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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, biographynon-fiction, crime, cookery and children's books & self-published 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.
Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in! Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''], [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''], [[File:instagram_classic_logo.png|link=https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/|alt=Follow us on Instagram]] [https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/ '''Instagram'''] and [[File:LinkedIn.png|link=https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-bookbag-1b12a264/|alt=LinkedIn]] There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews ]] at TheBookbag.
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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <! '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HEREthe site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments ->when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Alexandra Christo0008551324|title= Into the Crooked PlaceThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating= 4.5|genre= TeensCrime|summary= In It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a world thriving with black magicmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, four young crooks embark on a quest is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to take down their criminal leader after they discover serve the plot behind remainder of his dangerous sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new magicDeputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1250318378
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Kathlaine C Gill Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and D Clark Gillher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=Madness Between Light and DarkThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=ItEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's 1912also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and at New Hope Sanatorium, Christine Agnes Tupper uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is fast growing upleft to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway. Abandoned there by parents who were ashamed }}{{Frontpage|author=Jo Callaghan|title=Leave No Trace|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her hunchbacksidekick, shethe AI detective Lock. It's nevertheless grown up to an intelligent girl their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a good heartpotential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Her encounters with Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the inhabitants case and, potentially, out of the asylum swiftly take her on a fascinatingcareer?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, thrilling Laura and sometimes terrifying journey Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of self discoverya century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, allowing Agnes which is a bonus when you aim to prove that, even with be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a twisted spine, her heart trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the right place!|isbn=1641110708three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=190874572X0241636604|title=Letters from ToveThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Back at If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the beginning of pin-stripe suit and his background is the century I went East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on holiday his CV - but he had been to Nepalthe London School of Economics. I met Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort facility with numbers which most of friendsus can only envy. I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one He also realised that Paula told me I really had most rich people expect poor people to read Tove Janssonbe stupid. I do know that it It was his ability at what was four years later that I finally acquired , essentially, a card game which got him an English translation of The Summer Bookinternship with Citibank. Eventually, and that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the rest of Jansson's work and devoured them this turned into permanent employment as soon as I could get my hands on thema trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17847427831035021803|title=The Benefit of Hindsight (Simon Serrailler)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Susan HillC L Miller|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=A superficial look would suggest to you that Simon Serrailer It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been lucky and - all things considered - his life is as good as it could beback to the English country village where she grew up. HeShe's back at work after now because of a long break to recuperate request for help from the violent incident which cost him his arm and almost his lifeher beloved aunt, Carole. When heFreya's not at work heformer mentor and Carole's spending his time in close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the cathedral roof drawing circumstances seem suspicious, to say the medieval angels which are being restoredleast. There's talk of an exhibition of his drawingsArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Lafferton seems Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be quite settled as far as crime is concerned until one night when two local men open their front door to a couple seeking shelternear the man or pursue the profession she loved. It's After the usual story of split, she worked in a broken-down carcafe, met and a phone which won't make a call. The man are generous married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and welcoming Freya and James have no suspicions that the couple are simply there to plan a robbery. It's a serious error of judgement in the course of this investigation which will throw Simon Serrailler's future into doubtnow divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=140638853X086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=Somebody Give This Heart a PenThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Sophia ThakurJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=AnthologiesGeneral Fiction|summary=Sophia ThakurIt's debut anthology 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a collection of poems that are all uniquePrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, whether in relation to their stylehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, length or themethough. Women have been disappearing. The collection is split into four sections Well, they've been murdered, titled but to have 'growdisappeared',doesn'waitt sound quite so frightening. Miv',s upset because she'breaks overheard that her father wants to move the family 'and Down South'grow again. When you're from Yorkshire, guiding you through Down South is a process which is one of frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the foundations that the anthology is built on. Each section begins with a foregrounded title page containing various small pieces of writingmove would mean leaving her best friend, ranging from a quote by a Nigerian playwrightSharon, and she'll do anything to African proverbsprevent that. This provides a nice introduction to She's not worried about the section before you are immersed into the beautifully written and eloquent poems dangers or that Thakur has clearly put her heart and soul intoMum's stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19109894601398524085|title=Flember: The Secret BookHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Jamie SmartNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035906708
