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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crimenon-fiction, cookery & children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books reviews and recommendations Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the libraryWith author interviews, the charity shop features and the bookshoptop tens. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times thereYou'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent sure to us by publishers and we promise to tell find something you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something want to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] pagehere.Dig in!

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Want to learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__ ==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551375|title=When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the loose.}}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=Dysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''  Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''. |isbn=1804271454}}

|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=17808998580008551324|title=To Tell The Devil You the TruthKnow (D S Max Craigie)|author=Gilly MacmillanNeil Lancaster

|summary=When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-old she crept out of the house on the night of It's unusual for anyone from the summer solstice Hardie family to watch approach the pagan celebrations in Stoke Woodspolice. Her four-year-old brother, Teddy, would have woken Neither side likes or has any respect for the house if she hadn't taken him with herother. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the early hours police where the body of the morninga missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, Lucy returned home without Teddyhe promises, hoping that is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he would have got home before herwants. He hadn't And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and no one has seen him sinceto get an early parole date. Lucy's story was crucial Not much to the police investigationask, but is it keeps subtly changing. ? Lucy is being advised by her imaginary friend, Eliza Grey The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and Eliza says she's even prepared to do the other thing that there are Hardie demanded - make certain things which Lucy must not tell the policethat DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.

|isbnauthor=0008214700|title=Cut to the Bone Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (DI Meg Daltontranslator)|authortitle=Roz WatkinsVaim

|summary=DI Meg Dalton and Ds Jai Sanghera are dealing with I can't have been the case of only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a missing teenagernew life on Orkney. Violet Armstrong is It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well-known as a vlogger - championing Cassie, the cause daughter of meat-eatinghis former partner. She barbeques meat wearing only a bikini Willow's also his boss, and has attracted the attention of animal rights activists. The meat-eaters (they wear meat suits) are determined that Meg Dalton is corrupt and not running a decent investigation (she ''obviouslyshould'' she only got be on maternity leave, but when the job because she's body of a woman) because she's a vegetarian. As if the case wasn't enoughpopular islander, Archie Stout, Meg's father is coming to stay with her despite having had little to do with her for fifteen years and Jai's convinced that his girlfriendfound, Sukiin the aftermath of a storm, doesnshe can't like his children and that she wants more, but he doesnresist getting involved. He'td been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.

|isbnauthor=1784385166Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger MoorhouseTower

|genre=HistoryLiterary Fiction|summary=What ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the first image that comes to mind when you think story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to daughter of a concentration camp? None wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reichtuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fascist regime in fate is, above all its iniquity, an enticing story to T. But some objects It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volumeknowledge, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period and in service of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefactsmyth, fable and fantasy.  |isbn=1804271799

|isbnauthor=1409187438Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The First Lie|author=A J ParkBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=On the second of October 37-year-old barristerEverything in this book, Paul Reevehowever sweet or seemingly innocent, returned home at 9 pm to find his house is steeped in darkness anguish and the front door opendistortion. His wife was in the bedroom in Even a kiss, usually a state symbol of shock intimacy and in closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the bathroom there was a dead man who had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck with Paulnarrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,''s paper-knife. In that moment Paul takes it is less an invitation than a decision that will be irrevocable: he decides that he and Alice are not going desperate attempt to ring the police and tell the truthconfirm her emotional numbness. They're going The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to bury the body in woodland and go on as though nothing has happenedtest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934

|isbn=15294018010008405026|title=Grave's End A Stranger in the Family (DS Alexandra CupidiMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=William ShawJane Casey|rating=4.5

|summary=Gram HickmanIt'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 a halt. Now, who worked for an estate agenther mother, took his girlfriendHelena, Angela Boothand her father are dead in their bed. Initially, to it looks like a house which his firm was marketingstraightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Guildeford Hall What looked as though it was going to be an old Kentish oast house open-and was on the market for millions of pounds-shut case is now a complex double murder. Gram was hoping Kerrigan is convinced that he could get Angela into bed the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and heAlison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Other Girl|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary='d brought a bottle 'We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of prosecco alongthe most intimate accounts I've read. It was when searching for somewhere Ernaux writes in direct address to chill the bottle that he found the body her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a man in few months before the freezer vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the garageauthor was even born. DS Alexandra Cupidi The large and DC Jill Ferriter are on instant void created by the casejarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title= Ogadinma OrReminiscences of Tolstoy, Everything Will Be All RightChekhov and Andreyev|rating= 3.5|genre= Literary FictionBiography|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at Biographies are often seen as the trauma form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and heartache less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of being a woman in 1980s Nigeriahis literary contemporaries. The title is ''Ogadinma OrIn the first section of this book, Everything Will Be All RightTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''. Ogadinma you write not of real life as it is the eponymous heroine , but of the storywhat you yourself imagine it to be. We are with her in every scene and Whom would it is her narrative voice help to know how I see this tower, that leads the storysea, although Olisakwe writes in the third personor that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. This provides Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a sense of detachment for the reader subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and highlights the isolation Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapeit.|isbn=19116481601804271977

