Difference between revisions of "Forthcoming Publications"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
Line 1: Line 1:
 
__NOTOC__
 
__NOTOC__
 
=='''26 MAY'''==
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Amin Maalouf
 
|title=The Disoriented
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friend, or maybe.  The falling out was a long time ago, and Adam's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him to go knowing that he'll regret not doing so.  Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants to, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next plane.
 
|isbn=B07ZQSK9CY
 
}}
 
  
 
=='''28 MAY'''==
 
=='''28 MAY'''==

Revision as of 08:17, 26 May 2020


28 MAY

0008273790.jpg

Review of

Remain Silent by Susie Steiner

4star.jpg Crime

When we first meet Matis and Dimitri, Matis is in a bad way, vomiting and obviously traumatised. When he's able to speak he tells Dimitri that Lukas is dead. Lukas was in his late teens and he and Matis had come to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuania. They'd answered an advert offering good money and accommodation in return for their labour: they could have a decent life and send money home to their families. Sadly, it doesn't work out like that. When they arrive in the UK - on an old, uncomfortable bus, - they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have to share rooms and sleep on dirty mattresses on the floor. It's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workers. Full Review

29 MAY

B07S6DBCFT.jpg

Review of

Little Girls Tell Tales by Rachel Bennett

4star.jpg Crime

In 2004 Rosalie, Beth and Dallin were walking in the boggy wetlands by Rosalie and Dallin's cottage. Beth and Dallin, both twelve-years-old, got ahead of ten-year-old Rosalie and it wasn't long before she realised that she was lost. Trying to find her way back to the main path she found a skeleton, but when she finally got to the road she could never find her way back to the bog when she'd seen the body. Most people didn't believe her, putting the story down to her vivid imagination. Full Review

2 JUNE

Pronko.jpg

Review of

Tokyo Traffic (Detective Hiroshi) by Michael Pronko

4star.jpg Crime

There were three young women, girls really if you wanted to be pedantic about their ages. Sukayana was Thai and she'd come to Japan in the belief that she'd be able to pick up the documentation to get to the States. Celeste was just fourteen and when we meet her she's already dead of a heart attack caused by an overdose of amphetamines. Then there's Ratana, who's the de facto leader of the group, but she's disappeared too with the group's passports, leaving Sukayana in the midst of a scene of carnage at the Jack and Jill Studios. The dead bodies are definitely not props though. Full Review

0727889230.jpg

Review of

The Red, Red Snow by Caro Ramsay

4.5star.jpg Crime

In Glasgow, Eric Callaghan of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour had been to the ice show with his wife, Geraldine and daughter, Lisa when he was stabbed in Planet Burger. He died within minutes, but his murder seemed motiveless and there were no clues. He was a genuine man and a talented artist: those investigating his death had hit a dead end. There were two deaths to investigate in the north of Scotland: it wasn't thought wise to involve the local murder team as someone on the Glen Riske police force was indirectly involved in the case. Christmas - and a lot of snow were rapidly approaching. Full Review

16 JUNE

1683691938.jpg

Review of

Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston

3.5star.jpg Teens

Set after the ExcelsiCon, we are introduced to Rosie Thorne, a Small Town, USA girl who has recently lost her mother and is entering her final year of high school. Things keep piling up for Rosie, and when she follows a stray dog into what she thinks is an abandoned castle in her town, things just get worse. Rosie accidentally destroys a rare book and with her mother's hospital and funeral costs she has no money to cover the damage. She finds herself working for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty on a paparazzi escape, to repay the debt.

For most Starfield superfans this would be a dream but Rosie soon realises Vance is a jerk - and he isn't too fond of her either. However, as the two are forced to get to know each other, their guards begin to lower and they discover that maybe this situation might not be so terrible after all. Full Review

1789094046.jpg

Review of

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He

5star.jpg Fantasy

Heroes cannot be forged without villains Princess Hesina of the kingdom of Yan has never wanted the throne. Instead of craving power, she has always considered the crown her inescapable duty and shrank away from the responsibilities of being Queen. To her, it has always been a distant, faraway future. Until that is, it isn't. When her beloved father suddenly dies, she is thrust into ruling. But contrary to the official report, Hesina knows all is not as it seems, her father didn't die. He was murdered. Determined to seek the truth and discover her father's killer, Princess Hesina will stop at nothing to find justice, even committing treason. Under the cover of darkness, her feet lead her to a soothsayer to learn what happened that day and who killed the King. Full Review

1684056993.jpg

Review of

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989. Full Review

18 JUNE

1911648160.jpg

Review of

Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right by Ukamaka Olisakwe

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at the trauma and heartache of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right. Ogadinma is the eponymous heroine of the story. We are with her in every scene and it is her narrative voice that leads the story, although Olisakwe writes in the third person. This provides a sense of detachment for the reader and highlights the isolation of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape. Full Review

