Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
 
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Gregg Hurwitz
+
|author= Grady Hendrix
|title=Into The Fire
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|title= The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
|rating=5
+
|rating= 5
|genre=Thrillers
+
|genre= Horror
|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.
+
|summary=  Women, by and large, have always been the subjugated sex. Throughout history, they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix's new novel ''The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires'' gives women their due. It is an ode to the strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to toe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac.
|isbn=0718185501
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|isbn=1683691431
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529124395
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|isbn=0008149089
|title=When You See Me
+
|title=The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)
|author=Lisa Gardner
+
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|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 WarrenBoth 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 tableFlora 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.
+
|summary=It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked like a stick she realised it was a hand, a right hand, in fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent's team would later find three other body partsIdentification of the body was not going to be easy, but eventually, it would be given a name - Paige Hargreaves, a twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalistHer friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, said that she was working on a story which she reckoned would be explosive - and she hadn't been willing to share any of the details with Bianca.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529009677
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=A Window Breaks
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|title=Hello Now
|author=C M Ewan
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=Teens
|genre=Thrillers
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|summary= Jude reluctantly moves to a small, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and settle into a big, old house overlooking the sea - which happens to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted in the house like a ghost that just won't leave – or can't. As Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, reality she is consumed by a longing for her old life in London and anger at another forced change – but this will be the last time, she swears. This world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating for Jude. That is until the day Novo arrives, and her entire concept of the world changes forever.
|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.
+
|isbn=0007466498
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241985153
+
|isbn=B0867X8NW7
|title=The House on the Lake
+
|title=Access Point
|author=Nuala Ellwood
+
|author=T R Gabbay
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|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.
+
|summary=When we first meet Ula Mishkin she's having something of a professional success: using a device of her own invention she's helped a man who has been blind for decades to see an image of a hummingbird.  She's thirty-six years old and her life is about to change radically as, cycling home, she's involved in an accident with a bus.  It's two years before we meet her again and in the meantime, she's spent 392 days in a coma and now walks with a stick.  A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to bring in some income.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Struan Murray and Manuel Sumberac (illustrator)
+
|author= Ben Oliver
|title=Orphans of the Tide
+
|title= The Loop
|rating=5
+
|rating= 3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre= Teens
|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....
+
|summary= Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop?
|isbn=0241384435
+
|isbn=1912626551
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008297169
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|author= Kirsty Applebaum
|title=The Guest List
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|title= Troofriend
|author=Lucy Foley
+
|rating= 4.5
|rating=4.5
+
|genre= Confident Readers
|genre=Crime
+
|summary= Are you tired of your child's classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lying, stealing or bullying. They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have absolutely no basis in reality…right?
|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 yearWill Slater (television personality, if not yet a celebrity) was to marry Jules Keegan, online magazine publisher, in the ruined chapel on the islandThe bride's sister, Olivia, would be her only bridesmaid and the wedding planner and chef are Aoife and her husband, FreddyThey gave a huge discount to get the couple to the island, but surely it would be worth it for the publicity?
+
|isbn=1788003470
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1529123941
 +
|title=The Silent Treatment
 +
|author=Abbie Greaves
 +
|rating=4.5  
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfullyMaggie, on the other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, in fact - and before long she will collapse.  When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has a bit of a problemHe has to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a whileHow long?  Well, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life.
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07ZGL6B1B
+
|author=Rob Harrell
|title=In Plain Sight (D I Clare Mackay)
+
|title=Wink
|author=Marion Todd
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was a coincidence that Detective Sergeant Chris West and DI Clare Mackay were at the beach when the baby was stolenThey were there for the fun run and their attention was taken by the NEFEW protesters who tried to disrupt the raceThey're against the planned McIntosh Water bottled water plant to be constructed on Priory Marsh and the firm is sponsoring the fun runIt was Lisa Mitchell's scream which stopped everythingHer daughter, six-month-old Abi, had been taken from her pram whilst no one was lookingIt'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.
+
|summary=When Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to just be 'normal' become impossibleSuddenly he is the cancer kid, and everything he does, how he looks, and how he behaves falls under the scrutiny of the other kids in schoolRoss is, understandably, angryHe is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a permanent winkHe has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with the pain, plus the need to wear a hat at all times to protect his face due to the ongoing treatmentWith the sudden ghosting by one of his best friends, and a series of horrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about his life is normal any more, and he has to find new ways to deal with his feelings, and survive.
 +
|isbn=1471409147
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471180921
+
|isbn=1786485575
|title=Firewatching
+
|title=Magpie Lane
|author=Russ Thomas
+
|author=Lucy Atkins
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|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 officerHe'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 retirementThere'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 PrideEither way, he's there, but without anything really interesting to get his teeth into.
+
|summary=When we first meet Dee she's talking to Nick Law, the new college masterLaw's lately of the BBC and he doesn't come with an entirely good reputation: he's a bit of a bully and Dee can sense something of that in their first conversation.  She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new job as a nanny, but somehow she finds herself going to see Mariah, the Danish wife of the masterShe's pregnant and looking for help, not with the new baby but with the master's daughter by his first wife, Ana.  Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk to her father, but to no one elseThe eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother and struggling at school.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= A K Larkwood
+
|author=Sally Magnusson
|title= The Unspoken Name
+
|title=The Sealwoman's Gift
|rating= 4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Fantasy
+
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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.
+
|summary= There is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Garden.  Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children that those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. God was not to be deceived, however, and decreed that what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, and so the Elves were born: the hidden folk.  They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose.
|isbn=1250238900
+
|isbn=1473638984
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman
+
|author=Wendy Cheyne 
|title= The Highland Falcon Thief
+
|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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.
+
|summary= After the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given to English lords. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to port cities on the mainland, to North America and even to Australia and New Zealand.  
|isbn=1529013062
+
|isbn= 1838591753
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008275246
+
|author=Ele Fountain
|title=Perfect Kill (D I Callanach)
+
|title=Lost
|author=Helen Fields
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Crime
+
|summary=Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and her brother, AmitShe lives with them in a nice apartment, and although they are not rich like some of the girls at school, they have enough money to be comfortableLola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and trying to fit in with them, until one day, suddenly, everything in her life changesAfter taking a work trip away, Lola's father doesn't come homeThey have nobody else to help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become of them until, finally, they are evicted from their flat, and she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the streets.
|summary=When Maggie Campbell realised that her son, Bart, was missing he was already 200 miles away and just waking from a chemically-induced sleepMaggie knew straight away that something was wrongBart might be twenty but he was considerate of his mother and wouldn't have stayed out all night without letting her knowBesides, he didn't have his phone with him and he wouldn't have gone far without thatIt'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.
+
|isbn=178269255X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Alyssa Sheinmel
+
|author= N K Jemisin
|title= What Kind of Girl
+
|title= The City We Became
 
