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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and children's books plus author interviews and top tens.</metadesc><h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books 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 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 [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[Featuresfeatures]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews on the siteat TheBookbag.
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==Reviews of the Best New ReviewsBooks=='''For new reviews by genre [[:Category:New Reviews|click here]].'''
'''For new features Read [[Features:Category:New Reviews|click herenew reviews by category]].'''__NOTOC__<br>
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joe Gores1780724047|title=Spade A Dictionary of Interesting and ArcherImportant Dogs|author=Peter J Conradi
|rating=4
|genre=Pets
|summary=I struggle to resist a book about dogs, but I did wonder why this one was so ''thin'': given that I've never encountered a dog who wasn't interesting or important - and probably both, I was expecting a massive tome. But ''A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs'' is actually ''a rich compendium of the world's most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's certainly a rich treasure trove. We begin with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudy, Sky. Bradley and Max. They're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but what comes over is Conradi's love for each and every one of them. I knew that I was in safe hands.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1785769294
|title=Man at the Window (Detective Cardilini)
|author=Robert Jeffreys
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Sam Spade decides, bravely, to set up his one-man detective agency. It's the 1920s in San Francisco so when we have the prohibition era and all read that that entails. Many locals, of course, choose a young boy is creeping reluctantly to disobey the law, stick two fingers up, so to speak and as a result thereteacher's lots of bootleg liquorbedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrong. Straight away, itNowadays you ''might''s evident hope that Sam is a man something would be done about it fairly quickly but this was 1965 and child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on the part of few wordsthe child. He has The boy would be safe that night though - albeit in the mannerisms of a cat - stealthy, quick on his feetmost horrific fashion. HeWhen he reached Captain Edmund's also a compulsive chain-smokerbedroom he found the man dead on the floor, but then again, most people werethe top of his skull missing. In The school's initial reaction was that era, holding this was a dreadful accident: there had been a cigarette cull of kangaroos in some nearby fields and it was an elegant, almost essential accessory. How times have changedobviously a stray bullet which had killed the Captain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140911323X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark1786695227|title=The Best of TimesInvisible in a Bright Light|author=Sally Gardner
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most children enjoy a good traditional tale and The beginning of this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to have all excellent story will leave the right ingredients – a handsome prince and reader more than a beautiful princess little confused: who fall is the man in love, get married and live happily ever after. Or do they? Sadly, not long after Prince Frederico marries the lovely Princess Serafinagreen suit, she becomes very sad. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadnessis the Reckoning, but poor Prince Frederico and why are rows of people in a cave? But stick with it – Ms Gardner is desperate to find a cure for his wife's miseryvery cleverly letting us experience the same disorientation as our heroine. He tries everything We watch in his power and eventually decides dismay as the strange man, who seems to offer have no eyes, does his kingdom best to anyone who can make persuade her happy again before she dies of a broken heartto answer his questions. Lots of people come to the palace to try But for some reason Celeste, despite her bewilderment, remains wary and help but in the end the solution is a simple one provided by some very kind travellersgives nothing away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Jackson1912374854|title=We Have Always Lived In The CastleViolet|author=S J I Holliday|rating=43.5|genre=Literary FictionThrillers|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, I've never been but understand that travelling is eighteen, all about meeting new people and lives forming instantaneous bonds with her older sister Constance people in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always livedoften chance situations. Well that'. Merricat quickly draws s exactly what happens when the reader into her world by two main/only characters meet in a travel agency in Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying to get a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister refund on an extra ticket for the Trans-Siberian train and death cap mushrooms, and everyone else in her family Violet is deadtrying to unsuccessfully buy a ticket for the same sold-out journey. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against As the world'two team up, shutting out other peopletravelling through Mongolia, Serbia and they live near into Russia, it could've been the start of a beautiful friendship but this a thriller after all so it quickly becomes a village. Merricat believes that 'The people tale of the village have always hated us'obsession, manipulation and tells us that she hates them tootoxic friendships.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Weston1912374838|title=Nelson to the RescueNothing Important Happened Today|author=Will Carver
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike the Milk's milk float, but he has now retired. He lives in the stable at the back of the dairy along with Nothing Important Happened Today is a couple of tricky ratsdark, Rhodri and Rhystwisted, a pigeon who has no sense of directiondifficult read. Stories about cults often are, a frog who thinks hebut this is different; it's written with a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most sense of his time sleeping. Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mikestyle that is quite unlike anything I's fridge and the animals believe that Mike has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBEve read before. Somehow our hero, Nelson, finds himself travelling down to London, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation I can be become your constant companions. In this novella, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures on t remember ever having read a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disproved. But after meeting novel with such an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her worldodd, distinctive narrative voice. She begins an affair with him, begins to let things slip at home While a slim and with the childrenrelatively small book, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense slow-moving nature of an ever-present dangerthe plot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Maywilliamabbey|title=Burning Out|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid job, and a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But the life she is leading is beginning to take its toll. On the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home town. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full The Pursuit of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girl.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWilliam Abbey|author=Amanda Downum|title=The Drowning CityClaire North
