Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

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===[[Drowned Lives by Stephen Booth]]===
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===[[Bunny by Peter Lynas and Clare Lindley]]===
  
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]]
  
When council officer Chris Buckley is approached by an old man who wants his help in healing a decades' old family rift he's reluctant to get involved, but then Chris is reluctant to get involved in anything but a pint in the pub these daysIt could just be the way that he is, or the fact that he's just lost both his parents within three months of each other.  He's currently existing in the family home and wondering when he's going to be made redundant from his job with the councilThe short answer to that one is 'soon'Chris does his best to deter the old man, but it's not before he's left a lot of papers with his neighbourThen the old man is murdered and the police come calling on Chris. [[Drowned Lives by Stephen Booth|Full Review]]
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You might have seen Bunny on the beach where he livedLike many beaches it was full of sand and Bunny didn't like sand, not least because it got between his toes and ''scratched''.  What he really liked was juicy green grassAll the other rabbits lived on the top of the cliff, where Bunny could see a lot of tasty-looking grassBut the cliff was very high. [[Bunny by Peter Lynas and Clare Lindley|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition by Kalpesh Ashar]]===
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===[[Why We Quilt by Thomas Knauer]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Business and Finance|Business and Finance]]
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crafts|Crafts]]
  
''Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted to Know ''gives people without an accounting background, who have risen in a company, the knowledge to understand the accounts which show how the company is doing.  The book begins by looking at why financial accounting systems are necessary, then moves on to give an excellent overview of the types of accounting systems which will be encountered and the terms usedWe then look in detail at the balance sheet, the income statement and the statement of cash flows.  If you understand these three sections on a set of accounts they will tell you a storyYou will understand the company (or indeed any other business) but if you don't understand what's there you will be missing vital clues as to whether or not the company is thriving. [[Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition by Kalpesh Ashar|Full Review]]
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I've often wondered about the story that patchwork quilting began as a way for women (and myth would have it that it was always women) to make an extra blanket out of material which would otherwise go to wasteThis undoubtedly ''did'' happen but when you think about it, you need an awful lot of material to make a quilt and the time could have been better spent if all that was required was beddingLike Thomas Knauer I've come to the conclusion that it began as an art and has largely continued down that same road with fluctuations in popularity over the years. [[Why We Quilt by Thomas Knauer|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh]]===
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===[[The Lying Room by Nicci French]]===
  
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Graphic Novels|Graphic Novels]]
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
  
Harleen Quinzel is new in town.  She always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to look out of those large eyes at everything anew each time.  But here she is new in town, and the town is Gotham CityExpecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to stay with a bunch of drag queensShe also finds school is a drag, she also finds the whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a big impact on her lifeOne is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the other someone she only meets at night – a lad with a singular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, who calls himself The Joker… [[Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh|Full Review]]
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When we meet Neve Connolly it's pretty obvious that she has something to hide.  She crept into the house after midnight, carefully putting her clothes into the washing machine and she can't wait to get husband Fletcher and children Mabel, Connor and Rory off on their various ways the next morning when she gets a text telling her to come to the flatHe has a few hours to spare and can't wait to see herOnly, when she gets to the flat she finds Saul Stevenson, her boss and lover, dead on the floorThe hammer that's been used on his brain is at his side. [[The Lying Room by Nicci French|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]]===
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===[[Madeleine Goes to the Moon by Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts]]===
  
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Literary Fiction]]
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]]
  
Tove Jansson's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside her native Scandinavia. Book yourself an afternoon this Summer, and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of the sea, settle back and prepare to be transported. [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]]
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Madeleine is a very lucky girl: in her room she has all a girl could ask for in the way of toys, books, games and dollies. She's a very lucky girl in another way too: she has imagination and everything in her room can be used to take her on adventures. She spends all day there: Dad thinks that she likes to be alone, but Madeleine's not alone on all the trips she takes. We'll find out that yesterday she was told to tidy her room, but instead of doing that she went to the moon. [[Madeleine Goes to the Moon by Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Dirty Dozen (Jane Tennison 5) by Lynda La Plante]]===
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===[[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett]]===
  
