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Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)

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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838593187
|title=Guess What I Found in the Playground!
|author=Victoria Thompson
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Tilly is excited. She's just come dashing out of the classroom, pigtails flapping behind her and a big grin on her face. Dad's come to collect her and her brother and he ''has'' to try to guess what she found in the playground today, although she concedes that he will never guess. Dad wants to know how school was, but ''obviously'' that's not important. Could Tilly have found more collectable things for her scrap box? (Isn't that so much more sensible than a scrap ''book''?) Well, actually, Tilly did find exciting stuff. There are sequins, glittered paper and all sorts of other things in her pocket, but that's not what she wants Dad to guess.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed
|title= Yes No Maybe So
|rating= 4
|genre= Teens
|summary= ''We might give it our all and crash and burn. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for, don't you think?''
Jaime has been spending his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for a special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassing, he can't think of anything worse. However, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician and decides there is no time like the present to conquer his fear of speaking to the public.
Maya is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who is having the worst summer of her life. Her parents are going through a separation, she has zero plans for the summer to help take her mind off things and her only close friend is permanently busy. To help occupy her, her parents offer to buy her a car if she agrees to go canvassing.
The pair could possibly be the worst canvassing duo in history, as neither of them really want to be there, but as the campaign goes on they discover that they care, a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each other?
|isbn=1471184668
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Gregg Hurwitz
|title=Into The Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Grant Merriweather is a forensic accountant. Or rather, was. He was brought into an ER room after an alleged car crash, his friend pleading with the medics to keep him alive. He was needed alive just long enough to give up a name. His cousin, Max.
|isbn=0718185501
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529124395
|title=When You See Me
|author=Lisa Gardner
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=For Janet and Chuck, it was a hiking break in the Appalachians in Georgia and pure chance that Chuck went off the beaten track to find a stick. What he found was a human bone and SSA Kimberley Quincy was called in, along with Sergeant D D Warren. Both women were experienced in this type of rather gruesome work but they also called on the services of Keith Edgar, a computer analyst, and Flora Dane who brought something unique to the table. Flora had been kidnapped and held for 472 days by the notorious killer, Jacob Ness. If Ness had anything to do with the current discoveries then what Flora had to say could be invaluable.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529009677
|title=A Window Breaks
|author=C M Ewan
|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Tom Sullivan and his wife Rachel are having problems. It's not just the usual growing apart after more than a decade of marriage. Their son, Michael, was killed in a car crash some months before: he was driving his father's Audi and at sixteen wasn't legally entitled to drive. Not only did he kill himself when the car rammed into a tree, but he also killed his girlfriend, fifteen-year-old Fiona Connor. Tom can't think about Michael without a sense of shame and guilt. Rachel is broken, but she wants to forgive Michael. To give some space, Tom's moved out of the family home, but stresses to his thirteen-year-old daughter, Holly, that it is only a trial separation.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241985153
|title=The House on the Lake
|author=Nuala Ellwood
|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=We know that something has gone wrong - badly wrong - when the woman who was alone in the house is taken away by the police, but it's going to be a while before we learn exactly what has happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Struan Murray and Manuel Sumberac (illustrator)
|title=Orphans of the Tide
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In the last city on Earth, anyone can be the vessel of The Enemy - the god who drowned the world - who has come to wreak havoc on the last of humanity. When a mysterious boy is pulled from the corpse of a whale, the citizens immediately believe him to be the Vessel - all except for young Ellie Lancaster, a girl inventor. As the ruthless Inquisition prepares to execute the boy, Ellie must prove that he is innocent - even if it means revealing her deepest, darkest secrets....
