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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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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{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''

|author= Justine Avery and Daria YudinaSamantha Harvey|title= This Book Wants to Make You Laugh (Living Book)Orbital|rating= 4.5|genre= For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=This Living Book is on a mission. WhatIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''s the mission? To make you laugh! I canOrbital't think of many better missions than that, can you? Let's see how it does... .... well, it opens up with a terrible jokecompact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. A groany jokeThrough a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, an eye-roll joke. The joke isn't very funny but it is funny Harvey invites readers to see how enthusiastic and how generously this book wants to make you laugh - ''Oh, I'm terrible at jokesour planet in a wholly new light. Some books are so good at them. I always wanted to help someone laugh.'' |isbn= 194812453X1529922933

|isbn=1529402271295967572X|title=Murder on the Moorland (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)Pale Pieces|author=Helen CoxG M Stevens|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=DI Malcolm Halloran and Kitt Hartley's relationship Our unnamed narrator is developing nicely: about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're even into a spot going and what the purpose of bandage nowthis journey is, although the details are (mercifully) scantis uncertain. After a night of passion Halloran is called away in Django found the early hours of tickets ''on the morning. Therefloor somewhere''s been a murder in Irendale, where Halloran used and has persuaded our narrator to live and where his wife, Kamala, was strangled five years agoaccompany him. There Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are sufficient details of probably in the past as the current murder pair travel to make Halloran suspect that the man who murdered his wife - station by coach and others - the train is in some way involved, despite being in prison. The DI heads off to speak to Jeremy Kerra steam locomotive.

|authorisbn= Mark Dawson0008551324|title= The CleanerDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating= 4.5|genre= ThrillersCrime|summary= Ruthless It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and coldly competent, John Milton is one of the British governmenthe's best assets – prepared to tell the police where the body of a contract killer with lethal instinctsmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Now This person, after ten yearshe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants out. But And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his job isnsentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't one you can just walk think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from…|isbn=178739462Xfrom what's happening.

|author=Angela MackJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=I Am UnworthyVaim

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary= Isabel is determined to start fresh. Start again''All was strange''. Sixth form will be different. Her tormentor doesn't go to Gilleford Secondary School anymore. She can escape This haunting phrase encapsulates the hurt, the fearpervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and the person she became. Josh is determined to keep going, even through the rageEline, two of the pain, and using his fists to solve any problem or situation. But he has secrets that threaten to tear him and his brothers apartprotagonists caught in its melancholic current. When Josh and Isabel's worlds collide, can they make their relationship work? Can they both finally be happy? Or will Josh's time run out?|isbn=B089FL7H4H1804271829

|authorisbn=Laura Imai Messina1035043092|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves

|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= In I can't have been the northeast of Japanonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a telephone box in his gardennew life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he'Inside there is an old blacks now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, telephoneJames, disconnectedas well as Cassie, that carries voices into the winddaughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' It is be on maternity leave, but when the body of a real placepopular islander, Archie Stout, a necessary placeis found, and I am pleased to see in the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to her storyaftermath of a storm, that she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the place is not head with a tourist destination, it is Neolithic stone - one of a sacred place, pair - which had been stolen from a place that must be left to those who really need itmuseum.|isbn=178658039X

|isbnauthor=B0859115X5Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Lies to Tell (DI Clare Mackay)|author=Marion ToddThe Tower|rating=45|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=When we meet up with DI Clare Mackay again she''How unctuous are the fats of another's at Daisy Cottage on life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the outskirts identity of St Andrews with her English Bull TerrierT, Benjythe protagonist of this tale. SheJust as T's just had story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a postcard from Geoffrey Dark and he's wealthy family in Provincetownthe 19th century, Cape Cod. He wishes that she was therewho died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, but Clarecaptures T's struggling to think of what he ''actually'imagination. Annie' s fate is , above all, an enticing story to her nowT. Is he her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfriend? She can't work it out It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and thinks that Geoffrey probably can't either. Work's about to get very busy in service of myth, fable and she can't work out why DCI Alastair Gibson has cancelled a meeting she'd arranged without discussing it with her firstfantasy. They're off somewhere top secret.|isbn=1804271799

