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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.

==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''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}}

|isbn=B07ZGL6B1B0008517061|title=In Plain Sight 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 (D I Clare MackayDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Marion ToddElly Griffiths

|summary=It was a coincidence that Detective Sergeant Chris West and DI Clare Mackay Builders were at the beach when the baby was stolen. They were there for demolishing an old house in Norwich - the fun run and their attention site was taken by the NEFEW protesters who tried going to disrupt the race. Theyhold seventy-five 'luxury're against apartments - when they discovered the planned McIntosh Water bottled water plant to be constructed on Priory Marsh and the firm is sponsoring the fun runbones of a child beneath a doorway. It There was Lisa Mitchell's scream which stopped everythingno skull. Her daughterWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, six-month-old Abi, had been taken from her pram whilst no one was lookingDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's a major incident when ''any'difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn' t, that she is pregnant with his child is abducted but Abi needs regular medication because as a result of a heart problem: without itthe one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, she might have only forty-eight hours not least because Ruth is prone to livesudden bouts of sickness.

|isbn=14711809210008551324|title=FirewatchingThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Russ ThomasNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=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 missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, 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 serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey

|summary=Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler is in It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the Cold Cas Review Unit at South Yorkshire Police 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 are those who think that he's lucky something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be there, given that he decked an open-and-shut case is now a superior officercomplex double murder. HeKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's there because Tyler came off worse in the exchange - theredisappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a scar on working-class young man, obsessed with his face to prove it upper- class friends, Robert and the superior officer was forced to take early retirementStanza. ThereRobert's a suggestion too that Tylertheatre director. He's godmother (shealso self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's on the force too) has looked after him and that his current boss is keen drunkenly confided how he feels to have a tame gay to put on the town hall steps come PrideRobert. Either way, Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's there, but without anything really interesting not like most men: Edward is left to get his teeth intostumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.

|author= A K LarkwoodJo Callaghan|title= The Unspoken NameLeave No Trace|rating= 4|genre= FantasyCrime|summary= What does it mean When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to betray someone? What if that someone the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's 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 potential serial killer and a god? Csorwe has been raised knowing very high profile case that she would draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be sacrificed able to her god on her fourteenth birthdaysolve the case in time, yet when or will Kat find herself taken off the opportunity arisescase and, she chooses to abandon everything she knows potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and flee with her lifetheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Who can blame her? Her god's reach Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is limited and Csorwe intends a bonus when you aim to stay far beyond it, yet fate be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a funny thing perfectionist and when circumstances bring her back within a trauma doctor. Anjali is the reach free spirit of her god Csorwe learns 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 her god remembers herwill impact the three friends. This time, and blames her very much indeedit's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=1250238900

|authorisbn= M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman0241636604|title= The Highland Falcon ThiefTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary= Harrison Beck, or Hal as he prefers If you were to be calledbring up an image of a city banker in your mind, isnyou't exactly pleased when his parents send him off with re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his uncle Nat, a travel writer, on a long train journey. Although, this isn't any old train; this background is the Highland FalconEast End, the royal trainwhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and this is its last ever journey before it gets sent injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to a museumthe London School of Economics. A number of high Stevenson is bright - extremely bright -society figures, including film stars, millionaires and aristocrats, will he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be on this trainstupid. It was his ability at what was, so it is quite the event on the social calendar. Howeveressentially, when a card game which got him an expensive brooch is stoleninternship with Citibank. Eventually, Hal realises that maybe this trip won't be turned into permanent employment as boring as he previously thoughta trader. As the passengers begin to turn on each other, Hal vows to get to the bottom of the mystery…before the train gets to the end of the line.|isbn=1529013062

|isbn=00082752461035021803|title=Perfect Kill (D I Callanach)The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Helen FieldsC L Miller|rating=43.5

|summary=When Maggie Campbell realised that It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her sonbeloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, BartArthur Crockleford, was missing he was already 200 miles away is dead and just waking from a chemically-induced sleepthe circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Maggie knew straight away that something Arthur was wrong. Bart might be twenty but he was considerate of his mother and wouldn't have stayed out all night without letting the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her knowdown badly. BesidesEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, he didn't have his phone with him and he wouldn't have gone far without thatshe has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. It's not long before Bart realises that he's aloneAfter the split, trapped she worked in a shipping container cafe, met and married James (on his way to Francethe rebound from the love of her life, where his fate has already been decidedwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.

|authorisbn= Alyssa SheinmelAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= What Kind of GirlAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 45|genre= Women's Science Fiction|summary= '' Doing something when you're scared is braver than doing something when you're notOpening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''

