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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]].''' <!-- 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
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Baye Hartshorne0008517061|title=Ghosted: The Treason House TrilogyDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary='Julia Crawley Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has lost her job on ''Celebrity'' magazine and so she decides to cut her losses and return home to settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the village future of Monmouth Cove on the Jersey Shorehis life with his vet girlfriend, hoping to return to Livia and her harder hitting journalistic roots via local news. She'll be staying with her grandmother daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off- a woman always ready grid and relaxing life to help younger relatives move in need of a hand. There's only one problem with that: creepy Uncle Dex, who doesn't always keep his hands Livia or does Livia move to himselfLittle 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.|isbn= B0829CP5BM}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=06486848061786482126|title=Clara Colby: The International SuffragistJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=John HollidayElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy BewickBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's life was probably determined apartments - when her family emigrated to they discovered the USAbones of a child beneath a doorway. At the time she There was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailmentno skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, she wasn't allowed to sail Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with her parents and three brothersDCI Harry Nelson. InsteadIt's difficult as Ruth knows, she remained with her grandparentsbut Nelson doesn't, who doted on her and saw that she received is pregnant with his child as a good education, both in and out result of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was gloriousone night they spent together some three months ago. By contrastHer condition will be obvious before long, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakeningsickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kathleen Boucher and Sara Chadwick0008551324|title=Nine Ways to Empower TweensThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|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'9 Ways s prepared to Empower Tweens'' tell the police where the body of a missing person is a self-help book buried and who was responsible for tweensher death. This person, he promises, setting out to show them vital #lifeskillsis someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Don't groan! I know there And what he wants is a market glut to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of such books for we grown-ups his sentence and for young adults tooto get an early parole date. Not much to ask, but there is a needful space in an increasingly technological world accessible it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to younger do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and younger children for material for tweens tooanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. |isbn= 0228818826
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Katie Fforde0008405026|title= A Springtime AffairStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating= 45|genre= Women's FictionCrime|summary= IIt've wanted 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 read author Katie Fforde for ages and this was pretty much exactly what I was expecting - a warmhalt. Now, her mother, cosy read focused on romanceHelena, family and friendshipsher father are dead in their bed. This provided two romances for Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the price positioning of one, but the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was actually going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the family element explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as opposed to the romance that I really enjoyedDerwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. |isbn=1780897561
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18385931870571379877|title=Guess What I Found in the Playground!The Kellerby Code|author=Victoria ThompsonJonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Tilly Edward Jevons is exciteda working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. SheRobert's just come dashing out of the classroom, pigtails flapping behind her and a big grin on her facetheatre director. DadHe's come to collect her also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and her brother entitled and he ''uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has'' to try to guess what she found been in the playground today, although she concedes that love with Stanza since their university days - and he will never guess. Dad wants to know how school was, but ''obviously'' that's not importantdrunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Could Tilly have found more collectable things for her scrap box? (IsnMost men in Robert't s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that so much more sensible than a scrap ''book''?) Well, actually, Tilly did find exciting stuff. There are sequins, glittered paper and all sorts of other things in her pocket, relationship had begun between them but thathe's not what she wants Dad like most men: Edward is left to guessstumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Becky Albertalli and Aisha SaeedJo Callaghan|title= Yes Leave No Maybe So Trace|rating= 4|genre= TeensCrime|summary= ''We might give it our all and crash and burn. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for, don't you think?''Jaime has been spending his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for a special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassing, he can't think of anything worse. However, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician and decides there man is no time like found crucified on the present to conquer his fear top of speaking a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the publiccase alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Maya But when there is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is having the worst summer of her life. Her parents are going through suddenly struggling with a separation, she has zero plans for the summer to help take her mind off things potential serial killer and her only close friend is permanently busy. To help occupy her, her parents offer to buy her a car if she agrees very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to go canvassingtheir AI Future Policing project. The pair could possibly Will they be able to solve the worst canvassing duo case in historytime, as neither of them really want to be thereor will Kat find herself taken off the case and, but as the campaign goes on they discover that they carepotentially, out of a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each othercareer?