|isbn=0241384435
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008297169
|title=The Guest List
|author=Lucy Foley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The boat trip out to Inis Amploir, off the Irish coast, might have been enough to put some guests off, but it was the wedding of the year. Will Slater (television personality, if not yet a celebrity) was to marry Jules Keegan, online magazine publisher, in the ruined chapel on the island. The bride's sister, Olivia, would be her only bridesmaid and the wedding planner and chef are Aoife and her husband, Freddy. They gave a huge discount to get the couple to the island, but surely it would be worth it for the publicity?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07ZGL6B1B
|title=In Plain Sight (D I Clare Mackay)
|author=Marion Todd
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was a coincidence that Detective Sergeant Chris West and DI Clare Mackay were at the beach when the baby was stolen. They were there for the fun run and their attention was taken by the NEFEW protesters who tried to disrupt the race. They're against the planned McIntosh Water bottled water plant to be constructed on Priory Marsh and the firm is sponsoring the fun run. It was Lisa Mitchell's scream which stopped everything. Her daughter, six-month-old Abi, had been taken from her pram whilst no one was looking. It's a major incident when ''any'' child is abducted but Abi needs regular medication because of a heart problem: without it, she might have only forty-eight hours to live.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471180921
|title=Firewatching
|author=Russ Thomas
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler is in the Cold Cas Review Unit at South Yorkshire Police and there are those who think that he's lucky to be there, given that he decked a superior officer. He's there because Tyler came off worse in the exchange - there's a scar on his face to prove it - and the superior officer was forced to take early retirement. There's a suggestion too that Tyler's godmother (she's on the force too) has looked after him and that his current boss is keen to have a tame gay to put on the town hall steps come Pride. Either way, he's there, but without anything really interesting to get his teeth into.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= A K Larkwood
|title= The Unspoken Name
|rating= 4
|genre= Fantasy
|summary= What does it mean to betray someone? What if that someone is a god? Csorwe has been raised knowing that she would be sacrificed to her god on her fourteenth birthday, yet when the opportunity arises, she chooses to abandon everything she knows and flee with her life. Who can blame her? Her god's reach is limited and Csorwe intends to stay far beyond it, yet fate is a funny thing and when circumstances bring her back within the reach of her god Csorwe learns that her god remembers her, and blames her very much indeed.
|isbn=1250238900
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman
|title= The Highland Falcon Thief
|rating= 5
|genre= Confident Readers
|summary= Harrison Beck, or Hal as he prefers to be called, isn't exactly pleased when his parents send him off with his uncle Nat, a travel writer, on a long train journey. Although, this isn't any old train; this is the Highland Falcon, the royal train, and this is its last ever journey before it gets sent to a museum. A number of high-society figures, including film stars, millionaires and aristocrats, will be on this train, so it is quite the event on the social calendar. However, when an expensive brooch is stolen, Hal realises that maybe this trip won't be as boring as he previously thought. As the passengers begin to turn on each other, Hal vows to get to the bottom of the mystery…before the train gets to the end of the line.
|isbn=1529013062
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008275246
|title=Perfect Kill (D I Callanach)
|author=Helen Fields
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When Maggie Campbell realised that her son, Bart, was missing he was already 200 miles away and just waking from a chemically-induced sleep. Maggie knew straight away that something was wrong. Bart might be twenty but he was considerate of his mother and wouldn't have stayed out all night without letting her know. Besides, he didn't have his phone with him and he wouldn't have gone far without that. It's not long before Bart realises that he's alone, trapped in a shipping container and on his way to France, where his fate has already been decided.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Alyssa Sheinmel
|title= What Kind of Girl
|rating= 4
|genre= Women's Fiction
|summary= '' Doing something when you're scared is braver than doing something when you're not''
 
When Mike Parker's girlfriend comes into school with a black eye, claiming he gave it to her, her whole world is tipped upside down. Her relationship has just ended and now she's the talk of the school. Mike was the most popular boy in school who was always so in love with her, everyone knew that, so why did he do what he did? Some people believe her and some don't, but one thing is for sure, this isn't going to blow over any time soon.