25 JUNE

0008214700.jpg

Review of

Cut to the Bone (DI Meg Dalton) by Roz Watkins

4star.jpg Crime

DI Meg Dalton and Ds Jai Sanghera are dealing with the case of a missing teenager. Violet Armstrong is well-known as a vlogger - championing the cause of meat-eating. She barbeques meat wearing only a bikini and has attracted the attention of animal rights activists. The meat-eaters (they wear meat suits) are determined that Meg Dalton is corrupt and not running a decent investigation (obviously she only got the job because she's a woman) because she's a vegetarian. As if the case wasn't enough, Meg's father is coming to stay with her despite having had little to do with her for fifteen years and Jai's convinced that his girlfriend, Suki, doesn't like his children and that she wants more, but he doesn't. Full Review

1780899858.jpg

Review of

To Tell You the Truth by Gilly Macmillan

4.5star.jpg Crime

When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-old she crept out of the house on the night of the summer solstice to watch the pagan celebrations in Stoke Woods. Her four-year-old brother, Teddy, would have woken the house if she hadn't taken him with her. But in the early hours of the morning, Lucy returned home without Teddy, hoping that he would have got home before her. He hadn't and no one has seen him since. Lucy's story was crucial to the police investigation, but it keeps subtly changing. Lucy is being advised by her imaginary friend, Eliza Grey and Eliza says that there are certain things which Lucy must not tell the police. Full Review

B0859115X5.jpg

Review of

Lies to Tell (DI Clare Mackay) by Marion Todd

4star.jpg Crime

When we meet up with DI Clare Mackay again she's at Daisy Cottage on the outskirts of St Andrews with her English Bull Terrier, Benjy. She's just had a postcard from Geoffrey Dark and he's in Provincetown, Cape Cod. He wishes that she was there, but Clare's struggling to think of what he actually is to her now. Is he her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfriend? She can't work it out and thinks that Geoffrey probably can't either. Work's about to get very busy and she can't work out why DCI Alastair Gibson has cancelled a meeting she'd arranged without discussing it with her first. They're off somewhere top secret. Full Review

9 JULY

1838770879.jpg

Review of

The Shelf by Helly Acton

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

When we meet Amy, she's in a relationship with Jamie. You can't really call it a partnership, because things tend to get done on his terms, but she's sticking around because she hopes she can change him. Ah, yes. Haven't we all been there? Things are looking up when he tells her to pack for a surprise trip. Could this be it? Is he finally going to get down on one knee? Was the work (and the wait) worth it? Full Review

0241397049.jpg

Review of

Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis

4.5star.jpg Teens

When we first meet 17-year-old Lola, daughter to legendary horror movie director Nolan Nox, she is saying goodbye to New York City - by sneaking out and stealing from its residents. But when she is found by her father's assistant and forced to come home, she arrives to find an unlocked door, a trail of blood, and her father dying in his study. And so, while he recovers, she is sent off to live with her grandmother in Harrow Lake, the small 1920s town in Indiana that served as the location for the film that made her parents famous. But something about this place isn't right. There's a darkness inside the people here. Secrets about her mother and dark tales of the town's cannibal monster 'Mister Jitters' fill every corner, and disturbing happenings plague Lola. But with every passing hour, secrets long buried come painfully to light and she begins to think that these stories may not be stories at all, and something very real and sinister lurks in Harrow Lake. Full Review

20 AUGUST

0857535897.jpg

Review of

Love Frankie by Jacqueline Wilson

4.5star.jpg Teens

Frankie is nearly fourteen. Being nearly fourteen is not easy when your mum has been diagnosed with MS when your dad has decided to leave her for another woman, when your older sister has turned into the girliest girl who ever lived, and, above all when Sally and her mates are bullying you at school. Oh, and when Sam, your best friend since forever, suddenly starts sending out signs that he might fancy you - and you don't fancy him back.

Poor Frankie! Full Review

1509865888.jpg

Review of

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Wow – this novel is gigantic, in every sense of the word. "Epic" is a word that's thrown around a lot these days, but if a book ever earned the name it's this one. It's a doorstopper full of big ideas, and at times it almost felt too big for my brain. Full Review

3 SEPTEMBER

0571348769.jpg

Review of

Voyage of the Sparrowhawk by Natasha Farrant

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Set in England in the aftermath of World War One, this is the story of two children, Lotti and Ben, who have lost everyone they love, but don't want to let go of their last, tiny glimpses of hope. Ben is living on a narrowboat on the canal, lying to the police about his brother's imminent return from the battlefields to take care of him. Lotti, meanwhile, has been expelled from school and is back at home; it's a beautiful house that belongs to her but that her terrible Aunt and Uncle currently have guardianship for. The day Lotti meets Ben (the day she steals a dog!) is the beginning of a deep, and powerful friendship. It sees them become each other's family, and undertake a perilous trip to France, in the boat, to try to find out the truth of the people they both love. Full Review