When Mike ParkerI's girlfriend comes into school with a black eye, claiming he gave ve heard it to hersaid that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, her whole world is tipped upside downI must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. Her relationship has just ended and now she I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the talk feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the school. Mike was possibilities and the most popular boy in school probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who was always so in love with her, everyone knew that, so why did he do knows what he did? Some they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people believe her I knew I could trust and some don't, but one thing is for sure, this isn't going to blow over any time soonwho could deliver information in a way I could understand.|isbn=0349003297

|author= Holly RiversSunny Singh|title= Demelza and the Spectre DetectorsHotel Arcadia|rating= 3.5|genre= Confident ReadersThrillers |summary= Demelza Clock The Hotel Arcadia is a scientistluxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, often staying up late to work killing everyone on her various gadgetssite, much to her Grandma Maeve's irritation. Howeverthere is Sam, she has also inherited a certain set of skills that are not especially scientific: Spectre Detectingwartime photographer and Abhi, the ability hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to summon care remotely for the ghosts of residents who are still alive in the recently deceased. Under the guidance hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her Grandma Maeve, Demelza begins room to try to master capture what's happened through her newfound skillsphotography. However, there is a mysterious individual on Although they only ever talk over the prowlphone, kidnapping young Spectre Detectors. It's up their friendship grows as Abhi tries to Demelza help her keep safe and her best friend Percy to get they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the bottom of this..terrorists.|isbn=1912626039086154742X

|isbn=17874775331529153298|title=The Lantern Men (Dr Ruth Galloway)List of Suspicious Things|author=Elly GriffithsJennie Godfrey

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Everything has changed for Dr Ruth GallowayIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's no longer providing assistance not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to the police and isnhave 'disappeared' doesn't even working at the University of North Norfolksound quite so frightening. SheMiv's upset because she's lecturing at Cambridge and has moved from overheard that her beloved Saltmarsh cottage father wants to live with Dr Frank Barker in Cambridgemove the family 'Down South'. Her daughterWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, Katieforeign place, has settled into school better than she could ever have hoped and life is looking goodbest avoided. Settled. She can't help thinking about Harry NelsonFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Katie's fatherSharon, because Katie sees him regularly and thereshe's a close relationship with his familyll do anything to prevent that. You might She''almost'' think s not worried about the dangers or that Ruthher Mum's life is settling downstopped talking - to anyone.

|isbn=183895015X1398524085|title=A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a PrisonerHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Chris AtkinsNicci French

|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=Documentary filmmakers donCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband't usually get 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 run body of establishments within the Mountbatten-Windsor Hotel GroupGreg's father, Duncan Ackerley, but after getting involved in the river. It was an illegal tax scheme easy assumption for the police to fund his latest film, Chris Atkins was invited for a five-year staymake that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworth, which is probably the oldest, largest Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and most dysfunctional prison in Europewonder about what really happened.

|isbn=12501685461035906708|authortitle=Sarah KozloffDiva|titleauthor=A Queen In HidingDaisy Goodwin|rating=34.5|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary= World-building is the backbone by which fantasy novels live and die. And what a pleasureWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, thenNew York, in December 1923 and only moved to get a novel with world-building you actually want Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to delve into. Sarah Kozloff's debut novel presents a startlingly rich and layered world, with a complex history of connecting nations that seems certain Callas' to have make it more to tap, and manageable in the characters are interesting – if a little underdevelopedStates. But it's 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 world I could – mother who mercilessly exploited her and did – eagerly buy into, and the struggle made no secret of each Queen to discover and hone her magical talent felt very real and very aptpreference for her elder sister, Jackie.

|isbnauthor=1543987877Christopher Edge|title=Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life|author=Dr Thomas JordanBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=''Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life'' is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a book about love relationships rather than movie marathon at their local cinema, a book about love. The two greatest emotions are love and grief and love is place that has the opposite nickname of grief: ''if you love'', Dr Thomas Jordan tells us, ''you will inevitably grieve'The Black Hole'. Your love relationships begin the moment youAll big movie fans, they're born looking forward to lots of exciting films, and end only when you die. many, many snacks! Whilst we all come into However, as the world hoping to give movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and receive love there they are many people for whom love is not quite so simpleswept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Some people suffer multiple disappointments - sometimes repeating But as they lurch from one film genre to the same mistakes - and this eventually becomes resignation. next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? For people who are making Will they ever get back to the same mistakes repeatedlycinema, self-preservation, in the form of resignation is a necessity.and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|author=Chris HautyRachel Greenlaw|title=Deep StateCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary= Hayley Chill is a fighter''I can hear the song of the sea. She is every kind The call of fighterthe deep, and well-trained the answering beat in most of themmy heart. She's army infantry ' Rosevear, a remote and she boxes for fun – partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and she winsplundering the wrecks. Always. She wins because she Mira, like her mother before her, is focussedone of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. She works hardBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, mentally they capture the island's leader and physicallyMira'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 knows how to deal with sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the painsea. She is not so much cold With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as controlled. This fight is against someone she is not expected 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 beat. And save the future of her home and the ones she is being watchedholds most dear.|isbn=14711856050008664730