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyParanormal|summary=In When William Abbey fails to prevent the lynching of a nutshell, youyoung boy in 1880're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is goods South Africa, bad or mediocrehe finds himself cursed by the grieving mother. You've probably glanced at A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the rating and guessed weight of the latter. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelings. I started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly coolcurse upon him, as the premise intriguing, shadow of the characters laden with potential for greatness and dead boy begins to follow him across the backdrop is certainly evocativeworld.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tove Jansson|title=The True Deceiver|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittinglyNever stopping, via the televised renditions always growing – it crosses oceans and mountains in pursuit of the Moomin talesWilliam. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago As he finds himself unable to discover resist speaking the truths that he hears in others, he also learns that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book dark shadow is deadly – and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>seeks to kill the one he loves the most…
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Kehlmann 1643785036|title=Me and Kaminski|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski and Me'. In it, Sebastian Zollner, the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art critic. Kaminski, the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general public.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Wondrous Apothecary|author=Louis Barfe|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentMary E Martin
|rating=4
|genre=EntertainmentGeneral Fiction|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down uponThose who have known Alexander Wainwright, as if itthe landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The Hay Wagon''s a bit naff, tepid and ignorableRinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk and cheese, if not sworn enemies. What If you's often forgotten is ve watched the relationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, you'd have said that it's hugely popularthey were magnets, enjoyable drawing and much of it is of the highest qualityrepulsing each other in equal measure. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells Wainwright was at the complete story socially acceptable end of British light entertainment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Offartistic continuum, but just like himwith Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there was but a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance. As time has worn on, his tomatoes arenhe't growing very big. He takes s frequently been brought to the only sensible course attention of action: he sings his tomatoes a songthe police. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft of ''The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his graspHay Wagon''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph Delaney Mary H.K. Choi|title=The Spook's Stories: WitchesPermanent Record
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Pablo, a college drop-out, is working at a New York bodega. He'Warning: Not to be read after darks massively in debt,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spookhe's Stories''avoiding his mother, and on the inside flaphe finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, he'The Times' warns us s surprised to discover that this book the girl he is 'seriously scary'...  The whole thing kickschatting with as he serves is a super-off relatively tamelyfamous pop star and, thoughas unlikely as it may seem, with they start a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) relationship. With one character who falls in love with a witch and is forced trying very hard not to bear be seen or noticed by anyone, and the consequences when other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the witchworld, it's sister comes to stay an interesting clash as they come together. This isn't just a love story though, and exhibits a taste for actually it's really just Pab's story, about the neighborjourney he takes in his life via his meet-childrenup with Leanna Smart.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>0349003459
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Unger1609809319|title=Die For YouLong-Haired Cat-Boy Cub|author=Etgar Keret, Aviel Basil and Sondra Silverston (translator)|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly One day a boy is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from work, she realises something is wrong. Going to in the zoo with his office to try to find out what happens to himfather, she when the man gets attacked called away on urgent business. The boy isn't hustled into a cab and ends up in hospitaltaken home first, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for herthough, howeverno – he's given hot dog money, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several yearsand taxi money, and the man she married was using a false identitytold to just stick around on his own and enjoy himself. Infuriated by the betrayal Well, and the realisation that sheit's been living a lie no surprise that the orphan-for -an-afternoon sensation the past five yearslad feels doesn't make him happy, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out to find her husband and work out why so he lied to her thinks of a species name for so long. Ignoring police warningshimself, she delves deeper and deeper curls himself up into a nasty underworldan empty cage, and finds as if he were a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novelsnew exhibit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk> And it's then the drama begins…
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa McMann1785785516|title=WakeFucking Good Manners|author=Simon Griffin
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLifestyle|summary=Janie is seventeen Manners maketh man, they say. It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of conventions, some of which are ages old and studying hard for collegeother which have evolved over time. She Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get an invitation to Buckingham Palace, they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home re about getting the basics right before we try to earn money for college as deal with more difficult matters. Of course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and friends, but it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going best if we learn to provide much in the way of resourcesdistinguish between our public and private lives and to act appropriately. College is Janie ''s only chance at a life better than the one sheFucking Good Manners's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in aims to help us on the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing family, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her home life, and her daughter's year two teacher is coming to terms with a break up. The stories of these people come together to create a tale of life, love, and ultimately, what being part of a family means.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=F G Cottam0008324859|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is the sort of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFowl Twins|author=Jon Berkeley|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Eoin Colfer|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I shall start Relax, everyone – our old friend Artemis may be off planet, but the baddies aren't getting away with a word skulduggery any time soon because they now have not one but two members of advicethe Fowl family to contend with. When you're being hounded by a circus masterThose cute little twins are now eleven (and, frankly, cute no longer) and a magicianin this, their first independent adventure, for the soul of they meet a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, troll and your best friend - a fallen angel - is without even trying her best manage to make sure two deadly enemies: a nobleman obsessed with immortality whatever the cost (to other angels do not turn on you in a big way people), and an unusual interrogator- then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogynun. Still - never mindThe boys are chased, kidnapped, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight arrested and cloud citieseven killed (though not for long), all with the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and back, and friends new and old will be on board to helpof one trainee fairy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1472255798|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBad Fire (Bob Skinner)|author=Lauren Kate|title=FallenQuintin Jardine