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
  
Jane Tennison had worked hard to get a place on the Flying Squad and she felt that she was there on meritThe Squad wondered who she'd slept with to get the place and bets were being taken as to who she'd sleep with in the first weekWhat none of them - Jane included - knew was that she was there as an experiment, in the hope that a female presence would have a calming effectThe job had been advertised and Jane was the only female who applied who ticked all the boxes.  She doesn't tick all the boxes for the head of the Squad, DCI MurphyHe wanted someone with at least ten years' experience, and the appropriate set of genitals - and he's determined that Jane will fail. [[The Dirty Dozen (Jane Tennison 5) by Lynda La Plante|Full Review]]
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When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the wallsIt's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and the closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family ownsElna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returningIn other circumstances this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each otherIt's a bond which only death will break. [[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman]]===
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===[[The Very Rude Toytoise by Peter Lynas and Andy S Gray]]===
  
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]]
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]]
  
Trudy Heaton is going home, to a house where her roots burrow back through the centuries and to a mother she hasn't spoken to for sixteen yearsHome, her refuge, Ponden Hall, where she can heal herself and try to come to terms with the traumatic loss of her husbandShe needs to build bridges with her mother and convince her grieving son that his father is deadWhere better than the house full of light and shadow, that nurtured her throughout her childhood? [[The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman|Full Review]]
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It was one of those blissful days in the forest.  Mrs Rabbit was collecting carrots because she wanted to make a cake.  Mrs Blue Bird was gathering twigs to build a nest.  Mrs Spider was busily spinning a web to catch juicy fliesMrs Squirrel was piling up acornsAnd Mr Bear sat comfortably in a chair, fishing for lunchWhat could be better? And then... [[The Very Rude Toytoise by Peter Lynas and Andy S Gray|Full Review]]
  
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===[[We Are The Dead by Mike Shackle]]===
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===[[Recipe for Making a Snowman by Peter Lynas and Rosie Alabaster]]===
  
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]]
  
Mike Shackle has written a really interesting and unusual story in ''We Are The Dead''; the tag line for the novel is 'No More Heroes' and that is what makes this story so different. There are villains galore but no specific heroes; rather the story is scattered with characters doing their own small part to survive, to fight back, and to find vengeance, in a world that has been utterly torn apart. The plot does not hang on any one character, no one is important, anyone can die and many do, but, like ants working together, each small character achieves their own part of a much larger plot that is rich and complex and keeps the reader glued to the story. [[We Are The Dead by Mike Shackle|Full Review]]
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Who knew it?  You can even get a recipe book which tells you how to make a snowman - and there's no cooking involved!  Mum, Dad and the two children are absolutely meticulous though: they're going to get everything right, even down to doing some mining to get the coal for the eyes, searching through the bits 'n bobs jar for buttons for the snowman's coat and picking out the perfect piece of headgear. There's quite a choice available, but the family decide on the bobble hat, presumably to keep the snowman warm. The moth-eaten pair of mittens simply won't do and a pair with purple and pink stripes are chosen. [[Recipe for Making a Snowman by Peter Lynas and Rosie Alabaster|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know by Vibrant Publishers]]===
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===[[War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin]]===
  
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Business and Finance|Business and Finance]], [[:Category:Reference|Reference]]
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:History|History]], [[:Category:Biography|Biography]]
  
I'm capable of drawing up a profit and loss account (income statement in the USA) and a balance sheet and I do so for my own business and for another organisation.  The accounts give me ''broadly'' what I need: I know whether we're making a profit or a loss and I can look at the expenses and see what looks as though it could be trimmed back in future yearsMy problem was that the accounts didn't really give me any help in making decisions, which was why I turned to ''Cost Accounting and Management'', part of Vibrant Publishers' Self-Learning and Management seriesCost accounting provides the information required by authorities external to the company ''and'' to those within it who need to make decisions, so don't worry that you're going to have to draw up two sets of accounts! [[Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know by Vibrant Publishers|Full Review]]
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Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupationMost people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspectIt's an atrocity on a vast scale, but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies. [[War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin|Full Review]]
  
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===[[A Dance of Cranes by Steve Burrows]]===
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===[[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
  