|rating= 4
 
|rating= 4
|genre= Women's Fiction
+
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= '' Doing something when you're scared is braver than doing something when you're not''
+
|summary= New York is being born, the city has reached critical mass and has matured into a living almost-breathing entity and is ready to make its way out into the world. Before it can be established, an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and other forgotten places. The city is not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the values are selected to become the living embodiment of the city, some cities have one, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the woman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eye, it's a personality clash on an epic scale and unity is both critical and not remotely guaranteed.
 
+
|isbn=0356512665
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
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Holly Rivers
+
|isbn=0241446732
|title= Demelza and the Spectre Detectors
+
|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis
|rating= 5
+
|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|rating=5
|summary= Demelza Clock is a scientist, often staying up late to work on her various gadgets, much to her Grandma Maeve's irritation. However, she has also inherited a certain set of skills that are not especially scientific: Spectre Detecting, the ability to summon the ghosts of the recently deceased. Under the guidance of her Grandma Maeve, Demelza begins to master her newfound skills. However, there is a mysterious individual on the prowl, kidnapping young Spectre Detectors. It's up to Demelza and her best friend Percy to get to the bottom of this...
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|isbn=1912626039
+
|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal.  Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787477533
+
|isbn=178730101X
|title=The Lantern Men (Dr Ruth Galloway)
+
|title=Keep Him Close
|author=Elly Griffiths
+
|author=Emily Koch
|rating=5
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Everything has changed for Dr Ruth GallowayShe's no longer providing assistance to the police and isn't even working at the University of North NorfolkShe's lecturing at Cambridge and has moved from her beloved Saltmarsh cottage to live with Dr Frank Barker in Cambridge.  Her daughter, Katie, has settled into school better than she could ever have hoped and life is looking goodSettled.  She can't help thinking about Harry Nelson, Katie's father, because Katie sees him regularly and there's a close relationship with his familyYou might ''almost'' think that Ruth's life is settling down.
+
|summary=Alice had two children: Benny (well, Benoît, actually) and LouisLou's seventeen and he's just got his A level results and he and his brother are going out to celebrateSomeone has to find something to celebrate in the letters, D, D and EAlice has always had a good relationship with nineteen-year-old Benny but it's a  touch problematic with Lou and being honest, he's not terribly likeableThe letters which kept coming to my mind were ADHD.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=183895015X
+
|isbn=0241396840
|title=A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner
+
|title=Keeper
|author=Chris Atkins
+
|author=Jessica Moor
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Documentary filmmakers don't usually get the run of establishments within the Mountbatten-Windsor Hotel Group, but after getting involved in an illegal tax scheme to fund his latest film, Chris Atkins was invited for a five-year stay. The first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworth, which is probably the oldest, largest and most dysfunctional prison in Europe.
+
|summary=Katie Straw worked in the women's refuge and the women who lived there liked and respected her.  She treated them well and seemed to have an understanding of what they were going through.  Why then did she jump from the local suicide spot into the river below?  There had been no signs that she was unhappy and she and her boyfriend seemed to have been content together - and Noah has a decent alibi for the time when she died, but what other explanation could there be for her death? The police are convinced that it's suicide, but the women who knew her believed otherwise.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1250168546
+
|isbn=1838880658
|author=Sarah Kozloff
+
|title=Murder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay)
|title=A Queen In Hiding
+
|author=Helena Dixon
|rating=3
+
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
+
|genre=Crime
|summary= World-building is the backbone by which fantasy novels live and die. And what a pleasure, then, to get a novel with world-building you actually want to delve into. Sarah Kozloff's debut novel presents a startlingly rich and layered world, with a complex history of connecting nations that seems certain to have more to tap, and the characters are interesting – if a little underdeveloped. But it's a world I could – and did – eagerly buy into, and the struggle of each Queen to discover and hone her magical talent felt very real and very apt.