|title=Diva
|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A mysterious island. A strange Lucas and mystical power called Flember. A boy-inventor called Devhis friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, who uncovers a long forgotten secretplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. And a giant All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, red robot bear?many snacks! The sleepy village of Eden However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is about very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to descend into hilarious chaos - the next, can disastrous Dev save his brand new best friendthey figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives? Find out in this fully illustrated mad-cap adventure.|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241355222James Sherwood Metts|title=Frostheart|author=Jamie LittlerPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Way out in Things have been a bit sticky for the furthest part of the known worldEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, a tiny stronghold exists all on its own, cut off from the rest of human-kin by monsters often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that lurk beneath the Snow Seatook time to accomplish. There, a little boy called Ash waits for the return Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of his parentsother, singing a forbidden lullaby new ways to remind him of them..spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and doing his best to avoid his very, VERY grumpy yeti guardianalong with it, Tobuall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4. But life is about 5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to get a whole lot more crazy-adventurous for Ash. When a brave rescue attempt reveals he has amazing magical powers, he's whisked aboard the Frostheartbe different from his father, a sleigh packed full drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of daring explorers being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who could use had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his helpdaydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. But can they help him find his family?|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1913101037A G Slatter|title=The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures Briar Book of Bronte Mettlestone|author=Jaclyn Moriartythe Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=Bronte doesn't miss her parents, and she' There's not particularly sad when she learns a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of their terrible fate my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the hands world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of piratesthe Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. And why should Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be? After all, they just dumped born into her on Aunt Isabelle (without even asking if it would be a convenient arrangement family for either party) when generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a babymaelstrom of chaos. They swanned off Reeling from one family secret to have adventuresanother, Ellie must decide who to trust and never once came back determine what to check if their only child was healthy and happydo as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14012800481529900360|title=Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic NovelGhost Orchid|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris WildgooseJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzifelt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and suchlike – reminding him he-shut cases which didn's a billionaire at t need the age help of eighteena psychologist only worked for a while. Feeling rather stuck with the legacy heFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's inherited from his murdered parentspartner, he wants to do charitable deedswho nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. But one nightThe next case did look simple, when he speeds off though. Two lovers were murdered in his posh new car in pursuit the swimming pool of a criminal, he goes too far as far as remote property in Bel Air. He was the authorities are concerned, heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and gets given it's not the most unlikely stretch Italian. But which of community service instead – cleaning them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the home for violent criminals strain that is Arkham Asylumbeing on-call put on his father's life. There When he was seventeen he learns took the opportunity of some other people doing work experience with a family friend who also allege charitable intent – was a vet and was convinced this was the Nightwalkersjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and murder the ownerchild. Can If anything, he get close 'd wanted to one of them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder?professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07W4MNBSG0861541774|title=Be Careful Who You MarryA Nye of Pheasants|author=Lizzy MumfreySteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was coming up to Halloween involved in 1987 and a group of sixthstreet brawl -form schoolgirls wondered what they he would be doing when they were fifty. When you're only seventeen later maintain that seems positively ancient, but Liz he was convinced that ''your entire life depends on who you marry''facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. The only eligible boys were the Young Farmers and the idea of living in Initially, he faced a farmhouse and having a couple charge of children called Will and Olly appealed manslaughter but evidence came to Charlotte, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who was determined light that suggested that he might have planned to marry murder the rather superior Patrick Shepley-Bothamman. The place to start their search was obviously Now he could be facing the Young Farmers' Halloween disco that weekenddeath penalty. There was just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths in the classDomenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Michael J MaloneAlexander McCall Smith|title=In The Absence of MiraclesPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=John Docherty's mother has been taken into The Perfect Passion Company is a nursing home following dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a massive strokemore personal, tailored service. It Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is thought unlikely that she will ever be able planning to take a trip to Canada to live independently againget away for a while. Faced Katie is coming out of a break up with having a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to sell the family come home in order to pay for her nursing careEdinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, Docherty starts thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the clear out. In the attic he finds a childhood picture of himselfIsabel Dalhousie