DCI Domenic Jejeune is no longer with Lindy Hey, the estrangement being of his making, not hers. He hasn't explained to her that he is doing this - and leaving for his native Canada - because he thinks that this will keep her safe from his nemesis, Ray Hayes.  Lauren Salter has been promoted to sergeant and now has her first murder case. It looks as though there's an obvious suspect, but Salter isn't so certain. Sgt Danny Maik is (unofficially) keeping an eye on Lindy Hey, whilst Jejeune embarks on a treacherous journey to rescue his brother, Damian, who has gone missing in one of Canada's largest national parks. [[A Dance of Cranes by Steve Burrows|Full Review]]
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This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in the process of joining a community of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard of. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only ''cure'' is to stay in the town away from the real world. Though it's about a real place, the people in it are fictional. It really is a place apart, quite literally cut off from the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates]]===
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===[[Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
  
Bobby is an angry, damaged man - damage that came from being abandoned as a baby in a bus station locker, and then being thrown from one foster home or detention centre to another, never far from violence or abuse. Eager to succeed as a musician, he arrives in Hollywood to find his dream - but it soon becomes clear that his paranoid delusions and seething rage will enable a capacity for acts of extreme violence. Unpublished for 40 years, this edition of ''The Triumph of the Spider Monkey'' comes combined with a connected novella – ''Love, Careless Love''. [[The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates|Full Review]]
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Robin Hood is gone – denouncing both his former life and his love Marian, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him to abandon all that he had built. Marion's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dying, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break the curse surrounding them and to save their lives. Setting off with a soldier, a Fey Lord and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayals, complicated relationships, and a vicious struggle for the throne…[[Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Last Spell Breather by Julie Pike]]===
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===[[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt]]===
  
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
  
Rayne lives in the small, hidden village of Penderin where she is a somewhat unwilling apprentice to her mother, the spell breather. Not everyone can spell breathe, you have to born with a magic spark and Rayne wishes she hadn't been born with one. She's a terrible spell breather, her attempts are always followed by disaster and she positively hates Mam's spell book with it's sharp teeth that suck your blood. When a stranger finds their village one day, Mam must set off on a journey to the great library, leaving Rayne in the village as their chief spell breather, but an unfortunate mistake sees Rayne breaking her mother's book and turning everyone in to monsters. She must face her fear travel across the monster-ridden country to find Mam and restore the book to save their village. [[The Last Spell Breather by Julie Pike|Full Review]]
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''The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? [[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]]
  
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===[[I, Cosmo by Carlie Sorosiak]]===
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===[[American Royals by Katharine McGee]]===
  
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
  
Cosmo's family is in crisis. Mom and Dad argue all the time. Emmaline doesn't quite understand it because she's too little but she feels it. And Max, who is bigger, does understand it and is terrified by it. Long ago, when Max was just a baby, Cosmo made a promise to protect Max forever and so he sets about his mission of repairing the family with everything he's got...  [[I, Cosmo by Carlie Sorosiak|Full Review]]
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Two and a half centuries ago, America won the Revolutionary War and General George Washington was offered the crown. Today, the House of Washington still sit on the thrown with Princess Beatrice next in line. Beatrice's whole life has been building up to her ruling the United States and the time for her reign is imminent. [[American Royals by Katharine McGee|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Dead Flowers (Dr Sian Love) by Nicola Monaghan]]===
  
===[[Don't Drink the Pink by B C R Fegan]]===
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]]
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It was more than a little bit of a surprise to Dr Sian Love (and the rest of the relatives) when her uncle Bobby left her his home - a former pub called The Loggerheads in the Narrow Marsh area of NottinghamThen it was a shock when she found two bodies in the cellar before she'd even got settled in - and managed to break a bone in her foot in the course of making the discovery. They'd been there for some time, but who - exactly - were the man and the woman, wrapped in each other's arms?  Having spent ten years on the Murder Squad, ending up as a DCI she knows what's going to happen next, but she's not prepared for quite how personal it's all going to get. [[Dead Flowers (Dr Sian Love) by Nicola Monaghan|Full Review]]
   
 
Madeline is very fond of Grandfather Gilderberry. He's always busy in his workshop, creating crazy potions, and he always has a smile on his face. Madeline's dad thinks he's a bit bonkers and Madeline's mum thinks the same but gives him a pass because he's old. But Madeline? She thinks Grandfather Gilberberry is just great. Particularly on her birthday when he unfailingly arrives with a selection of potions and allows her to choose one as a gift. And he always says the same thing...  [[Don't Drink the Pink by B C R Fegan|Full Review]]
 
  
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===[[Some Places More Than Others by Renee Watson]]===
  