+
|summary=It's the summer of 1933 and Kitty Underhay is on her way to visit the family which she never knew she had, at Enderley Hall. Her grandmother, Mrs Treadwell, and Great Aunt Livvy are back at the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth. Kitty gets easily bored working at the Dolphin - every day is much the same - but her real reason for going away is that she needs a break after her recent adventures, which involved three vicious murders, an arson attack and an attempt on her life.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1543987877
+
|isbn=1788638026
|title=Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life
+
|title=Where the Innocent Die (D I Ridpath)
|author=Dr Thomas Jordan
+
|author=M J Lee
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life'' is a book about love relationships rather than a book about loveThe two greatest emotions are love and grief and love is the opposite of grief: ''if you love'', Dr Thomas Jordan tells us, ''you will inevitably grieve''Your love relationships begin the moment you're born and end only when you die. Whilst we all come into the world hoping to give and receive love there are many people for whom love is not quite so simpleSome people suffer multiple disappointments - sometimes repeating the same mistakes - and this eventually becomes resignationFor people who are making the same mistakes repeatedly, self-preservation, in the form of resignation is a necessity.
+
|summary=It was easy to assume that the death of the young Chinese girl at the Immigrant Removal Centre was suicideHer throat was cut, there was a lot of blood and the knife was on the floor at the side of the bed, She was due to be deported that dayBut... how did the knife get into the secure centre and why was the girl's room the only one which was unlocked? DI Thomas Ridpath, the coroner's officer, is sent to investigate and he quickly becomes suspicious,  There's a snag though: the inquest is due to open in a couple of days' time, the girl's parents are coming over from China and they want to take their daughter's body home with themRidpath has just five days to solve the caseThe coroner is disinclined to delay the inquest: for her, it's about giving closure to the parents.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Chris Hauty
+
|isbn=1471166023
|title=Deep State
+
|title=Burnt Island (Ben Kitto)
|rating=3
+
|author=Kate Rhodes
|genre=Thrillers
+
|rating=4.5
|summary= Hayley Chill is a fighter.  She is every kind of fighter, and well-trained in most of them. She's army infantry and she boxes for fun – and she wins. Always. She wins because she is focussed. She works hard, mentally and physically, and she knows how to deal with the pain. She is not so much cold as controlled.  This fight is against someone she is not expected to beat.  And she is being watched.
+
|genre=Crime
|isbn=1471185605
+
|summary=The 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-fifth birthday and the occasion for the usual bonfire celebrations, but it would be marred this year by the discovery of Professor Alex Rogan's body on a bonfire. He'd obviously been alive when he was put on the fire and can only have died a terrible death. The body was first discovered by Jimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes as the Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing and his only concern is the welfare of the birds he looks after. His instinct is to cover Rogan's body and he uses his sheepskin coat to do this, with the result that he's the prime suspect.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=H G Parry
+
|author=Elliot Reed
|title=The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep
+
|title=A Key to Treehouse Living
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Brothers Rob and Charley have struggled to see eye to eye for years - Rob a sensible lawyer who exists in the "normal" world - and Charley a man who is blessed with an ability he can't fully control - one which allows him to bring literary characters into the real world. After years of protecting Charley, Rob wants to discharge his duties and leave Charley to his own devices - but circumstances soon take choices out of both their hands. As literary characters begin to appear everywhere, it soon becomes clear that someone out there shares Charley's powers and intends to use them for nefarious gains. Rob and Charley must team up to stop the madness - in a battle to win before they, the characters and the world reach The End…
+
|summary=This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDERAs I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story.
|isbn=0356513777
+
|isbn=1911545418
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=1444776185
 