|authorisbn=1529077745|title=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin The Dark Wives (translatorD I Vera Stanhope)|titleauthor=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered HopesAnn Cleeves

|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=I never really followed A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the events body of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone a man in the second half of their park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know The dead man was Josh - one of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from care workers who was due to work a shift the students night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the massacre and murder - but her only clue is the birth disappearance of one of the Tank Man imageresidents, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book death but Vera thinks this is practically flawless in giving a general browserunlikely as the girl's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|isbn=1684056993

|authorisbn= Joan HeB0FK5LHKD9|title= Descendant The Colour of the CraneMemory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=54|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=It''Heroes cannot be forged without villains''Princess Hesina of the kingdom of Yan has never wanted the throne. Instead of craving power, she has always considered the crown her inescapable duty and shrank away from the responsibilities of being Queen. To her, it has always s been three years since we last reviewed a distantbook by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, faraway futureso we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Until that isLike all Bowden's stories, it isnthere't. When her beloved father suddenly dies, she is thrust into ruling. But contrary to s a mystery at the official report, Hesina knows all is not as it seems, her father didnheart of ''The Colour of Money''t die. He was murdered.Determined to seek the truth and discover her fatherWe like this running theme in an author's killer, Princess Hesina will stop at nothing to find justice, even committing treason. Under the cover of darkness, her feet lead her to work - take a soothsayer to learn what happened that day mystery but give it different flavour and who killed the Kingatmosphere each time.|isbn=1789094046

|author=Pat GrantOlga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The Grot: The Story title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the Swamp City Griftersancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley

|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Everything in this world runs on pedalEx-powerDCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and that includes the punk bandshe should be doing quite well financially. There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter CityUnfortunately, where his daughter's defence against a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factorymurder charge drained his savings. You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture aroundHis wife, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a placeLaura, but everyone is interested in small things that grow. For the only money has been trying to be had – the only fortunes persuade him to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it is never really made clearretire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. Once thereThat's what 'ordinary people do', the two brothers set themselves each '' He's not been entirely up with a guide – Lippy, front about the more forward-thinkingstate of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, industrious of it's the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair. But which thought of the two will come off the worse as they money he could make their own way in that convinces him that this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?|isbn=1603094660is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.

|authorisbn= Ashley Poston1836284683|title= Bookish and the BeastThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating= 34.5|genre= TeensDystopian Fiction|summary= Set after the ExcelsiCon, we are introduced to Rosie Thorne, a Small Town, USA girl who has recently lost her mother and Well! This is entering her final year of high school. Things keep piling up for Rosie, and when she follows a stray dog into what she thinks is an abandoned castle in her town, things just get worse. Rosie accidentally destroys a rare book and with her mother's hospital and funeral costs she has no money to cover the damage. She finds herself working for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty on a paparazzi escape, to repay the debt. murder mystery unlike any other!

For most Starfield superfans this would I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be , and it takes me on a dream but Rosie soon realises Vance wild ride. And that is a jerk - and he isnjust what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't too fond want to ruin a similar experience for any of her eitheryou reading but I'll have to at least set the scene. However, as the two are forced to get to know each otherOnce that's done, their guards begin to lower and they discover that maybe I think you should simply experience this situation might not be so terrible after allwonderfully original story for yourself. |isbn=1683691938

|author=Justine Avery Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Daria YudinaPeter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1036916375|title=Baby Trolls Get Just a Bad Rap (Underrated Babies Book 1)Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle

|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary= Horatio, Saul ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and Grizelda are three baby trolls who are fed reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up that everyone forgets about baby trollsin and around Liverpool. They Some are ignored in books and TV shows and films in favour factual, such as the family history of their very scary grown upsa sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Our three heroes want equal rights for baby trollsOther stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. They want It's a book to be seen settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and they've started a petition about it that they want you to signcould appear after the all-clear was sounded. But how should they go about it? |isbn= B07XGN4LGY}}  