|author=H G Parry James Sherwood Metts|title=The Unlikely Escape of Uriah HeepPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Brothers Rob and Charley Things have struggled to see eye to eye been a bit sticky for years - Rob a sensible lawyer who exists in the "normal" world - Earthlings. AI and Charley a man who is blessed with an ability he canautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they't fully control - one which allows him re paid to do and other tasks that took time to bring literary characters into the real worldaccomplish. After years of protecting Charley, Rob wants Just as they were beginning to get used to discharge his duties all this technological change and leave Charley starting to his own devices - but circumstances soon take choices out think of both their hands. As literary characters begin other, new ways to appear everywherespend time, it soon becomes clear that someone out there shares Charley's powers and intends to use them for nefarious gainsalong came an awful pandemic. Rob Life was pretty much shut down and Charley must team up to stop , along with it, all the madness - in a battle to win before many daily social interactions on which they, the characters and the world reach The End…depend so heavily.|isbn=03565137771736128426

|isbnauthor=1444776185Matthew Tree|title=HavenWe't they Grown|author=Sophie Hannahll Never Know

|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=It was when Beth Leeson was ferrying her son, Ben, Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to a football match that she found herself on Wyddial Lane in Hemingford Abbots. Actuallybe different from his father, It's a little disingenuous to say 'found herself' as Beth had made a deliberate detour on the grounds that she didn't find herself in this neck drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of the woods very often his artistic passions all failed miserably and she was curious to see where a family who'd come into money had lived before they'd all lost contact twelve years agoendless crises of self confidence. And it might have gone no further So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than that had Beth not seen a car draw up and her friend Flora get out along with two children she called Thomas his daydreams and Emily. Beth remembered the names well - set himself high but these children were about three and five and Flora's children - Thomas and Emily - would now be fifteen and seventeenachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

|isbnauthor=1529123763A G Slatter|title=Miss Austen|author=Gill HornbyThe Briar Book of the Dead

|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=It'' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long been known that Cassandra Austen burned most I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the letters which she and other members protection of the extensive Austen Briar's, a family had exchanged with or about her sister Janeof witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. What Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is not known is ''why'' the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she did this was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and at this stage - more administration rather than two hundred years after Janespells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's death - a definitive answer is unlikely leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to forthcoming. Gill Hornby has provided us communicate with some possible answers in the dead, putting her at the heart of a book that proved maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to be far more emotionally complex than I was expectingsurvive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548

|isbn=1529900360|title=The Ghost Orchid|author=Rory ClementsJonathan Kellerman|titlerating=4|genre=Crime|summary=HitlerIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt 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-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The SecretLife of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands

|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=So, Hitler had a secret? Two, if you include the reproductive detail mentioned in a certain sing-song aspersionSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. But this is His father was a secret that is counter to that, GP and in fact is a secret that Hitler himself doesnRowlands didn't even know about. His neicewant to follow in his footsteps, Geli Raubal, the attractive young woman particularly when he seemed to be very close to in considered the early 1930s, had had strain that being on-call put on his daughter behind his backfather's life. Protected under a false identity ever since, When he was seventeen he took the girl is completely ignorant opportunity of her past, doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the truth is a very rare thingjob for him. Martin BormannBefore long, the he was at Liverpool University. It hadn'gatekeeper' to Hitler and t - as with so many students - been his right hand man, knows – and is desperately intent on wiping the slate clean and removing all connected with her existence from the Reichdream since he was a child. So itIf anything, he's down d wanted to Tom Wilde, an American history professor at Oxbridge, to go in and extract her, in this most shadowy race against timebe a professional footballer.|isbn=1838770275

|isbn=02419851100861541774|title=All the Rage (D I Fawley)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Cara HunterSteve Burrows|rating=4.5

|summary=A very beautifulDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, but extremely distressed teenage girl has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was picked up by facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a minicab driver on the outskirts of OxfordGhurka. She didn't want Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to go light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the police station or the hospital: she just wanted to be taken homeman. The driver wasn't so certain though - and after dropping the girl at home Now he went to could be facing the police, which is why DI Adam Fawley found himself talking to Faith Appleford and her motherdeath penalty. Both were adamant that this was Domenic Jejeune can do nothing more than an April Fool's joke which had gone wrong. No crime had been committed and Faith didn't want to take the matter help as any further. Fawley interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and his team werenwouldn't prepared to leave it help Danny at that and they began investigating. What they found strange was that Faith Appleford didn't seem to have much of a historyall.

|isbnauthor=1529400279Alexander McCall Smith|title=Six Wicked Reasons|author=Jo SpainThe Perfect Passion Company