|title=Haven't they Grown
 
|author=Sophie Hannah
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|summary=It was when Beth Leeson was ferrying her son, Ben, to a football match that she found herself on Wyddial Lane in Hemingford AbbotsActually, It's a little disingenuous to say 'found herself' as Beth had made a deliberate detour on the grounds that she didn't find herself in this neck of the woods very often and she was curious to see where a family who'd come into money had lived before they'd all lost contact twelve years ago.  And it might have gone no further than that had Beth not seen a car draw up and her friend Flora get out along with two children she called Thomas and Emily.  Beth remembered the names well - but these children were about three and five and Flora's children - Thomas and Emily - would now be fifteen and seventeen.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529123763
+
|author=Will Dean
|title=Miss Austen
+
|title=Black River
|author=Gill Hornby
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|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.
+
|summary=Tuva Moodyson returns - and this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal life, returning her to the isolated town of Gavrik and into a desperate search for her missing best friend. With the Midsommar sun blocked out by the dark pines of the forest, Tuva fights to save her friend. But who’ll be there to save Tuva?
 +
|isbn=1786077116
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Rory Clements
+
|isbn=1782407480
|title=Hitler's Secret
+
|title=Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster
|genre=Thrillers
+
|rating=4.5
|summary=So, Hitler had a secret?  Two, if you include the reproductive detail mentioned in a certain sing-song aspersionBut this is a secret that is counter to that, and in fact is a secret that Hitler himself doesn't even know aboutHis neice, Geli Raubal, the attractive young woman he seemed to be very close to in the early 1930s, had had his daughter behind his backProtected 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.
+
|genre=Animals and Wildlife
|isbn=1838770275
+
|summary=I was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a couple of on-line booksellers: ''exploring the sex life of birds'' it saidI very nearly passed over the book, but a closer examination suggested that the book is about the ''family life'' of birds, which is rather differentIf the book was confined to the sex life of birds, you would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, bring up their families and cope in the wildNot only that, you have missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a wide variety of birds which run through this book from the first page to the last.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241985110
+
|author=Camilla Bruce
|title=All the Rage (D I Fawley)
+
|title=You Let Me In
|author=Cara Hunter
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Crime
+
|summary= Eccentric, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. Her will instructs her niece and nephew to enter her home and find the key to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: the last story she'll ever tell.
|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.
+
|isbn=1787633179
 
}}
 
}}

Revision as of 09:16, 7 April 2020

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

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Read the latest features.

