Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
Line 1: Line 1:
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 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|interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[Features]] page.
+
<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 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 [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews on the site.
+
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
+
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
  
==New Reviews==
+
==Reviews of the Best New Books==
'''For new reviews by genre [[:Category:New Reviews|click here]].'''
 
  
'''For new features [[Features|click here]].'''
+
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
__NOTOC__
 
  
{{newreview
+
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
|author=Jennifer Bohnet
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Follow Your Star
+
|author= Grady Hendrix
|rating=3.5
+
|title= The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
|genre=Women's Fiction
+
|rating= 5
|summary=It's three years since Nanette Weston left Monaco. She'd been engaged to a Formula 1 racing driver and had lived the life of the wealthy but a serious car accident had ended all that. The accident could have killed her fiancé and she lost her driving licence because of the alcohol she'd consumed.  Her slow recovery was hindered by the end of her engagement but she's found some contentment in being a nanny to two young children. When her friend and employer, Vanessa, remarries and takes an extended honeymoon in the Amazon Nanette is asked to take the children back to Monaco where their father lives.
+
|genre= Horror
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089090</amazonuk>
+
|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=1683691431
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008149089
|author=J R Stephenson
+
|title=The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)
|title=Crooked Justice
+
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=2.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounceJust don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back.  A businessman with a share of a nightclub on Cyprus, he goes there for a customary break, and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancerHe manages to tread both on the toes of his local colleague and some Greek rivals.  And when a rival in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut up.  It's a big stone that hides him, but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revenge.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Stephen Baker
+
|title=Hello Now
|title=They've Got Your Number
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
+
|genre=Teens
|summary=If you are in the slightest bit paranoid, worry that ''Big Brother'' is always watching or like to believe that you are not a number, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book for you, as it will do nothing to dispel any of those worries. If, on the other hand, you think 'the mathematical modelling of humanity' sounds like one of the sexiest things ever, and are chomping at the bit to learn more about it, then you might well be interested in what Business Week journalist Baker has to say.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0007466498
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B0867X8NW7
|author=Rebecca Tope
+
|title=Access Point
|title=Fear in the Cotswolds
+
|author=T R Gabbay
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Thea Osborne is a house sitter by profession.  When people go away she moves into their homes and looks after their animals and the property.  This time it's winter and she's spending a month in the Cotswold village of HampnettIt wouldn't be a job for all of us but Thea delights in getting to know the local people and the area.  In the past she's also been involved with the police in solving various cases but it looks as though that might have come to an end as the relationship she had with DS Phil Hollis has crumbledFor the first time Thea feels like an outsider – and a foolish one - when she finds footsteps in the snow which lead to a body in a nearby fieldWhen the police finally arrive the body has disappeared and the police obviously wonder if she's imagined it all.
+
|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 hummingbirdShe's thirty-six years old and her life is about to change radically as, cycling home, she's involved in an accident with a busIt'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 stickA professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to bring in some income.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007478</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Ben Oliver
|author=Tad Tuleja
+
|title= The Loop
|title=A Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases
+
|rating= 3.5
|rating=3
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Home and Family
+
|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?
|summary=Take a look at the cover design of this book, and you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a trivia compendium for all those foreign words that have taken part in our English language since whenever they crossed over from their original homes. But the title is definitely honest, for this is a dictionary book first, for reference, and a browser for the trivia buff second.
+
|isbn=1912626551
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089562</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Kirsty Applebaum
|author=Anne Rice
+
|title= Troofriend
|title=Angel Time
+
|rating= 4.5
|rating=2.5
+
|genre= Confident Readers
|genre=General Fiction
+
|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=Toby O'Dare is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for music, history and playing his beloved lute. He's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years ago. One day while on a 'job' he is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemption. Toby agrees to become the Angel's human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century England.
+
|isbn=1788003470
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529123941
|author=Ian Mortimer
+
|title=The Silent Treatment
|title=1415: Henry V's Year of Glory
+
|author=Abbie Greaves
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5  
|genre=History
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The medieval, in fact time-honoured, view of King Henry V as one of England's greatest heroes was propagated though not originated by Shakespeare, and again more recently to some extent by Olivier's portrayal in filmAt least one historian has called him ''the greatest man that ever ruled England''.
+
|summary= 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 problemHe 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Deborah Gregory
+
|author=Rob Harrell
|title=Dancing With The Dead
+
|title=Wink
|rating=3
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead'', because I'm interested in family history. The blurb on the back of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine of the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up). I felt with all these links, the novel could not fail to interest me – but this was not the case.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Miss Read
 