|isbnauthor=1780899858Claire-Louise Bennett|title=To Tell You the Truth|author=Gilly MacmillanBig Kiss, Bye-Bye

|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-old she crept out of the house on the night of the summer solstice to watch the pagan celebrations Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in Stoke Woodsanguish and distortion. Her four-year-old brotherEven a kiss, Teddyusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, would have woken the house if she hadn't taken him with herbecomes evidence of love lost. But in When the early hours of the morningnarrator cries out internally, Lucy returned home without Teddy''come over here and kiss me, hoping that he would have got home before her. He hadn't and no one has seen him since. Lucy's story was crucial it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to the police investigation, but it keeps subtly changingconfirm her emotional numbness. Lucy The imagined recipient of this plea is being advised by Xavier, her imaginary friendex-partner, Eliza Grey and Eliza says that there are certain things which Lucy must not tell the policea ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934

|isbn=00082147000008405026|title=Cut to A Stranger in the Bone Family (DI Meg DaltonMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Roz WatkinsJane Casey|rating=45

|summary=DI Meg Dalton It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and Ds Jai Sanghera are dealing with the case of investigation ground to a missing teenagerhalt. Violet Armstrong is well-known as a vlogger - championing the cause of meat-eatingNow, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. She barbeques meat wearing only Initially, it looks like a bikini and has attracted straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the attention positioning of animal rights activiststhe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. The meatWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-and-eaters (they wear meat suits) are determined that Meg Dalton shut case is corrupt and not running a decent investigation (''obviously'' she only got the job because she's a woman) because she's now a vegetariancomplex double murder. As if Kerrigan is convinced that the case wasn't enough, Megexplanation lies in Rosalie's father is coming to stay with her despite having had little to do with her for fifteen years and Jaidisappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced that his girlfriend, Suki, doesn't like his children and that she wants more, but he doesn't.

|isbnauthor=1784385166Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger MoorhouseOther Girl|rating=54|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=What is ''We were born from the first image that comes same body. I've never really wanted to mind when you think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to a concentration campher sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the Third Reich's fascist regime vaccine was made compulsory in all its iniquityFrance, and 2 years before the author was even born. But some objects The large and images from that time may be less familiar instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to you. In an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this short volumegiant absence in her life, Roger Moorhouse an absence that she has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefactsalways felt but often denied. |isbn=1804271845

|isbnauthor=1409187438Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The First Lie|author=A J ParkReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev

|genre=ThrillersBiography|summary=On Biographies are often seen as the second form of October 37life-year-old barristerwriting which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, Paul Reeveand offers a vibrant, returned home at 9 pm to find subjective yet informed portrait of three of his house in darkness and the front door openliterary contemporaries. His wife was in In the bedroom in a state first section of shock and in the bathroom there was a dead man who had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck with Paulthis book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''s paper-knifeyou write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. In Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that moment Paul takes a decision sea, or that will Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be irrevocable: he decides that gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Alice are not going to ring the police and tell the truth. They're going to bury the body Andreyev in woodland and go on as though nothing has happenedsuch privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977

|isbn=15294018011529077745|title=Grave's End The Dark Wives (DS Alexandra CupidiD I Vera Stanhope)|author=William ShawAnn Cleeves

|summary=Gram Hickman, who worked for an estate agent, took A man walking his girlfrienddog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, Angela Booth, to a house which his firm was marketingcare home for troubled teens. Guildeford Hall The dead man was an old Kentish oast house and was on Josh - one of the market for millions of pounds. Gram care workers who was hoping that he could get Angela into bed and he'd brought due to work a bottle of prosecco alongshift the night before but who had never turned up. It was when searching for somewhere D I Vera Stanhope is called in to chill investigate the bottle that he found murder - but her only clue is the body disappearance of one of a man in the freezer in the garageresidents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. DS Alexandra Cupidi and DC Jill Ferriter are on Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the casegirl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.