|isbn=0349003297
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Holly Rivers
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It's long been known that Cassandra Austen burned most of the letters which she and other members of the extensive Austen family had exchanged with or about her sister Jane. What is not known is ''why'' she did this and at this stage - more than two hundred years after Jane's death - a definitive answer is unlikely to forthcoming. Gill Hornby has provided us with some possible answers in a book that proved to be far more emotionally complex than I was expecting.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rory Clements
|title=Hitler's Secret
|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=So, Hitler had a secret? Two, if you include the reproductive detail mentioned in a certain sing-song aspersion. But this is a secret that is counter to that, and in fact is a secret that Hitler himself doesn't even know about. His neice, Geli Raubal, the attractive young woman he seemed to be very close to in the early 1930s, had had his daughter behind his back. Protected under a false identity ever since, the girl is completely ignorant of her past, and the truth is a very rare thing. Martin Bormann, the 'gatekeeper' to Hitler and his right hand man, knows – and is desperately intent on wiping the slate clean and removing all connected with her existence from the Reich. So it's down to Tom Wilde, an American history professor at Oxbridge, to go in and extract her, in this most shadowy race against time.
|isbn=1838770275
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241985110
|title=All the Rage (D I Fawley)
|author=Cara Hunter
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=A very beautiful, but extremely distressed teenage girl was picked up by a minicab driver on the outskirts of Oxford. She didn't want to go to the police station or the hospital: she just wanted to be taken home. The driver wasn't so certain though - and after dropping the girl at home he went to the police, which is why DI Adam Fawley found himself talking to Faith Appleford and her mother. Both were adamant that this was nothing more than an April Fool's joke which had gone wrong. No crime had been committed and Faith didn't want to take the matter any further. Fawley and his team weren't prepared to leave it at that and they began investigating. What they found strange was that Faith Appleford didn't seem to have much of a history.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529400279
|title=Six Wicked Reasons
|author=Jo Spain
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was early summer 2018 and Adam Latimer returned home to Spanish Cove after an absence of ten years. The family had thought him dead - in fact, that's what the private detective his mother had insisted upon had told them. He was cagey about exactly where he'd been but he seemed content, if not happy, to be home. What brought him? Well, nine years ago his mother died and he'd seen the ''in memoriam'' in the paper: this was the first he'd heard about what had happened. His three sisters and two brothers had mixed feelings about his return, but his father is delighted. In fact, he's determined to have a party. Only, with Frazer Latimer, what happens has to be about him. He has an announcement to make - it's nine years since Kathleen died and he's been lonely. He's met Ana, a Polish immigrant, and they're getting married.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Penny Chrimes
|title=Tiger Heart
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Fly never meant to end up in the cage with a man-eating tiger. She just saw her chance to skedaddle, and she took it. And even when the cloud of soot cleared and she saw the golden eyes of a killer staring into hers, she still didn't turn round and climb back up the chimney straightaway. 'Cos there was worse waiting for her back on the roof.''What an opener! And there's plenty more to come!|isbn=1510107045
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tanya Landman
|title=Jane Eyre: a Retelling
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=A young woman, fresh from living with horrid relatives who could care less about her, and years in a dreary school, moves into Thornfield Hall with only one intent – to have something like the life she wants – and with only one job, to tutor a young half-French girl, whose father is almost always absent. When he does turn up he seems to be dark, brooding and troubled – but that's nothing compared to the darker, more broody and even more troubled secret in the house. Yes, if you know Jane Eyre then you know the rest – but if you don't, for whatever reason, this is a wonderful book to turn to.
|isbn=1781129126
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= T R Hendrick
|title= What if They Knew
|rating= 4
|genre= General Fiction
|summary= It's 2025. Underneath a lodge in the Blue Mountain resort in Pennsylvania, is a secret facility. Here, Dr Benton and his team are making some critical scientific advances on behalf of the Benefactor, their anonymous funder. Already, the team have succeeded in teleporting small primates from one place to another. But, unbeknownst to the Benefactor, Dr Benton has also coded for another type of teleportation altogether - travel through time. And he's ready to test. If successful, Benton has a very specific use for his technology in mind
|isbn=1734277211
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Catherine Steadman
|title= Mr Nobody
|rating= 4
|genre= Thrillers
|summary= Don't you just hate it when people are multi-talented? Author Catherine Steadman is both a successful actress and writer, with this her second novel. I think in a way her acting background shows in her writing as to my mind the 'fight scene' at the end was somewhat unrealistic – you know the kind where the hero has been hurt so many times that it's virtually impossible they'd still be alive let alone able to fight off an attacker. The story also unfolded at a steady pace throughout until the ending which felt overstuffed in a frenetic bid to wrap everything up in the last few chapters. It was almost as if the author wanted to keep the suspense until the last possible moment (which I liked) but then was somewhat left with too much to do in the closing stages.