|title=Christmas at Thrush Green
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Women's Fiction
 
|summary=Set in the rural village of Thrush Green, this book is the latest in a series surrounding familiar characters. There is the feisty Ella Bembridge, who is finally having to admit that old age is creeping up as her eyesight fails. Friends such as Dimity and Charles Henstock are concerned about her, but she refuses to accept any help. Albert Piggott has decided it's time to retire now that his wife, Nelly, is a successful cafe owner and can afford to take care of him! And relative newcomer Phil Hurst and her husband are arranging the local nativity play, despite a number of set-backs. Will everything be in place for Christmas? And will independent Ella make a decision about her future?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409101592</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Matt and Dave
 
|title=Yuck's Robotic Bottom
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's concerned me for a while that it's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls – princesses, magic soft toys, mermaids and pets abound – but there's a much smaller choice for boysIt's important too with early readers that the content is ''interesting'' and reading becomes more than just something which you ''have'' to do at school and moves into being fun.  Matt and Dave have found the answer in Yuck.
+
|summary=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 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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1471409147
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786485575
|author=John E Smelcer
+
|title=Magpie Lane
|title=The Great Death
+
|author=Lucy Atkins
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measles, smallpox, and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village's population died within a week. In some cases, there were no survivors. It was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Death.'
+
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Sally Magnusson
|author=Maxine Barry
+
|title=The Sealwoman's Gift
|title=River Deep
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=Historical Fiction
|genre=Women's Fiction
+
|summary= There is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the GardenEve 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 himGod 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 folkThey can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose.
|summary=Two young women both have a love of the ThamesMelisande Ray's beloved hotel, the Ray of Sunshine is on the river bankIt's here that guests come who want to be pampered and looked after in the way that only the best hotels can do well, but when Wendell James checks in to the hotel it's not pampering he's looking for.  He's buying a piece of land not far from the Ray of Sunshine and he's sussing out the competitionThere's something personal in there too – if his new hotel means that the Ray of Sunshine goes under then that would be an added bonus.  There's just a slight doubt in his mind when a red-haired maid catches his eye.
+
|isbn=1473638984
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Wendy Cheyne 
|author=Joe Gores
+
|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place
|title=Spade and Archer
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Sam Spade decides, bravely, to set up his one-man detective agency. It's the 1920s in San Francisco so we have the prohibition era and all that that entails. Many locals, of course, choose to disobey the law, stick two fingers up, so to speak and as a result there's lots of bootleg liquor.
+
|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= 1838591753
Straight away, it's evident that Sam is a man of few words.  He has the mannerisms of a cat - stealthy, quick on his feet.  He's also a compulsive chain-smoker, but then again, most people were.  In that era, holding a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessory.  How times have changed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140911323X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Ele Fountain
|author=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark
+
|title=Lost
|title=The Best of Times
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most children enjoy a good traditional tale and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to have all the right ingredients – a handsome prince and a beautiful princess who fall in love, get married and live happily ever after. Or do they? Sadly, not long after Prince Frederico marries the lovely Princess Serafina, she becomes very sad. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadness, but poor Prince Frederico is desperate to find a cure for his wife's misery. He tries everything in his power and eventually decides to offer his kingdom to anyone who can make her happy again before she dies of a broken heart. Lots of people come to the palace to try and help but in the end the solution is a simple one provided by some very kind travellers.
+
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178269255X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= N K Jemisin
|author=Shirley Jackson
+
|title= The City We Became
|title=We Have Always Lived In The Castle
+
|rating= 4
|rating=4.5
+
|genre= Science Fiction
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|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.
|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always lived'. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world by a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister and death cap mushrooms, and everyone else in her family is dead. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against the world', shutting out other people, and they live near a village. Merricat believes that 'The people of the village have always hated us', and tells us that she hates them too.
+
|isbn=0356512665
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0241446732
|author=Simon Weston
+
|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis
|title=Nelson to the Rescue
+
|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|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 a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri and Rhys, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, a frog who thinks he's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleeping.  Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mike's fridge and the animals believe that Mike has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE.  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.
+
|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 daughtersThen 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.
|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 lifeSuddenly you see the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation 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 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 disprovedBut after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world.  She begins an affair with him, begins to let things slip at home and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present danger.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=178730101X
|author=Katherine May
+
|title=Keep Him Close
|title=Burning Out
+
|author=Emily Koch
|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 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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Amanda Downum
 