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves Nine years ago local councillor Marcia Brown took her own life, and the two after being accused of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gareth Hinds|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town in shoplifting from a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Learlocal supermarket. For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy itIt's thought to be. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which italways been assumed that she couldn's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, t live with the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected waysshame. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about People were surprised that she committed suicide just before the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does court case when she had been adamant that she have more would fight to hide than clear her name. She said that she's letting d been set up because she was hot on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Toby Lester|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story trail of History's Greatest Map|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, corruption in the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public displaycouncil. No ordinary mapHer ex-husband has contacted Alex Skinner, this is sometimes described Solicitor Advocate as Americawell as retired Police Constable Bob Skinner's birth certificate. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th centurydaughter, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much asked that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is she look into clearing Brown's name: it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely s something which he feels that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it he has done for the world. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those to do in memory of his son who failed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich listswas murdered recently.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy StantonB07X6GLQ3Q|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the place. Meat is getting thrown around like it's going out of fashion, and we have to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise the power of love and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSee Them Run|author=Loose Women|title=Here Come the GirlsMarion Todd
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=This D I Clare Mackay is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, still relatively new to St Andrew's: she was previously at Maryhill Rd station in Glasgow. She'Loose Women's left quite a lot behind including a relationship that wasn't going anywhere after Tom failed to support her when the chips were down. Just as promised on the coverShe also left a nasty situation, of her own making but not her fault, this book and St Andrew's is an entertaining night with the girlsa fresh start. It turns out that theyNot long into the job she're just like us. The faces are already familiar s faced with a hit and run death and even if you donthere's little doubt that it wasn't know them yet, accidental - the card with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity facesnumber five suggests murder. The women are universally warm-hearted and supportive: Andy Robb was married to Sandra. You could say that they had an open marriage but there will seemed to be many a lonely woman who reads this book lot of the 'open' and feels as if she sat down with a group very little of friends for the evening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>'marriage' left - on both sides, but would she want him dead?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1786540991|title=Fortune CookieThe Impossible Boy|author=Ben Brooks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fudge Cassidy ''Oleg and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of Emma entered their den to find a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's cardboard spaceship standing where Fudge's father got they usually sat. Slowly, the idea fromfront door opened. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination worksSmoke billowed out. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather And out stepped a boy, dressed in a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and long coat with an even longer scarf, wound around his problems are becoming more obviousneck. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with the problems and he now has another family. It's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview
|author=Jenifer Roberts
|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Well, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he''"My name's in Sebastian Cole," the ultimate waiting roomboy said, with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for"But you already know that... well, something. Yup, as you didn"'t need telling, he's dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Dave Eggers|title=The Wild Things|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet MaxAnd indeed they do. When I say he sometimes gets Ever since the wrong end of the stick about adultssummer, or dislikes his motherwhen their friend Sarah's new boyfriendmother had moved her away, or gets Oleg and Emma have been unable to find a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the facts. He is a bit of a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling new friend to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kingtake her place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Strong1447281357|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Salvation Lost|author=Peter F Hamilton
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Trevor's troublesome dogIn the twenty-third century, Streaker, has had three puppieshumanity is enjoying a comparative utopia. They were fathered, according Yet life on Earth is about to local bully Charlie Smuggchange, by one of his Alsatiansforever. Trevor would ideally like Feriton Kane's investigative team has discovered the worst threat ever to keep them, at least until Christmas, but his parents have other ideas face mankind – and put them up for salewe've almost no time to fight back. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled The supposedly benign Olyix plan to harvest humanity, in order to carry us to half of the money from their god at the sale end of the puppiesuniverse. And as their agents conclude schemes down on earth, vast warships converge above to gather this cargo. Some factions push for humanity to flee, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing to live in hiding amongst the park and stars – although only a chosen few would make it's up out in time. But others refuse to Trevor and his best friend Tina break before the storm. As disaster looms, animosities must be set aside to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>focus on just one goal: wiping this enemy from the face of creation. Even if it means preparing for a future this generation will never see.