|isbn=1471184668139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Gregg Hurwitz1399613073|title=Into The FireMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Grant Merriweather Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a forensic accountantperfectionist and a 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. Or rather, wasWe don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. He was brought into Twenty-five years later there will be an ER room after eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an alleged car crashimage of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his friend pleading background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the medics London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to keep him alivebe stupid. He It was his ability at what was needed alive just long enough to give up , essentially, a namecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. His cousinEventually, Maxthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=0718185501
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291243951035021803|title=When You See MeThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Lisa GardnerC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=For Janet and Chuck, it was a hiking break in It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the Appalachians in Georgia and pure chance that Chuck went off the beaten track to find a stickEnglish country village where she grew up. What he found was She's back now because of a human bone and SSA Kimberley Quincy was called inrequest for help from her beloved aunt, along with Sergeant D D WarrenCarole. Both women were experienced in this type of rather gruesome work but they also called on the services of Keith EdgarFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, a computer analystArthur Crockleford, is dead and Flora Dane who brought something unique the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the tableleast. Flora Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been kidnapped and held for 472 days by back to the notorious killervillage: Arthur, she feels, Jacob Nesslet her down badly. If Ness had anything Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to do with be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the current discoveries then what Flora had to say could be invaluablelove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529009677AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=A Window BreaksAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=C M EwanBenjamin 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=Tom Sullivan and his wife Rachel are having problemsThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. It's not just Hiding from the usual growing apart after more than a decade of marriage. Their sonterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, Michaelthere is Sam, was killed in a car crash some months before: he was driving his father's Audi wartime photographer and at sixteen wasn't legally entitled to driveAbhi, the hotel manager. Not only did he kill himself when As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the car rammed into a treehotel, but he also killed his girlfriendforms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, fifteen-year-old Fiona Connor. Tom can't think about Michael without a sense and keeps on venturing out of shame and guilt. Rachel is broken, but she wants her room to try to forgive Michaelcapture what's happened through her photography. To give some space, Tom's moved out of Although they only ever talk over the family homephone, but stresses their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to his thirteen-year-old daughter, Holly, that it is only a trial separationsee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02419851531529153298|title=The House on the LakeList of Suspicious Things|author=Nuala EllwoodJennie Godfrey|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=We know It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that something has gone wrong - badly wrong - when her father wants to move the woman who was alone in the house family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is taken away by a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the policemove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, but itand she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's going stopped talking - to be a while before we learn exactly what has happenedanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Struan Murray and Manuel Sumberac (illustrator)1398524085|title=Orphans of the TideHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci 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= In the last city on EarthLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, anyone can be a place that has the vessel nickname of 'The Enemy - the god who drowned the world - who has come Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to wreak havoc on the last lots of humanity. When a mysterious boy is pulled from exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the corpse of a whalemovie starts, the citizens immediately believe him to be the Vessel - all except for young Ellie Lancasterthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, a girl inventorand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. As the ruthless Inquisition prepares But as they lurch from one film genre to execute the boynext, Ellie must prove that he can they figure out what on earth is innocent - even if it means revealing her deepestgoing on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, darkest secrets...and to their real lives?|isbn=02413844351839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008297169Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The Guest Listcall 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|author=Lucy FoleyJames Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=The boat trip out to Inis Amploir, off the Irish coast, might Things have been enough to put some guests off, but it was the wedding of a bit sticky for the yearEarthlings. Will Slater (television personalityAI and automation have been proceeding apace, if not yet a celebrity) was often replacing jobs they're paid to marry Jules Keegan, online magazine publisher, in the ruined chapel on the island. The bride's sister, Olivia, would be her only bridesmaid do and the wedding planner and chef are Aoife and her husband, Freddyother tasks that took time to accomplish. They gave a huge discount Just as they were beginning to get the couple used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to the islandspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, but surely along with it would be worth it for , all the publicity?many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B07ZGL6B1BMatthew