|title=The Drowning City
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
|genre=Fantasy
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=In a nutshell, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latterI'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelingsI started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocative.
+
|summary=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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0241396840
|author=Tove Jansson
+
|title=Keeper
|title=The True Deceiver
+
|author=Jessica Moor
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales.  The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Daniel Kehlmann
 
|title=Me and Kaminski
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|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.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1838880658
|author=Louis Barfe
+
|title=Murder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay)
|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment
+
|author=Helena Dixon
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Entertainment
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down upon, as if it's a bit naff, tepid and ignorable. What's often forgotten is that it's hugely popular, enjoyable and much of it is of the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainment.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1788638026
|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall
+
|title=Where the Innocent Die (D I Ridpath)
|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!
+
|author=M J Lee
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Off, but just like him, his tomatoes aren't growing very big. He takes the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes a song. The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his grasp.
+
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1471166023
|author=Joseph Delaney
+
|title=Burnt Island (Ben Kitto)
|title=The Spook's Stories: Witches
+
|author=Kate Rhodes
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book is 'seriously scary'...
 
 
 
The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls in love with a witch and is forced to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-children.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lisa Unger
 
|title=Die For You
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly 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 his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that she's been living a lie for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so long. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novels.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Elliot Reed
|author=Lisa McMann
+
|title=A Key to Treehouse Living
|title=Wake
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in the way of resources. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...
+
|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1911545418
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Will Dean
|author=Jaclyn Moriarty
+
|title=Black River
|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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=F G Cottam
 
|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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jon Berkeley
 
|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=I shall start with a word of advice.  When you're being hounded by a circus master, and a magician, for the soul of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogy.  Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud cities, 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 help.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sue Townsend
 
|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|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.
+
|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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1786077116
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lauren Kate
 
|title=Fallen
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|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 her life, and the two 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 a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear.  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 it's thought to be.  To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which it'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, 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 ways. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Toby Lester
 
|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest Map
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display.  No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate.  It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, 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 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 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 that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it 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 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 lists.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1782407480
|author=Andy Stanton
+
|title=Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds
|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?
+
|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Animals and Wildlife
|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 rightsEspecially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.
+
|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 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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Camilla Bruce
|author=Loose Women
+
|title=You Let Me In
|title=Here Come the Girls
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Home and Family
 
|summary=This is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised on the cover, this book is an entertaining night with the girls.  It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yet, with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity faces.  The women are universally warm-hearted and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the evening.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jean Ure
 
|title=Fortune Cookie
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends.  If the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got the idea from.  They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination works.  They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate.  Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious.  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's in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... 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
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Max.  When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adults, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriend, or gets 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 to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their king.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
+
|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.

Want to find out more about us?

Reviews of the Best New Books

Read new reviews by category.

Read the latest features.

1683691431.jpg

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

0008149089.jpg

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

0007466498.jpg

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

B0867X8NW7.jpg

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

1912626551.jpg

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

1788003470.jpg

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

1529123941.jpg

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

1471409147.jpg

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

1786485575.jpg

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

1473638984.jpg

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

1838591753.jpg

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

178269255X.jpg

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

0356512665.jpg

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

0241446732.jpg

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

178730101X.jpg

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

1838880658.jpg

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

1788638026.jpg

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

1471166023.jpg

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

1911545418.jpg

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