===[[The Years of Fading Magic by Kenelm Averill]]===
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
 
  
''What if you could subtly change the lives of ordinary people around you?''
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Amara's twelfth birthday is coming up and she wants nothing more for it than a trip to New York to meet her father's side of the family. But her father hasn't spoken to Amara's grandfather for many years - Amara doesn't know why - and both her parents are resistant to the idea. But Amara is nothing if not persistent and a school family history project provides her with the perfect wedge. Eventually, her parents give in and off she goes... with a secret mission from her mother: to bring her father and Grandpa Earl back together again.  [[Some Places More Than Others by Renee Watson|Full Review]]
  
Jessica Turner was one of the more radical teens to come out of Eastfield. A youth spent hanging out with a close crowd of friends was characterised by Jessica's role as trendsetter, as influencer, as leader. Strangely charismatic, Jessica invited fascination and obsession. Nobody who met her, forgot her. Or the days they spent in the Enclosure, a clearing in Eastfield woods that Jessica felt gave her power. But the group went its separate ways, as adolescent groups do, and her influence faded...[[The Years of Fading Magic by Kenelm Averill|Full Review]]
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===[[Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves]]===
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Aaron Sheridan doesn't want to live anymore. His entire family is dead by his own hand, killed in a shuttle crash. Unable to deal with the guilt, he signs up for the Fleet expecting a fatal deployment to the Rim War, but instead ends up at their most prestigious command school, Corinth Station... [[Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves|Full Review]]
  
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
Tess Gilroy works for Innocence UK, a charity investigating the cases of prisoners who can convince them that they've been wrongly convicted and they're just moving on to their next case.  She's somewhat surprised when Clive, the head of the charity, announces that she'll have someone shadowing her.  Avril's in her mid twenties and rather gauche as well as prone to putting her foot in it.  One of the reasons they're now going to look at the case of Carrie Kamara is that she's female and Innocence have never yet taken up the case of a woman: such impressions matter. [[Clear My Name by Paula Daly|Full Review]]
 
 
  
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===[[Coming of Age by Danny Ryan]]===
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''He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it was to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he remains a shining example of hope over experience...''
===[[The Simple Act of Self-Publishing With Amazon: A Simple Step by Step Guide by Georgianne Landy-Kordis ]]===
 
  
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Business and Finance|Business and Finance]], [[:Category:Reference|Reference]], [[:Category:Self-Publishing|Self Publishing]]
 
  
I frequently meet authors who are struggling to be published by the traditional houses, but when I suggest self-publishing they explain that they don't have the big bucks required to go down that road with Author Solutions or Matador or their like.  I then ask if they've considered Kindle and the answer is inevitably that they wouldn't know where to start.  I can empathise with that.  Despite having used a computer for about thirty years, running most of my life ''and'' a website on line, I'm still nervous when it comes to starting something new.  I like someone to hold my hand as I go through it for the first time.  That was why I was very interested when ''The Simple Act of Self Publishing With Amazon'' came across my desk. Author Georgianne Landy-Kordis doesn't profess to be a computer expert: she's simply someone who has done this many times and she's giving us the benefit of her experience and without any added chitchat. [[The Simple Act of Self-Publishing With Amazon: A Simple Step by Step Guide by Georgianne Landy-Kordis |Full Review]]
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''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have.'' [[Coming of Age by Danny Ryan|Full Review]]  
  
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===[[Just Another Girl on the Road by S Kensington]]===
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===[[Lighthouse of the Netherworlds by Maxwell N Andrews]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]
  
When Sergeant Farr and Corporal Valentine first encountered Katrinka Badeau she was just eighteen years old and fleeing from a farmhouse and a group of German deserters who had raped herDespite being outnumbered she was giving just about as good as she got when Farr and Valentine intervened and finished the group offIt was 1944 and Farr and Valentine were part of the Jedburgh unit, EDMOND, lead by Major Willoughby Nye.  Nye recognised Katrinka immediately - he'd worked on her father's merchant ship and Katrinka had once had a crush on Nye. When he offered her a job with his unit, she accepted. [[Just Another Girl on the Road by S Kensington|Full Review]]
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The phrase about never trusting a book by its cover is something I put on a par with comments about Marmite.  You're supposed to love it or hate it and I'm halfway between, and likewise the old adage is halfway true.  From the cover of this I had a child-friendly fantasy, what with that name and that attractive artwork of an attractive girl reaching for an attractive water plantThat was only built on by the initial fictionalised quotes, with their non-standard spelling, as if texts of scripture in this book's world predated our standardised literacyBut why was I two chapters in and just finding more and more characters, both human and animal, and more and more flashbacks, and no proof that this was what I'd bought in for? [[Lighthouse of the Netherworlds by Maxwell N Andrews|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
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Berlin, 1989.  Miriam is in the middle of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down and people able to cross at liberty for the first time in decades.  She is in the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying.  One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name ''Frieda'' that she does not recognise – and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watch.  One bombshell outside, then, and two inside... [[The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory|Full Review]]
  