Tree|title=In Plain Sight (D I Clare Mackay)|author=Marion ToddWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It was Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a coincidence that Detective Sergeant Chris West drunk and DI Clare Mackay were chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at the beach when the baby was stolen. They were there for the fun run any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and their attention was taken by the NEFEW protesters who tried to disrupt the racehad endless crises of self confidence. They're against the planned McIntosh Water bottled water plant So Tim applied himself to be constructed on Priory Marsh his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and the firm is sponsoring the fun run. It was Lisa Mitchell's scream which stopped everything. Her daughter, six-month-old Abi, had been taken from her pram whilst no one was looking. It's a major incident when ''any'' child is abducted set himself high but Abi needs regular medication because of a heart problem: without it, she might have only forty-eight hours to liveachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471180921A G Slatter|title=Firewatching|author=Russ ThomasThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler is in the Cold Cas Review Unit at South Yorkshire Police and there are those who think that he'' There's lucky a part of me that wants to be therekeep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, given that he decked at last. I just want to enjoy it for a superior officerwhile. He's there because Tyler came off worse in ' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the exchange - thereBriar's , a scar on his face family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to prove it - be born into her family for generations and the superior officer as such since she was forced to take early retirementyoung, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. ThereWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's a suggestion too that Tylercousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's godmother (she's on leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the force too) has looked after him and that his current boss is keen rare ability to have communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a tame gay maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to put on do as the town hall steps come Pride. Either way, heBriar witches's therelegacy, but without anything really interesting everything they have sacrificed to get his teeth intosurvive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= A K Larkwood1529900360|title= The Unspoken NameGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating= 4|genre= FantasyCrime|summary= What does it mean It 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 betray someone? What if ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that someone is there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a god? Csorwe has been raised knowing 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 would be sacrificed to her god on her fourteenth birthdayloved needed. The next case did look simple, yet when though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the opportunity arises, heir to an Italian shoe empire and she chooses is married to abandon everything she knows an extremely rich man and flee with her life. Who can blame her? Her godit's reach is limited and Csorwe intends to stay far beyond it, yet fate is a funny thing and when circumstances bring her back within not the reach Italian. But which of her god Csorwe learns that her god remembers her, and blames her very much indeed.|isbn=1250238900them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman1529395224|title= Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Highland Falcon ThiefSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating= 3.5|genre= Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary= Harrison Beck, or Hal as he prefers to be called, isnSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't exactly pleased when his parents send him off with want to follow in his uncle Nat, a travel writerfootsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on a long train journeyhis father's life. Although, this isn't any old train; this is When he was seventeen he took the Highland Falcon, the royal train, and this is its last ever journey before it gets sent to opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a museum. A number of high-society figures, including film stars, millionaires vet and aristocrats, will be on was convinced this train, so it is quite was the event on the social calendarjob for him. However Before long, when an expensive brooch is stolen, Hal realises that maybe this trip wonhe was at Liverpool University. It hadn't be as boring - as with so many students - been his dream since he previously thoughtwas a child. As the passengers begin to turn on each other If anything, Hal vows he'd wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery…before the train gets to the end of the linebe a professional footballer.|isbn=1529013062
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00082752460861541774|title=Perfect Kill (D I Callanach)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Helen FieldsSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When Maggie Campbell realised that her sonDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, Barthas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was missing he was already 200 miles away and just waking from involved in a chemicallystreet brawl -induced sleep. Maggie knew straight away he would later maintain that something was wrong. Bart might be twenty but he was considerate of his mother facing a man armed with a knife - and wouldn't have stayed out all night without letting her knowhe killed a Ghurka. BesidesInitially, he didn't have his phone with him and faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he wouldn't might have gone far without thatplanned to murder the man. It's not long before Bart realises that Now he's alone, trapped in could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a shipping container diplomatic incident and on his way to France, where his fate has already been decidedwouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Alyssa SheinmelAlexander McCall Smith|title= What Kind of GirlThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= Women's General Fiction|summary= '' Doing something when you're scared The Perfect Passion Company is braver than doing something when you're not'' When Mike Parker's girlfriend comes into school with a black eyedating agency in Edinburgh, claiming he gave it run by Ness and operating as an alternative to herall the online apps in providing a more personal, her whole world is tipped upside downtailored service. Her relationship Ness has just ended asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and now she's look after the talk business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the schoolchance to come home to Edinburgh. Mike was And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the most popular boy in school Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who was always so quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in love with herrunning a business, everyone knew thator in match-making, so why did he do what he did? Some people believe but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and some donthere'ts always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, but one thing is for sureWilliam, this isn't going to blow over any time soon.