|authorisbn= Ukamaka OlisakweB0FK5LHKD9|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating= 54|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= The It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a look mystery at the trauma heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and heartache atmosphere each time.}}{{Frontpage|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the good of being a woman world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in 1980s Nigeria. it?'' The title is of this spellbinding work, ''Ogadinma OrHouse of Day, Everything Will Be All RightHouse of Night''. Ogadinma is , somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the eponymous heroine of small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the storyshift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. We are with her But, the constant in every scene and it that image is her narrative voice that leads the storyhouse, although Olisakwe writes in stoic against the third personancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived. This provides |isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a sense of detachment Private Investigator for the reader some time now, and highlights the isolation of Ogadinmahe should be doing quite well financially. She is exiled from her father Unfortunately, his daughter's home and sent defence against a murder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, has been trying to Lagos where she is married persuade him to an older man named Toberetire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to escapetake his case, it's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.|isbn=1911648160

|authorisbn=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)1836284683|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered HopesThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick

|genre=Graphic NovelsDystopian Fiction|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention do love it when I open a book, it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities's nothing like I expected it to be, you knowand it takes me on a wild ride. I certainly didnAnd that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''t know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, . I didndon't know how the area had long been want to ruin a venue similar experience for political protest, and any of you reading but I didn't know more than a spit about ll have to at least set the people involved on either sidescene. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browserOnce that's context done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for the whole season of protests back in 1989yourself.|isbn=1684056993

|author= Joan HeSally Rooney|title= Descendant of the CraneIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction |summary=''Heroes cannot be forged without villains''Princess Hesina of the kingdom of Yan Sally Rooney has never wanted studied the throne. Instead chessboard of craving power, she has always considered the crown her inescapable duty life and shrank away from the responsibilities is something of being Queen. To her, a grandmaster at putting it has always been a distant, faraway futureinto words. Until that Her dialogue isgripping and so brilliantly frustrating, it isn'tas her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. When her beloved father suddenly diesAmong the many relationships woven into this story, she the central one for readers to unravel is thrust into rulingthe fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. But contrary to the official reportIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, Hesina knows all is not as it seemscontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, her father didn't die. He was murdereda successful lawyer living in Dublin.Determined to seek the truth and discover her Following their father's killer, Princess Hesina will stop at nothing to find justicepassing after a long battle with cancer, even committing treason. Under the cover of darkness, her feet lead her to a soothsayer to learn what happened that day and who killed the Kingbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=17890940460571365469

|authorisbn=Pat Grant1036916375|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City GriftersJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle

|genre=Graphic NovelsAutobiography|summary=Everything ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bandsaround Liverpool. There Some are three pedallers at factual, such as the front family history of a sea-going family, with the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factorydocks dominating lives. You could say that yoghurt would be Other stories blend seamlessly into the only culture around, for this is a really roughwhat-might-andhave-ready dump of a place, but everyone is interested in small things that growbeen. For the only money It's a book to be had – the only fortunes settle into and allow your mind to be found in Falter City – come from algaeroam across your childhood memories, gunk and other crud that – well, the use to think of it is never really made clear. Once theresimpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the two brothers set themselves each up with blitz that was a guide – Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hairconstant factor in McArdle's early years. But which I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, semiall-Apocalyptic hellhole?|isbn=1603094660clear was sounded.