Rose and her brother Rudder have recently escaped from cult-like fundamentalist Christian sect, the Pilgrims, along with their mother. While Mum works endless hours at agency cleaning jobs trying to keep the rent paid on their tiny flat, Rose and Rudder are trying to navigate the worldly world. It's not easy when everything is new and the rigid rules you've always lived by are suddenly missing.  [[Rose, Interrupted by Patrice Lawrence|Full Review]]
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===[[Something to Tell You by David Edwards]]===
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===[[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Dystopian Fiction|Dystopian Fiction]]
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]
  
Sam Murray and Bert Leinster had been friends for a long time.  Bert was Sam's boss at CERN, but this never seemed to affect the way that the families got on.  Bert's wife, Natalia, was Russian and seriously rich. Their twins, fifteen-year-olds Allie and Josh, went to a private boarding school, but at weekends they were great friends with Sam's two children, Liam and Hannah. Sam's wife, Briony, was head of product research at Nestlé.  Life was good for all eight of them, until Sam - a particle physicist - spotted that the rate at which Higgs Boson particles were hitting the earth had risen exponentially.  It's enough of a problem for Sam and Bert to drag the head of CERN, Prof Ralph Moyeur, out of a family lunch.  Then Bert started having conversations with a plant called Lily. [[Something to Tell You by David Edwards|Full Review]]
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Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. [[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Collective by Lindsey Whitlock]]===
  
===[[You're the Froth On My Soy Cappuccino: Poems for the Present by Don Behrend]]===
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]]  
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''Illinois Territory, Collective Homesteads of America.''  Some people live in sunken houses, buried into hillsides to disguise how large their property is at times of austerity.  Others are called Foresters, for they live and work in trees. When the small area the Foresters live in is placed under compulsory purchase, the residents are given a pitiful amount to clear out before they get manfully cleared out.  Our hero, Elwyn, has just left the trees for the Hills, to live with an uncle and learn their ways – he's just of age to decide things for himself, and he has decided to see how the other half lives... [[The Collective by Lindsey Whitlock|Full Review]]
  
''You're the Froth On My Soy Cappuccino'' begins with ''A Modern Love Story'':
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''You’re the froth on my soy cappuccino''<br>
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''You’re organic, my love. You’re the most!''<br>
 
  
Ha! How can you not laugh at this gently mocking take on love in the hipster world?  [[You're the Froth On My Soy Cappuccino: Poems for the Present by Don Behrend|Full Review]]
 
  
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===[[The Man Who Killed Hitler by Andre Pronovost]]===
  
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===[[The Mitten Handbook: Knitting Recipes to Make Your Own by Mary Scott Huff]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crafts|Crafts]]
 
  
I love mittens - they're so convenient and much easier to get onto (and off) cold hands than a pair of fiddly glovesThey're not something you regularly see in shops, so I knew that if I wanted new pairs I would have to knit them myselfWell, actually, that's my rationalisation of the situation: in truth I love knitting mittensThey have just enough technique to make them satisfying, plenty of quick work and a pair of warm mittens in a few daysPatterns, though - where do you get them from? [[The Mitten Handbook: Knitting Recipes to Make Your Own by Mary Scott Huff|Full Review]]
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Germany is split.  Some of her is in favour of Hitler and the Nazis, but much isn't.  Some of her is stuck to the east fighting the Soviets, but some will soon have to be on the other front, against the Americans coming into the continent to put things right as they see itFinding out that the war to the east isn't working, due to Hitler's tactical ineptitude and inability to heed advice, some people reckon Stalin is five seasons away from being in BerlinThe only way to shore things up, and repair the splits, is to kill Hitler, and luckily the Baron Nicholas is the man to do itHe's aristocratic enough, he knows enough people in industry, society and other circles of power, so once he's succeeded he might be able to keep a German presence in EuropeBut will he still be able to keep the capitalists and communists from meeting in the middle? [[The Man Who Killed Hitler by Andre Pronovost|Full Review]]
  
 
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Revision as of 08:50, 15 September 2019

The Bookbag

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, 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 library, the charity shop and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'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 to us by publishers and we promise to tell 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 author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.