novels, holding a toddler – a toddler he knows nothing aboutbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. He also finds Katie has no experience in running a bloodbusiness, or in match-stained shoe.making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=191237479X1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=06928535450811771741|title=The Things We DoInstaKnits for Baby|author=Kay PfaltzMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=ItMelissa Leapman's 2015 and Dr Eleanor Hartley is ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a prison psychologist at the state penitentiary and she knows that her next patient is not going collection of knits from toys to be easyblankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'Jane Doe' has been convicted long, cosy afternoons in front of the murder of two men - one a police officerfire' variety. She pleaded guilty and since then has been silent: even her identity is in doubt. She was carrying identification as Jane Dunlap when she was arrestedThe projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, but it's been proved ten to be falsetwenty hours and more than twenty hours. There seem to be no family or friends who All the projects are missing herattractive, modern and useable. EleanorI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's task is to get Jane talking, to find out why a seemingly normal young woman would murder two menme being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Patti SmithDean Koontz|title=Year of the MonkeyThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyParanormal|summary=On the coast of Santa CruzBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischiefhe loses his fiancee, sorrowand his house gets trashed. Oh, and unexpected moments. In someone has delivered a stranger's wordsreally weird, ''Anything is possible: after alldisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the year of thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the monkey''very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. As Smith wanders So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the coast delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Santa Cruz in solitudeBenny, she reflects on and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and aging waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are faced head on, as it the shifting political waters in America. |isbn=15266147581662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Margaret AtwoodAdam Stower|title=The TestamentsMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian FictionConfident Readers |summary= Finally! Almost forty years onMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, we have a sequel one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. [[The HandmaidBut he's Tale by Margaret Atwood|The Handmaida bad magician's Tale]]. I don't want to tell you too much about cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the plot because it's regular back garden, but into a novel that is entirely plot drivenworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. Suffice This time round it to say that ''The Testaments'' takes place fifteen years laterdrops them into a Viking land, fifteen years after Offred gets into where a vantroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, not knowing what will happen next. Itbut he's told by three narrators: Aunt Lydia, who is secretly writing her memoirs in Ardua Hall; Agnes, a girl brought turned up in Gilead with the expectation she will marry a commander; Daisy, a rebellious teenage girl in Canada who knows of Gilead only from school lessons and its Pearl Girl missionaries who occasionally call into the store owned by her parents...he'll have to do…|isbn=17847423250008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Anne BodenB0C47LV1PC|title=The Money RevolutionFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre= Business and FinanceLiterary Fiction|summary= Money is changing. It might not be in the ways Can you think. We’re not suddenly getting make a 3p or £3 coin (and have ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you ever even found a country that offers anything different to could, is the 1, 2, 5 modelquestion should you make it?) We’re getting a lot more digital with payments, which seems to suit most people apart from charity collectors and Or is the homeless on the streetquestion if you did, but although this book has the subtitle would it land? The catch is that includes the word ‘’digital’’, it’s not really about this eitheranswer for both could well be.... no. Instead it’s about ''Fragility'' is set as the ‘’management’’ city of your financesPortland, and how Oregon, cautiously begins to take control.|isbn=1789660610emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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|isbn=147117316X1529431735|title=Guilty Not GuiltyThe Winter Visitor|author=Felix FrancisJames Henry|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=The Honourable William Herbert Millgate Gordon-Russell (Bill Russell to those who knew him well) was acting as a volunteer steward at Warwick Racecourse when he was told of It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the violent death of his much-loved wifemore surprising. It would get worse though: He'd been exiled on the successful insurance actuary would be accused of killing her and hounded by the mediaCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Then The return has come about because he would lose 's had a letter from his job ex-wife, saying that she's ill and his homehasn't long to live. His best friends would turn against himIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, as they came stripped to his underwear and sent to believe him guilty a watery grave in the boot of the murdera stolen Ford Sierra. Yet there was no really compelling evidence that he was guilty.Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|isbnauthor=1908745819Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Surfacing|author=Kathleen JamieThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=54|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read Eli is a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we take them at their wordstart by visiting with him, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like and in the book. That's evening a rare experiencehelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. People who are sensitive to hearing Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case I was told whygeneration missing in the family. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an olderA few short years ago, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. ThatEli's not parents were both lost to the titular race, a bad description globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of where I ama magical beast. Add This has made the race anathema to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of pair – but when a bad incident at the poetic and lyrical that are about style not formeatery leads to a confession from gran, and substance Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of all, about connection. Of course this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way magic at the end – the only thing to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quicklypossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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