|authorisbn= Ashley Poston1836285493|title= Bookish and the BeastThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating= 3.5|genre= TeensConfident Readers|summary= Set after the ExcelsiConWill is a keen player of video games, we are introduced to Rosie Thornea conscientious student, a Small Town, USA girl who has recently lost her mother slightly annoying brother and is entering her final year a supportive friend. But most of high school. Things keep piling up for Rosieall, and when she follows a stray dog into what she thinks he is an abandoned castle in her townaspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, things just get worseMarlowe Park, and one at which he excels. Rosie accidentally destroys a rare book and with her motherThis hasn's hospital t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and funeral costs she has no money suggested to cover the damage. She finds herself working for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty on Will and his mum that he spends a paparazzi escape, to repay the debt.  For most Starfield superfans this would be couple of afternoons a dream but Rosie soon realises Vance is week at a jerk - and he isn't too fond of her either. Howeverdifferent school, as the two are forced to get to know each otherStation Road, their guards begin to lower and they discover that maybe this situation where his ability might not be so terrible after allbetter extended. |isbn=1683691938

|authorisbn=Justine Avery and Daria Yudina1009473085|title=Baby Trolls Get a Bad Rap The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Underrated Babies Book 1Editors)|rating=45|genre=For SharingPolitics and Society|summary= Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. HoratioIf you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, Saul can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and Grizelda are three baby trolls should be compulsory for anyone who are fed up that everyone forgets about baby trollsthinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. They are ignored It's the seventh book in books a series which looks at the impact a government has made and TV shows and films in favour of their very scary grown ups. Our three heroes want equal rights for baby trollsco-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. They want to be seen and heard and they've started This book follows the well-established format: a petition about it series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that they want you to signoccurred and the situation in 2024. But how should they go about it? |isbn= B07XGN4LGY}}

|author= Samira AhmedJenny Valentine|title= Mad, Bad Us in the Before and Dangerous to KnowAfter|rating= 3.5

|summary=''In the endElk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, we all become stories'' Spending the summer their friendship is a once in Paris sounds like a dream for most people, especially art-lovers, lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but Khayyam canunfortunately they don't relax and stop thinking about get each other's contact details at the mess she left behind in Chicagotime. On a But then chance encounter with a descendant of Alexandre Dumasbrings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, Khayyam finds herself on a historical journey with him to unveil the truth about the 19th century Muslim woman who may have crossed paths with Alexandre Dumassomething terrible and tragic, Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byron. As the two teenagers travel the city now they not only discover themselvesmust work through their grief, but uncover the true story of the woman and why it was one that should never have been forgottentheir friendship, together.|isbn=03490035561471196585

|authorisbn= Hazel Barkworth1787333175|title= HeatstrokeYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating= 3.5|genre= CrimePopular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''Too hot You Don't Have to sleep. Too hot be Mad to think straight. Too hot to go backWork Here''after enjoying Adam Kay' During s first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a British heatwave 15-year-oldglorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, Lily Dixon, has left home humour and is reported missingautobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad... Rachel is a teacher at Lily's school ' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the mother work of Mia, Lily's best frienda psychiatrist. As Lily's family and the police struggle to find any evidence that may lead to Lily, Rachel takes I did wonder whether it upon herself was acceptable to start be looking for clues. However, as humour in this setting but the case goes on Rachel becomes fixated on finding Lily laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and finds herself crossing boundaries, breaking trust it is always delivered with empathy and facing some impossible choicesunderstanding. Will they find Lily? Does Lily want to be found? And will life for Rachel ever be the same again?|isbn=1472265602

|isbnauthor=1538731738Mariana Enriquez|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life|author= Sarah Ban BreathnachA Sunny Place for Shady People

|genre=LifestyleShort Stories|summary=Someone once saidMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: it's not selfher settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine -indulgence, it's therapy! I think they were talking about shopping, but it probably can be applied to most thingsall within Argentina. In my case, it applies to writing about things because I want to, rather than because I can sell it The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or because I've got something to sellotherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230