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Beth Durst1471186393|title=Ice|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness Photographer of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she can't help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very young. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewLost|author=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry|title=The Wide-Mouthed FrogCaroline Scott
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingHistorical Fiction|summary=Do you know May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on the joke about back of the wide-mouthed frog? You must have heard itphotograph. It's is a classicpicture of her husband, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. It's one that you really need to tell in person Technically, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide openhe has been "missing, believed killed" but to hopefully spark your memory, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to that is not something that a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, and young widow can believe. She hangs on the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying word 'missing'Ooh, you don't see many of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funnydisbelieving the word killed. Anyway, this is a book of that joke.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel Vreeman1783784350|title=DonThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain't Swallow Your Gums Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleHistory|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'''BANG'''. That's the sound of copious urban myths being shot downd never met and preparing spreadsheets. '''BANG'''The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. That's January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the sound length and breadth of the old wives slamming British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the door, as their tales get revealed as baselesslandscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - ''CLICKa free range child on the farm'''. That- and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make as they get closed downfriend. All noises come due to this brilliant bookThis was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annie Taylor1401286208|title=VioletBlack Canary: Ignite|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet is a very special hippoMeet Dinah Lance. She is extremely small but Frustrated that does her policeman father will not make allow her adoptive parents Albert to try and follow in his footsteps, and Mavis love seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to find her voice. But it's actually more a case of her voice finding her, as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any the lessopera singer. HoweverYou could almost call it a weapon, or a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, they are slightly worried that Violet there has to be a very unusual habit whole path of turning pink without warning and steps for no explicable reason.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>her to take – one of which will be into her past…
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary Dixon1789017977|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionHistory|summary=Arthur Transcombe is Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a middlewhile the family was quite well-aged, greyto-haired, selfdo but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-effacing poet. Unremarkable really year- on the outsideold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. He has, however, managed One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to achieve some success be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his poemslife. (Being a guest speaker He joined the army at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)eighteen in 1942. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>
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 {{newreview|author=A J Healy|title=Tommy Storm and the Galactic Knights|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. He's one of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to be a gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHING. Nobody seems to know what's going to cause this destruction, or when, but he and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the day. So it's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about to kill them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1542015421|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-Thomas|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When I was in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film around. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRoyal Baths Murder|author=Richard Jay Parker|title=Stop MeJ R Ellis
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoying, but most When Damian Penrose was murdered there was no shortage of us will have had to deal with themsuspects: he was a deeply unpleasant man. Fortunately, we can hit In fact the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they came. I certainly prefer not to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck is supposed to become if I dononly surprising thing was that there wasn'tmore of a queue waiting to do the dirty deed. But I wonder how many What was a bit of us would react if a spam E-Mail actually headline maker was that Penrose was a matter crime writer and that he was strangled in the midst of life Harrogate's crime writing festival. He went for a swim at the Royal Baths and never returned, his body being found by the receptionist. DCI Jim Oldroyd was the man tasked with investigating the crime. It would not be the only death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>and it was only because of the quick actions of his sergeant, Andy Carter, that Oldroyd's was not one of them.
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonDaniel Kraus|title=The Battle of the SunBlood Sugar|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=London 1601This is a difficult read. Elizabeth I is getting on And not because of the dark subject matter – that'll come later – but because of the way in yearswhich it's told. Her capital city is This might put a busylot of readers off, bustling placeand to be honest it'd be hard to blame them. Boats fill Kraus tells the river story in a distinctive voice unlike any other I've read; an erratic dialect with heavy and people fill the streetsfrequent slang. Jack The immediate effect is happy because disorientating and distracting, and ittakes some time to feel natural. It's his birthday and his present is his hearta struggle to acclimatise to Jody's desire: an excitable black puppy named Maxvoice, to get acquainted with his mannerisms, whobut the story wouldn's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in t be the air same without it, and a tail wagging and a barkingsomehow it works. It shouldn't, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''but it does. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>1789091934
}}

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