There are currently 16,084 reviews at TheBookbag.

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Reviews of the Best New Books

Read new reviews by category.

Read the latest features.

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Bunny by Peter Lynas and Clare Lindley

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews For Sharing

You might have seen Bunny on the beach where he lived. Like many beaches it was full of sand and Bunny didn't like sand, not least because it got between his toes and scratched. What he really liked was juicy green grass. All the other rabbits lived on the top of the cliff, where Bunny could see a lot of tasty-looking grass. But the cliff was very high. Full Review

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Why We Quilt by Thomas Knauer

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crafts

I've often wondered about the story that patchwork quilting began as a way for women (and myth would have it that it was always women) to make an extra blanket out of material which would otherwise go to waste. This undoubtedly did happen but when you think about it, you need an awful lot of material to make a quilt and the time could have been better spent if all that was required was bedding. Like Thomas Knauer I've come to the conclusion that it began as an art and has largely continued down that same road with fluctuations in popularity over the years. Full Review

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The Lying Room by Nicci French

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime, Thrillers

When we meet Neve Connolly it's pretty obvious that she has something to hide. She crept into the house after midnight, carefully putting her clothes into the washing machine and she can't wait to get husband Fletcher and children Mabel, Connor and Rory off on their various ways the next morning when she gets a text telling her to come to the flat. He has a few hours to spare and can't wait to see her. Only, when she gets to the flat she finds Saul Stevenson, her boss and lover, dead on the floor. The hammer that's been used on his brain is at his side. Full Review

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Madeleine Goes to the Moon by Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews For Sharing

Madeleine is a very lucky girl: in her room she has all a girl could ask for in the way of toys, books, games and dollies. She's a very lucky girl in another way too: she has imagination and everything in her room can be used to take her on adventures. She spends all day there: Dad thinks that she likes to be alone, but Madeleine's not alone on all the trips she takes. We'll find out that yesterday she was told to tidy her room, but instead of doing that she went to the moon. Full Review

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The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Literary Fiction

When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and the closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family owns. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each other. It's a bond which only death will break. Full Review

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The Very Rude Toytoise by Peter Lynas and Andy S Gray

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews For Sharing

It was one of those blissful days in the forest. Mrs Rabbit was collecting carrots because she wanted to make a cake. Mrs Blue Bird was gathering twigs to build a nest. Mrs Spider was busily spinning a web to catch juicy flies. Mrs Squirrel was piling up acorns. And Mr Bear sat comfortably in a chair, fishing for lunch. What could be better? And then... Full Review

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Recipe for Making a Snowman by Peter Lynas and Rosie Alabaster

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews For Sharing

Who knew it? You can even get a recipe book which tells you how to make a snowman - and there's no cooking involved! Mum, Dad and the two children are absolutely meticulous though: they're going to get everything right, even down to doing some mining to get the coal for the eyes, searching through the bits 'n bobs jar for buttons for the snowman's coat and picking out the perfect piece of headgear. There's quite a choice available, but the family decide on the bobble hat, presumably to keep the snowman warm. The moth-eaten pair of mittens simply won't do and a pair with purple and pink stripes are chosen. Full Review

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War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews History, Biography

Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in The Diary of Ann Frank but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale, but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies. Full Review

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Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Literary Fiction

This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in the process of joining a community of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard of. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only cure is to stay in the town away from the real world. Though it's about a real place, the people in it are fictional. It really is a place apart, quite literally cut off from the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. Full Review

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Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Robin Hood is gone – denouncing both his former life and his love Marian, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him to abandon all that he had built. Marion's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dying, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break the curse surrounding them and to save their lives. Setting off with a soldier, a Fey Lord and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayals, complicated relationships, and a vicious struggle for the throne…Full Review