|authorisbn= Samira Ahmed1836285493|title= Mad, Bad and Dangerous to KnowThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating= 3.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=''In the endWill is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, we all become stories'' Spending the summer in Paris sounds like a dream for slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most peopleof all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, especially art-loversMarlowe Park, but Khayyam canand one at which he excels. This hasn't relax gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and stop thinking about the mess she left behind in Chicago. On has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a chance encounter with couple of afternoons a descendant of Alexandre Dumas, Khayyam finds herself on week at a historical journey with him to unveil the truth about the 19th century Muslim woman who may have crossed paths with Alexandre Dumasdifferent school, Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byron. As the two teenagers travel the city they not only discover themselvesStation Road, but uncover the true story of the woman and why it was one that should never have been forgottenwhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=0349003556

|authorisbn= Hazel Barkworth1009473085|title= HeatstrokeThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating= 3.5|genre= CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'Too hot ' and that applies to sleep. Too hot to think straight. Too hot to go back'' During a British heatwave 15The Conservative Effect: 2010-year2024 -old14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, Lily Dixon, has left home and is reported missingthen this isn't the book for you. Rachel is a teacher at Lily If that's school and the mother of Miawhat you're looking for, LilyI don't think Anthony Seldon's best friendbook, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. As LilyIt's family a compelling read and the police struggle should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to find any evidence that may lead to Lily, Rachel takes it upon herself to start looking for cluespolitics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. However, It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the case goes on Rachel becomes fixated on finding Lily and finds herself crossing boundariesmost important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, breaking trust the changes that occurred and facing some impossible choicesthe situation in 2024. Will they find Lily? Does Lily want to be found? And will life for Rachel ever be the same again?|isbn=1472265602

|isbnauthor=1538731738Jenny Valentine|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced Us in the Before and Joyful Life|author= Sarah Ban BreathnachAfter

|genre=LifestyleTeens|summary=Someone Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once said: itin a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don's not self-indulgence, itt get each other's therapy! contact details at the time. I think But then chance brings them back together, and they were talking about shoppingare inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, but it probably can be applied to most things. In my caseand now they must work through their grief, it applies to writing about things because I want toand their friendship, rather than because I can sell it or because I've got something to selltogether.|isbn=1471196585

|authorisbn=Frederic Gros1787333175|title=A Philosophy of WalkingYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse

|genre= Politics and SocietyPopular Science|summary= I confess I picked this one up from 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 Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the library in my pre-lockdown forage workings of random stuffthe NHS, humour and autobiography. Now I have ''You Don't Have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down be Mad...'' promised the pages I have marked same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and return to its varying wisdom when the work of a psychiatrist. I need did wonder whether it was acceptable to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me be looking for humour in this setting but the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking laughter is not directed at a situation rather than a sport''person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.|isbn=1781688370

|isbnauthor=085752612XMariana Enriquez|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?|author=Curtis SittenfeldA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=45|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=I was tempted to read ''Rodham'' Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by the success basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''. That book wasn't marketed as being a portrait of Laura Bush, but the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed disused refrigerators due to occur very regularly in reviews. How would ''Rodham'' compare? Unfortunatelyan urban planning mishap, there is an overcrowded homeless shelter and a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bush, which gave the book a freshness which the first third of ''Rodham'' lacks. We've crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all heard the stories, read the books - about Hillary and particularly about Billwithin Argentina. It's still an interesting concept, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's career, if she hadn't had to carry the burden The circumstances of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't left her own run at the presidency characters are so late? Could she have done better without plausible that the Clinton surname?supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |isbn=1803511230

|isbn=07278892301529934753|title=The Red, Red SnowProtest|author=Caro RamsayRob Rinder

|summary=In GlasgowFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, Eric Callaghan the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour had been to his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the ice show nick of time, complete with his wife, Geraldine two wives and daughtersix children, Lisa when he was stabbed in Planet Burgerone of whom filmed what happened. He died within minutesBeing an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but his murder seemed motiveless and it was fortunate that there were no clueswas a record of the protest. He was Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a genuine man chair and a talented artist: those investigating his death had hit a dead endproceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. There were two deaths It seemed to investigate in the north be part of an ongoing series of Scotland: it wasn't thought wise to involve the local murder team as someone on the Glen Riske police force blue-face' attacks, but this was indirectly involved in the casedifferent. Christmas - The can had been laced with cyanide, and a lot of snow were rapidly approachingSir Max Bruce was dead.