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Review of

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

5star.jpg Horror

Women, by and large, have always been the subjugated sex. Throughout history, they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix's new novel The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires gives women their due. It is an ode to the strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to toe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac. Full Review

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Review of

The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked like a stick she realised it was a hand, a right hand, in fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent's team would later find three other body parts. Identification of the body was not going to be easy, but eventually, it would be given a name - Paige Hargreaves, a twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. Her friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, said that she was working on a story which she reckoned would be explosive - and she hadn't been willing to share any of the details with Bianca. Full Review

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Review of

Hello Now by Jenny Valentine

4.5star.jpg Teens

Jude reluctantly moves to a small, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and settle into a big, old house overlooking the sea - which happens to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted in the house like a ghost that just won't leave – or can't. As Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, reality she is consumed by a longing for her old life in London and anger at another forced change – but this will be the last time, she swears. This world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating for Jude. That is until the day Novo arrives, and her entire concept of the world changes forever. Full Review

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Review of

Access Point by T R Gabbay

4star.jpg Thrillers

When we first meet Ula Mishkin she's having something of a professional success: using a device of her own invention she's helped a man who has been blind for decades to see an image of a hummingbird. She's thirty-six years old and her life is about to change radically as, cycling home, she's involved in an accident with a bus. It's two years before we meet her again and in the meantime, she's spent 392 days in a coma and now walks with a stick. A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to bring in some income. Full Review

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Review of

The Loop by Ben Oliver

3.5star.jpg Teens

Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop? Full Review

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Review of

Troofriend by Kirsty Applebaum

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Are you tired of your child's classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lying, stealing or bullying. They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have absolutely no basis in reality…right? Full Review

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Review of

The Silent Treatment by Abbie Greaves

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfully. Maggie, on the other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, in fact - and before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has a bit of a problem. He has to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long? Well, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life. Full Review

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Review of

Wink by Rob Harrell

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

When Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to just be 'normal' become impossible. Suddenly he is the cancer kid, and everything he does, how he looks, and how he behaves falls under the scrutiny of the other kids in school. Ross is, understandably, angry. He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a permanent wink. He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with the pain, plus the need to wear a hat at all times to protect his face due to the ongoing treatment. With the sudden ghosting by one of his best friends, and a series of horrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about his life is normal any more, and he has to find new ways to deal with his feelings, and survive. Full Review

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Review of

Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins

5star.jpg Crime

When we first meet Dee she's talking to Nick Law, the new college master. Law's lately of the BBC and he doesn't come with an entirely good reputation: he's a bit of a bully and Dee can sense something of that in their first conversation. She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new job as a nanny, but somehow she finds herself going to see Mariah, the Danish wife of the master. She's pregnant and looking for help, not with the new baby but with the master's daughter by his first wife, Ana. Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk to her father, but to no one else. The eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother and struggling at school. Full Review

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Review of

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

There is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Garden. Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children that those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. God was not to be deceived, however, and decreed that what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, and so the Elves were born: the hidden folk. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose. Full Review

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Review of

From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place by Wendy Cheyne

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

After the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given to English lords. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to port cities on the mainland, to North America and even to Australia and New Zealand. Full Review

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Review of

Lost by Ele Fountain

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and her brother, Amit. She lives with them in a nice apartment, and although they are not rich like some of the girls at school, they have enough money to be comfortable. Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and trying to fit in with them, until one day, suddenly, everything in her life changes. After taking a work trip away, Lola's father doesn't come home. They have nobody else to help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become of them until, finally, they are evicted from their flat, and she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the streets. Full Review

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Review of

The City We Became by N K Jemisin

4star.jpg Science Fiction

New York is being born, the city has reached critical mass and has matured into a living almost-breathing entity and is ready to make its way out into the world. Before it can be established, an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and other forgotten places. The city is not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the values are selected to become the living embodiment of the city, some cities have one, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the woman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eye, it's a personality clash on an epic scale and unity is both critical and not remotely guaranteed. Full Review