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=03490032970811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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|author= Holly RiversDean Koontz|title= Demelza and the Spectre DetectorsThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersParanormal|summary= Demelza Clock Benny is having a scientistterrifically bad day. He loses his job, often staying up late to work on her various gadgetshe loses his fiancee, much to her Grandma Maeve's irritationand his house gets trashed. However Oh, she and someone has also inherited delivered a certain set of skills really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that are not especially scientific: Spectre Detectinghas trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the ability very last person to summon the ghosts of the recently deceaseddeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Under So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the guidance of her Grandma Maevedelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, Demelza begins who has been sent to master her newfound skillshelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. However, there Spike is a mysterious individual on the prowlgoing to take care of Benny, kidnapping young Spectre Detectors. Itand will certainly take care of Benny's up to Demelza enemies, if he, Benny, and her best friend Percy to get to the bottom of this..Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=19126260391662500491
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|isbnauthor=1787477533Adam Stower|title=The Lantern Men (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly GriffithsMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=Everything has changed for Dr Ruth Galloway. She's no longer providing assistance Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to the police sleep and eat and eat and sleep and isn't even working at , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the University of North Norfolktwo. SheBut he's lecturing at Cambridge a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and has moved from her beloved Saltmarsh cottage to live with Dr Frank Barker in Cambridge. Her daughterthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, Katienot into the regular back garden, has settled but into school better than she could ever have hoped a world of frightening adventure and life is looking goodwhiffs. Settled. She can't help thinking about Harry NelsonThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, Katiebut he's father, because Katie sees him regularly turned up and therehe's a close relationship with his family. You might ''almost'' think that Ruth's life is settling down.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|isbn=183895015XB0C47LV1PC|title=A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a PrisonerFragility|author=Chris AtkinsMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=Documentary filmmakers donCan you make a 't usually get 'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the run of establishments within question should you make it? Or is the Mountbatten-Windsor Hotel Groupquestion if you did, but after getting involved in an illegal tax scheme to fund his latest film, Chris Atkins was invited would it land? The catch is that the answer for a five-year stayboth could well be.... no. The first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworth, which ''Fragility'' is probably set as the oldestcity of Portland, largest and most dysfunctional prison in Europe.Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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|isbn=12501685461529431735|authortitle=Sarah KozloffThe Winter Visitor|titleauthor=A Queen In HidingJames Henry|rating=34|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= World-building It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the backbone by which fantasy novels live and diemore surprising. And what He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a pleasure, then, to get wanted drug smuggler for a novel with world-building you actually want to delve intodecade. Sarah Kozloff The return has come about because he's debut novel presents had a startlingly rich and layered worldletter from his ex-wife, with a complex history of connecting nations saying that seems certain she's ill and hasn't long to have more live. It's hard to tapfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the characters are interesting – if boot of a little underdevelopedstolen Ford Sierra. But Is it's a world I could – and did – eagerly buy into, and the struggle of each Queen warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to discover and hone her magical talent felt very real and very apt.home?
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|isbnauthor=1543987877Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life|author=Dr Thomas JordanThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=''Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life'' Eli is a book about love relationships rather than busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a book about lovehelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. The two greatest emotions are love and grief and love Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the opposite of grief: ''if you love'', Dr Thomas Jordan tells usfamily. A few short years ago, Eli''you will inevitably grieve''. Your love relationships begin s parents were both lost to the moment you're born and end only when you die. Whilst we titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all come into entrants have to navigate the world hoping to give and receive love there are many people for whom love is not quite so simplein the company of a magical beast. Some people suffer multiple disappointments - sometimes repeating This has made the race anathema to the same mistakes - and this eventually becomes resignation. For people who are making pair – but when a bad incident at the same mistakes repeatedlyeatery leads to a confession from gran, self-preservationEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, in with the sole aim the form prize of resignation is a necessitymagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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