, the White House Farm killer.

In From Crime to Crime he not only recreates some of his most famous cases but also includes his trenchant views on the state of the British judicial system; how it works - or doesn't - and the current threats to the rule of law that affect us all.

Pocket Bear

 By: Katherine Applegate  

Location: FIC APP

Genre: Animals

"This is a wonderful story of kindness and bravery but most of all it’s a tale of second chances and a reminder that “love comes in many forms - even when it’s filled with fluff”. The beautiful black and white illustrations of Charles Santoso bring this lovely story to life. It’s a heartwarming story that will appeal to all ages." Cheryl

Thimble-born from tip to toe, Pocket Bear remembers every moment of his "becoming": the glimmering needle, the silken thread, the tender hands as each careful stitch brought him closer to himself. Born during the throes of WWI, he was designed to fit into the pocket of a soldier’s jacket, eyes sewn a bit higher than normal so that he always gazed upward. That way, glancing at his pocket, a soldier would see an endearing token of love from someone back home, and, hopefully, a good luck charm.

Now, over a century later, Pocket serves as unofficial mayor of Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured, where stuffed toy animals are refurbished and given a fresh opportunity to be loved. He and his best feline friend Zephyrina, known far and wide as “The Cat Burglar,” have seen it all, and then some.

An unforgettable tale of bravery, loyalty, and kindness, Pocket Bearreminds us all that love comes in many forms (sometimes filled with fluff), and that second chances are always possible.