|authorisbn=Frederic Gros1529934753|title=A Philosophy of WalkingThe Protest|author=Rob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre= Politics and SocietyCrime|summary= I confess I picked this one For a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up from for the opening of his retrospective at the library Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in my pre-lockdown forage the nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of random stuffwhom filmed what happened. Now I have Being an influencer, you tend to go out do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Lexi Williams, an buy my own copy so that I intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can turn down the pages I have marked of blue paint from under a chair and return proceeded to its varying wisdom when I need spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to. Some books draw you in slowlybe part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. This one The can had me in been laced with cyanide, and Sir Max Bruce was dead.}}{{Frontpage|author=Ariel Saramandi|title=Portrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the first two pagessociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, wherein Gros explains why tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''walking is not a sportrotting'', a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=17816883701804271616

|isbnauthor=085752612XPekka Harju-Autti|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadnLoveVortex and the Drakor't Married Bill?|author=Curtis Sittenfelds Curse

|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=I was tempted to read It''Rodham'' by s the success eighteenth century, a time of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. That book wasn't marketed as being a portrait of Laura BushCaptain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, but is sent to the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed to occur very regularly Andaman Islands in reviewshis endeavour. How would ''Rodham'' compare? UnfortunatelyAlong with his son, Peter, and their cat, there is a difference: relatively little was known about Laura BushMichi, which gave the book they set off on a freshness which the first third of ''Rodham'' lacksperilous voyage to these faraway lands. We've all heard The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the stories, read the books - about Hillary and particularly about Bill. Itislanders's still an interesting conceptleader, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's careerAarav, if she hadn't had is keen to carry the burden of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't left her own run at the presidency so late? Could she have done better without the Clinton surname?establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3

|isbnauthor=0727889230Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Red, Red Snow|author=Caro RamsayLili is Crying

|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=In GlasgowFirst published in 1953 in French, Eric Callaghan this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour had been to its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the ice show with his wifelives of her characters, Geraldine and daughterthey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Wrong Shoes|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Will's life is difficult, Lisa when he was stabbed in Planet Burgera multitude of ways. He died within minutesis bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', but he has the wrong shoes because his murder seemed motiveless dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and there were no clues. He his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a genuine man building site and a talented artist: those investigating had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his death had hit mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a dead endtiny amount of hope. There were two deaths He is good at art, and clings to investigate in the north moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of Scotland: it wasn't thought wise a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122}}{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to involve the local murder team as someone on the Glen Riske police force was indirectly involved in the caseLuminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. Christmas - and a lot And this is one of snow were rapidly approachingthem.|isbn= 0356522776

|isbn=B07S6DBCFT1786482126|title=Little Girls Tell TalesThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Rachel BennettElly Griffiths|rating=4.5

|summary=In 2004 Rosalie, Beth and Dallin Builders were walking demolishing an old house in Norwich - the boggy wetlands by Rosalie and Dallinsite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's cottageapartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Beth and DallinWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, both twelve-years-oldDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, got ahead of ten-year-old Rosalie and it wasnbut Nelson doesn't long before she realised , that she was lost. Trying to find her way back to the main path she found is pregnant with his child as a skeleton, but when she finally got to the road she could never find her way back to result of the bog when she'd seen the bodyone night they spent together some three months ago. Most people didn't believe herHer condition will be obvious before long, putting the story down not least because Ruth is prone to her vivid imaginationsudden bouts of sickness.

|isbnauthor=0008273790Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=Remain Silent|author=Susie SteinerThe Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=When we first meet Matis and Dimitri, Matis is This collection was truly enchanting in a bad wayall senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, vomiting magical elements and obviously traumatised. When he's able to speak he tells Dimitri that ''Lukas is dead''. Lukas was charming in his late teens its gentle portrayal of nature and he and Matis had come to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuaniahuman relationships. They'd answered an advert offering good money Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and accommodation in return for their labour: they could have precisely, her stories structured by a decent life ''and'' send money home wisdom that appears to their families. Sadly, it doesn't work out like that. When they arrive in the UK - on an old, uncomfortable bus, - they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have want to share rooms and sleep on dirty mattresses on teach us something about the floor. It's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersworld.|isbn=1804271470