|isbnauthor=B07S6DBCFTAriel Saramandi|title=Little Girls Tell Tales|author=Rachel BennettPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=In 2004 Rosaliethis powerful collection of essays, Beth and Dallin were walking in Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the boggy wetlands wounds left by Rosalie colonialism and Dallinslavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting''s cottage. Beth and Dallin, both twelve-years-olda blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, got ahead of ten-year-old Rosalie environmental degradation and it wasn't long before she realised that she was lostgovernmental dysfunction. Trying to find her way back to the main path she found Each essay in this collection serves as a skeletonkind of diagnostic, but when she finally got to charting the road she could never find her way back to the bog when she'd seen various diseases afflicting the body. Most people didn't believe her, putting the story down to her vivid imaginationisland state.|isbn=1804271616

|isbnauthor=0008273790Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Remain Silent|author=Susie SteinerLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse

|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=When we first meet Matis and DimitriIt's the eighteenth century, Matis is in a bad way, vomiting time of discovery and obviously traumatisedBritain is expanding its foreign trade. When he's able Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to speak he tells Dimitri that ''Lukas is dead''. Lukas was the Andaman Islands in his late teens and he and Matis had come to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuaniaendeavour. They'd answered an advert offering good money Along with his son, Peter, and accommodation in return for their labour: cat, Michi, they could have set off on a decent life ''and'' send money home perilous voyage to their familiesthese faraway lands. Sadly, it doesn't work out like that. When they arrive The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the UK - on an oldislanders' leader, uncomfortable busAarav, - they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have is keen to share rooms and sleep on dirty mattresses on the floor. It's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersestablish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3

|author=Amin MaaloufHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The DisorientedLili is Crying

|summary= Adam has lived First published in 1953 in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact, he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend this novel is dying…or as Adam prefers to think a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of him a former-friend, perhaps not its readers just as harsh as an ex-friend, or maybe. The falling out was a long time agoBessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, and Adam's partner has no idea what it was aboutdisjointed, even so she urges him to go knowing that he'll regret not doing sotruncated. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants toLike the lives of her characters, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next planethey are often left tragically incomplete. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1804271675

|author=Anstey HarrisTom Percival|title=Where We BelongThe Wrong Shoes

|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= IWill've always believed that places and buildings absorb what happens within them and reflect it back; this s life is how we can tell that difficult, in a sacred space is sacredmultitude of ways. Cate Morris believes a similar thing, she believes that He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'A house absorbs happiness, it blooms into he has the wallpaper, wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the wood most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the window framescollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the bricks: fact thathis mum and dad are separated, and Will's how it becomes a home.'' She is having these thoughts as she packs up her homelife seems bleak in every direction. She And yet, he still has to leavea tiny amount of hope. A combination He is good at art, and clings to the moments of circumstances means that joy when he is not only redundant but also homeless. With nowhere else to godrawing, she has called on her late husband's family for help. Just for that feel like a light at the end of a few weekslong, dark tunnel.|isbn=14711738361398527122

|isbnauthor=1787477681Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)|author=Martin WalkerLetter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=It was There are few greater joys than a couple of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from his son. Gaston's father had sold the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy book which he had used to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlat, owned by a Russian oligarch. Before he even got lives up to go there he died, apparently of a heart attack, and the retirement home collected the proceeds of the policy and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just the contents of the farmhousecompelling premise. The family hadn't exactly fallen out, but Gaston lived some way away and Claudette had fallen out And this is one of favour when she announced that she was gay, but they weren't expecting to be almost completely disinheritedthem.|isbn= 0356522776

|isbn=B083Z3ZZ611786482126|title=Broken Silence The Janus Stone (DS Nikki Parekh 2Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Liz MistryElly Griffiths|rating=4.5

|summary=When we first meet him Stefan Marcovici has been Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the UK with his daughter Maria for site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a whiledoorway. He came expecting to work as a gardener and Maria There was to be no skull. Was this a nannyritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Stefan ends up doing slave labour in It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a chicken factory: you can imagine what happens result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to an eighteen-year-old girlsudden bouts of sickness.

|author=Justine Avery Guadalupe Nettel and Daria Yudina|title=This Book Is Alive! Rosalind Harvey (Living BookTranslator)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Books ''want'' you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readers. Books ''want'' to be read. This is the key message in Justine Avery's latest offering, ''This Book Is Alive!''. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book and young reader, she's sending an invitation to all - pick me up, read me, be my friend, we can go on a journey together. It's a great message, don't you think?|isbn= 1948124416}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0241984653|title=I Made a Mistake|author=Jane CorryThe Accidentals

|genre=ThrillersShort Stories|summary=We know from This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the very beginning that there's a tragedy about to happen. On a January evening on a very crowded platform 3 word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under an oncoming train. That man is Matthew Gordonnature and human relationships. Much later we see Poppy Page in the witness box of a crown courtGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, getting her stories structured by a very rough ride from wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the prosecuting barristerworld.|isbn=1804271470