|isbn=1984890646
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1473681847
|title=In Her Eyes
|author=Sarah Alderson
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Ava lives a charmed life, but those things sometimes rub other people up the wrong way. One evening she returns from a night out with a friend, and before she can finish her bedtime routine, her home, and her life, are under attack: masked men have broken in and are demanding money from her husband, while her young daughter cowers beside him. In the scuffle than ensues, Ava is hurt, badly. When she wakes up in hospital she can barely remember what happened, but she knows it was life-changing. With her daughter still fighting for her life in a room down the corridor, Ava has a lot to contend with as she tries to recover, wills her daughter to recover, and attempts to piece together what happened and why.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton
|title=Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel
|rating=3
|genre=Teens
|summary=Diana, being unique on her island, is the victim of a lot of taunts, and claims of nepotism. It's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, that has her with any standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a strong young woman. Perhaps too strong for the island, however – for every Wonder Woman origin story has her quickly leaving home for the World of Men, and this Diana is the heroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin story. A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more...
|isbn=1401282555
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1786075695
|title=When the Dead Come Calling (Burrowhead Mysteries 1)
|author=Helen Sedgwick
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It began with the discovery of a body under the swings in the children's playground. It was Dr Alexis Crosse and he was found by PC Simon Hunter, who loved him deeply, but who had reason to mistrust him. Crosse was a psychotherapist who grew up in Greece, but such professions are misunderstood in Burrowhead (along with foreigners), a community which regards anyone not born and brought up there as an outsider. DI Georgie Strachan is an outsider - you've only got to look at her skin to realise that, and her husband, Fergus, well, he's a little strange too, not entirely ''here''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alastair Chisholm
|title=Orion Lost
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Thirteen-year-old Beth and her parents board the transport ship Orion ready for a new life on Eos Five. Their new home is still being terra-formed and life there isn't going to be easy, but it ''is'' going to be a fresh start. As Beth's mum puts it, ''There's a future waiting for us. A chance to make our own decisions, create our own lives.''
|isbn=1788005929
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0753553236
|title=Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything
|author=B J Fogg
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Go on, admit it - you're not quite perfect. You still have those odd, quirky, even loveable (to you) habits that seem to annoy other people. Other people, of course, are sorely afflicted with some dreadful flaws which they could so easily correct, if only they would make just a little bit of effort. Or put another way, I get cross with myself because I forget to do things or do some actions more than I should and no matter how I try to make what seem to be quite monumental changes I never quite seem to get to grips with the concepts. I constantly fail and then I get cross with myself for failing. Lack of willpower is another burden to add to the list.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= B T Keaton
|title= Transference
|rating= 4
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= Barrabus Madzimure is about to die, stranded on a mining planet millions of light-years from home, executed for high crimes against the Church, the ruling body of Earth. Except he's not Barrabus Madzimure, he's Thaniel Kilraven in Barrabus Madzimure's body. Such is the magic of Transference, the ability to transplant a person's soul or consciousness into a different body - and a power that the Church has exclusive control over. As if Thaniel doesn't have enough things to worry about, a Church employee named Corvus has arrived from Earth to interrogate him. All Thaniel wants is to see his family again, and he'll stop at nothing to accomplish this, but the Church isn't going to give in without a hell of a fight...
|isbn=B082WPHTHH
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christine Brown
|title=Bucket Showers and Baby Goats: Volunteering in West Africa
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=In the summer of 2008, this book's author was spending her days working in an office job in the USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else. Long story short, she ended up volunteering in Ghana, West Africa. Now coincidentally, in the summer of 2010, this review's author was spending ''her'' days working in an office job (albeit in the UK) while spending ''her'' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else, and ''she'' ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leone, West Africa. So you can see why, when this book came up, said reviewer was delighted to have the opportunity to read and critique it.
|isbn=171024299X
}}
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