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It was early summer 2018 The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Adam Latimer returned home operating as an alternative to Spanish Cove all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after an absence of ten yearsthe business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. The family had thought him dead - in factKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, that's what and so jumps at the private detective his mother had insisted upon had told themchance to come home to Edinburgh. He was cagey about exactly where he'd been but he seemed contentAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, if not happythanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to be homecharm. What brought him? WellKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, nine years ago his mother died and hethere'd seen the s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's 'in memoriam'InstaKnits for Baby' in the paper: this was the first he'd heard about what had happenedgives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. His three sisters and two brothers had mixed feelings about his returnSome will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, but his father is delightedcosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. In fact, heThe projects are divided by the time they's determined ll take to have a party. Onlycomplete - less than five hours, with Frazer Latimerfive to ten hours, what happens has ten to be about himtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. He has an announcement to make - it's nine years since Kathleen died All the projects are attractive, modern and he's been lonelyuseable. HeI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's met Ana, a Polish immigrant, and they're getting marriedme being picky.

|author=Penny ChrimesDean Koontz|title=Tiger HeartThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=''Fly never meant to end up in the cage with Benny is having a man-eating tigerterrifically bad day. She just saw her chance to skedaddle He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and she took ithis house gets trashed. And even when the cloud of soot cleared Oh, and she saw the golden eyes of someone has delivered a killer staring into hersreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, she still didnand it't turn round and climb back up s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the chimney straightawayvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. 'Cos there was worse waiting So fortunately for her back on Benny it turns out that the roofdelivery 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 Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny''What an opener! And theres enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's plenty more to come!wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=15101070451662500491

|author=Tanya LandmanAdam Stower|title=Jane Eyre: a RetellingMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=A young woman, fresh from living with horrid relatives who could care less about herMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and years in a dreary schoolfriendly cat, moves into Thornfield Hall with only one intent – who is able to have something like the life she wants – sleep and eat and eat and sleep and with only one job, to tutor a young half-French girlwell, whose father is almost always absentwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. When But he does turn up he seems to be dark's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, brooding and troubled – but that's nothing compared to the darkercatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, more broody but into a world of frightening adventure and even more troubled secret in the housewhiffs. YesThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, if you know Jane Eyre then you know the rest where a troll hunter is expected – but if you don'twell, for whatever reasonone much bigger than Murray was, this is a wonderful book to turn be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to.do…|isbn=17811291260008561249

|authorisbn= T R HendrickB0C47LV1PC|title= What if They KnewFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 4|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= ItCan you make a 's 2025. Underneath a lodge in the Blue Mountain resort in Pennsylvania'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is a secret facility. Here, Dr Benton and his team are making some critical scientific advances on behalf of the Benefactor, their anonymous funder. Already, question should you make it? Or is the team have succeeded in teleporting small primates from one place to another. Butquestion if you did, unbeknownst to would it land? The catch is that the Benefactor, Dr Benton has also coded answer for another type of teleportation altogether - travel through timeboth could well be.... no. And he ''Fragility''s ready is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to test. If successful, Benton has a very specific use for his technology in mind|isbn=1734277211emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|authorisbn= Catherine Steadman1529431735|title= Mr NobodyThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating= 4|genre= ThrillersCrime|summary= DonIt't you just hate it when people are multi-talented? Author Catherine Steadman s February 1991 and Essex is both a successful actress and writerbitingly cold, with this her second novelwhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. I think in a way her acting background shows in her writing as to my mind the He'fight scene' at d been exiled on the end was somewhat unrealistic – you know the kind where the hero Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has been hurt so many times come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that itshe's virtually impossible theyill and hasn'd still be alive let alone able t long to fight off an attackerlive. The story also unfolded at a steady pace throughout until the ending which felt overstuffed in a frenetic bid It's hard to wrap everything up in the last few chapters. It was almost as if the author wanted feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to keep the suspense until the last possible moment (which I liked) but then was somewhat left with too much his underwear and sent to do a watery grave in the closing stagesboot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|isbn=1984890646 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?

|isbnauthor=1473681847Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=In Her Eyes|author=Sarah AldersonThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=54|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Ava lives Eli is a charmed life, but those things sometimes rub other people up busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wrong way. One evening she returns from a night out wondrous library we start by visiting with a friend, and before she can finish her bedtime routine, her homehim, and her life, are under attack: masked men have broken in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and are demanding money from her husband, while her young daughter cowers beside himruns. In the scuffle than ensues Eli lives with his lovely gran, Ava too – for there is hurta generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, badly. When she wakes up in hospital she can barely remember what happenedEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, but she knows it was lifea globe-changing. With her daughter still fighting for her life trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a room down magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the corridor, Ava has pair – but when a lot bad incident at the eatery leads to contend with as she tries a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to recover, wills her daughter dare to recoverenter what he most hates, and attempts with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to piece together what happened and whypossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231