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Review of

Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis by Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

5star.jpg Politics and Society

The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were burned-out people on a burned-out planet. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. Full Review

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Review of

Keep Him Close by Emily Koch

3.5star.jpg Crime

Alice had two children: Benny (well, Benoît, actually) and Louis. Lou's seventeen and he's just got his A level results and he and his brother are going out to celebrate. Someone has to find something to celebrate in the letters, D, D and E. Alice has always had a good relationship with nineteen-year-old Benny but it's a touch problematic with Lou and being honest, he's not terribly likeable. The letters which kept coming to my mind were ADHD. Full Review

0241396840.jpg

Review of

Keeper by Jessica Moor

4.5star.jpg Crime

Katie Straw worked in the women's refuge and the women who lived there liked and respected her. She treated them well and seemed to have an understanding of what they were going through. Why then did she jump from the local suicide spot into the river below? There had been no signs that she was unhappy and she and her boyfriend seemed to have been content together - and Noah has a decent alibi for the time when she died, but what other explanation could there be for her death? The police are convinced that it's suicide, but the women who knew her believed otherwise. Full Review

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Review of

Murder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay) by Helena Dixon

4star.jpg Crime

It's the summer of 1933 and Kitty Underhay is on her way to visit the family which she never knew she had, at Enderley Hall. Her grandmother, Mrs Treadwell, and Great Aunt Livvy are back at the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth. Kitty gets easily bored working at the Dolphin - every day is much the same - but her real reason for going away is that she needs a break after her recent adventures, which involved three vicious murders, an arson attack and an attempt on her life. Full Review

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Review of

Where the Innocent Die (D I Ridpath) by M J Lee

4star.jpg Crime

It was easy to assume that the death of the young Chinese girl at the Immigrant Removal Centre was suicide. Her throat was cut, there was a lot of blood and the knife was on the floor at the side of the bed, She was due to be deported that day. But... how did the knife get into the secure centre and why was the girl's room the only one which was unlocked? DI Thomas Ridpath, the coroner's officer, is sent to investigate and he quickly becomes suspicious, There's a snag though: the inquest is due to open in a couple of days' time, the girl's parents are coming over from China and they want to take their daughter's body home with them. Ridpath has just five days to solve the case. The coroner is disinclined to delay the inquest: for her, it's about giving closure to the parents. Full Review

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Review of

Burnt Island (Ben Kitto) by Kate Rhodes

4.5star.jpg Crime

The 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-fifth birthday and the occasion for the usual bonfire celebrations, but it would be marred this year by the discovery of Professor Alex Rogan's body on a bonfire. He'd obviously been alive when he was put on the fire and can only have died a terrible death. The body was first discovered by Jimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes as the Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing and his only concern is the welfare of the birds he looks after. His instinct is to cover Rogan's body and he uses his sheepskin coat to do this, with the result that he's the prime suspect. Full Review

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Review of

A Key to Treehouse Living by Elliot Reed

4star.jpg General Fiction

This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story. Full Review

1786077116.jpg

Review of

Black River by Will Dean

5star.jpg Crime

Tuva Moodyson returns - and this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal life, returning her to the isolated town of Gavrik and into a desperate search for her missing best friend. With the Midsommar sun blocked out by the dark pines of the forest, Tuva fights to save her friend. But who’ll be there to save Tuva? Full Review

1782407480.jpg

Review of

Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds by Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster

4.5star.jpg Animals and Wildlife

I was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for Bird Love on a couple of on-line booksellers: exploring the sex life of birds it said. I very nearly passed over the book, but a closer examination suggested that the book is about the family life of birds, which is rather different. If the book was confined to the sex life of birds, you would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, bring up their families and cope in the wild. Not only that, you have missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a wide variety of birds which run through this book from the first page to the last. Full Review

1787633179.jpg

Review of

You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

4star.jpg General Fiction

Eccentric, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. Her will instructs her niece and nephew to enter her home and find the key to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: the last story she'll ever tell. Full Review