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The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Fantasy, Literary Fiction

The Nightjar is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? Full Review

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American Royals by Katharine McGee

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews General Fiction

Two and a half centuries ago, America won the Revolutionary War and General George Washington was offered the crown. Today, the House of Washington still sit on the thrown with Princess Beatrice next in line. Beatrice's whole life has been building up to her ruling the United States and the time for her reign is imminent. Full Review

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Dead Flowers (Dr Sian Love) by Nicola Monaghan

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime

It was more than a little bit of a surprise to Dr Sian Love (and the rest of the relatives) when her uncle Bobby left her his home - a former pub called The Loggerheads in the Narrow Marsh area of Nottingham. Then it was a shock when she found two bodies in the cellar before she'd even got settled in - and managed to break a bone in her foot in the course of making the discovery. They'd been there for some time, but who - exactly - were the man and the woman, wrapped in each other's arms? Having spent ten years on the Murder Squad, ending up as a DCI she knows what's going to happen next, but she's not prepared for quite how personal it's all going to get. Full Review

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Some Places More Than Others by Renee Watson

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Teens


Amara's twelfth birthday is coming up and she wants nothing more for it than a trip to New York to meet her father's side of the family. But her father hasn't spoken to Amara's grandfather for many years - Amara doesn't know why - and both her parents are resistant to the idea. But Amara is nothing if not persistent and a school family history project provides her with the perfect wedge. Eventually, her parents give in and off she goes... with a secret mission from her mother: to bring her father and Grandpa Earl back together again. Full Review

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Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Science Fiction

Aaron Sheridan doesn't want to live anymore. His entire family is dead by his own hand, killed in a shuttle crash. Unable to deal with the guilt, he signs up for the Fleet expecting a fatal deployment to the Rim War, but instead ends up at their most prestigious command school, Corinth Station... Full Review

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Coming of Age by Danny Ryan

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Autobiography

He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it was to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he remains a shining example of hope over experience...


This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have. Full Review

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Lighthouse of the Netherworlds by Maxwell N Andrews

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Teens, Fantasy, Confident Readers

The phrase about never trusting a book by its cover is something I put on a par with comments about Marmite. You're supposed to love it or hate it and I'm halfway between, and likewise the old adage is halfway true. From the cover of this I had a child-friendly fantasy, what with that name and that attractive artwork of an attractive girl reaching for an attractive water plant. That was only built on by the initial fictionalised quotes, with their non-standard spelling, as if texts of scripture in this book's world predated our standardised literacy. But why was I two chapters in and just finding more and more characters, both human and animal, and more and more flashbacks, and no proof that this was what I'd bought in for? Full Review

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The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews General Fiction, Historical Fiction

Berlin, 1989. Miriam is in the middle of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down and people able to cross at liberty for the first time in decades. She is in the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying. One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name Frieda that she does not recognise – and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watch. One bombshell outside, then, and two inside... Full Review

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A Winter Book by Tove Jansson

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Literary Fiction, Short Stories

Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. Full Review

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The Collective by Lindsey Whitlock

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Teens

Illinois Territory, Collective Homesteads of America. Some people live in sunken houses, buried into hillsides to disguise how large their property is at times of austerity. Others are called Foresters, for they live and work in trees. When the small area the Foresters live in is placed under compulsory purchase, the residents are given a pitiful amount to clear out before they get manfully cleared out. Our hero, Elwyn, has just left the trees for the Hills, to live with an uncle and learn their ways – he's just of age to decide things for himself, and he has decided to see how the other half lives... Full Review

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The Man Who Killed Hitler by Andre Pronovost

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction

Germany is split. Some of her is in favour of Hitler and the Nazis, but much isn't. Some of her is stuck to the east fighting the Soviets, but some will soon have to be on the other front, against the Americans coming into the continent to put things right as they see it. Finding out that the war to the east isn't working, due to Hitler's tactical ineptitude and inability to heed advice, some people reckon Stalin is five seasons away from being in Berlin. The only way to shore things up, and repair the splits, is to kill Hitler, and luckily the Baron Nicholas is the man to do it. He's aristocratic enough, he knows enough people in industry, society and other circles of power, so once he's succeeded he might be able to keep a German presence in Europe. But will he still be able to keep the capitalists and communists from meeting in the middle? Full Review