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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=Sharon BlackieSylvie Cathrall|title=If Women Rose RootedA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre= BiographyScience Fiction|summary= I normally say that you can tell how much There are few greater joys than a book means which lives up to me by how many pages have corners turned downa compelling premise. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact And this is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any betterof them.|isbn=19128360170356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Patrick Ness0008517061|title=BurnDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=54|genre=TeensCrime|summary=''On a cold Sunday evening in early 1957 - the very dayFormer Metropolitan Police detective, in factJake Johnson, that Dwight David Eisenhower took has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the oath future of office for the second time as President of the United States of America - Sarah Dewhurst waited his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her father daughter Diana, as moving in the parking together would mean a lot of the Chevron gas station for the dragon he'd hired compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to help on the farm.'' It's 1950s America but Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not as we know it. In this alternate US, there is still a Cold War with the Russians, still a concomitant arms race. And the stain of racism is just as crushing - something mixed-race Sarah future she wants for herself and her Japanese American friend Jason are only too well aware of. As is daughter? For the deeply unpleasant town deputy, Kelby. But one thing is ''very'' different. In this alternate world, there are dragons. The dragons live moment they’re enjoying life in an uneasy peace with humans the present and communication is minimal. But a few of these winged creatures do hire out their labour to human in return for gold - they are dragons, after allputting the future on the back burner.Poor Frankie! |isbn= 1406375500
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Angela Woolfe1786482126|title= Roxy and Jones: The Great Fairytale Cover-UpJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersCrime|summary= After her father gets married for Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the umpteenth time, Roxy Humperdinck is sent site was going to live with her halfhold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments -sister Gretel in Rexopolis, when they discovered the capital city bones of the Kingdom of Illustriaa child beneath a doorway. Gretel works as a toilet cleaner for the Ministry of Soup There was no skull. Why does Was this a country like Illustria need an entire ministry dedicated to soup, you askritual killing or murder? Well Inevitably, after Roxy Dr Ruth Galloway finds a secret passage in her bathroom and meets a snarky young woman known only herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as JonesRuth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she soon finds out why. Turns out, fairy tales are real, and the Ministry’s official job is to safeguard all knowledge pregnant with his child as a result of them and monitor the living fairy talesone night they spent together some three months ago. And Her condition will be obvious before long, when an evil queen breaks out of a maximum-security prison and threatens not least because Ruth is prone to reinstate her reign sudden bouts of terror, Roxy and Jones hold the fate of the world in their young hands…so, no pressure then!|isbn=1406391379sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kat Dunn0008551324|title=Dangerous RemedyThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary= It's Paris, 1794unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. The Revolution But Davie Hardie is five years old struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the country in police where the midst body of violent political turmoil between the Revolutionariesa missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, trying to maintain their control by whatever means necessaryhe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the Royalists, still loyal to monarchy intentpolice doing what he wants. Caught in a no man's land between the two warring factions And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the Battalion remainder of the Deadhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Led by a disillusioned revolutionary Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's daughter, even prepared to do the band of outcasts have made a name for themselves rescuing innocent citizens from the violent fallout. But they may have gotten in over their heads with their latest rescue, Olympe, a girl with a disturbing history and powers other thing that might just Hardie demanded - make her the spark certain that blows up the powder-keg of revolutionary ParisDS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. |isbn=1789543649
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joanne M Harris0008405026|title=A Pocketful of CrowsStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre= Confident ReadersCrime|summary= I have always been of the mind that once youIt're above pictures sixteen years since nine-year-book level old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and before you get the investigation ground to graphic sex & violencea halt. Now, her mother, Helena, there is no difference between books for children and books for adults. There her father are good books and poor onesdead in their bed. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at s something about the younger readers as witness the use positioning of the middle initial in the author's name to differentiate from bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her adult offersboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is mistress of the modern fairy talenow a complex double murder. This Kerrigan is no differentconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. It is an utter delight.|isbn=1473222184
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Maggie Tokuda-Hall0571379877|title= The Mermaid, the Witch and the SeaKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating= 3.5|genre= TeensCrime|summary= On the pirate ship DoveEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, Flora the girl has assumed the identity of Florian the man in an attempt to fit in obsessed with the crewhis upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Life is hard as Robert's a piratetheatre director. He's also self-obsessed, trust demanding, handsome and empathy are the first things entitled and uses Edward to be discarded, but anything run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to be better than starving on the streetsRobert. Meanwhile, the young Lady Evelyn Hasegawa boards the Dove, headed off to be married to Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a military man sherelationship had begun between them but he's never met on some far-flung colony of not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the Nipran Empire. Neither two of them expects to be thrown together by fate, never mind fall kissing in love…|isbn=1536204315a dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)Jo Callaghan|title=A Life Without EndLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=I looked at When a man is found crucified on the calendar top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the other weekcase alongside her sidekick, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another onethe AI detective Lock. It won't be one of the major numberss their first live case together, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizonhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. And then But when there is a second body found crucified a few of the big 0-numbersdays later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if a very high profile case that's the extent draws a lot of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have unwanted attention to be happytheir AI Future Policing project. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might Will they be said to be living one. Determined able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with herself taken off the assistant to the first geneticist he interviewscase and, and they end up with a childpotentially, which is at least a way out of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on going. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nicecareer?|isbn=1642860670139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Holly Jackson1399613073|title=Good Girl, Bad BloodMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=A month Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on from the explosive conclusion 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 perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the Andie Bell mystery, group and she becomes a new normal has settled over Little KiltonGP. Max Hastings When we first meet them they' assault trial thunders on, Pippare at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's viral podcast detailing her journey of discovering the truth about Andie and Salgoing to end in tragedy. We don's deaths has gained massive media attention, Cara and her sister Naomi are reeling from t know who suffered the realisation that their father, Elliot Ward, had murdered Sal Singh and kidnapped a girl he thought was Andie after she stumbled out of his house, bleeding, and disappeared into tragedy or the nightconsequences. As the town tries to heal again, six Twenty-five years on from later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the events of that night, tragedy strikes againthree friends. Jamie Reynolds This time, older brother to one of Pippait's best friends has gone missingtheir teenage children who are involved. And so, alongside her difficult life as a semi-famous eighteen-year-old, she is once again taken down a dark, twisted path to discover the truth.|isbn=1405297751
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B084H8F2CF0241636604|title=The Body Under the BridgeTrading Game: A Confession|author=Nick LouthGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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 pin-stripe suit and his 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 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 be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Craig Gillard was annoyed It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to be pulled away the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the funeral service for a serving police officercircumstances seem suspicious, particularly when he discovered that he was to take charge of say the enquiry into a missing womanleast. Beatrice Ulbricht Arthur was twenty-five years old and a student of music at the Royal College of Music. She reason why Freya had not been due back to play with the other members of village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the Lysander String Quartet at man or pursue the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields but hadn't turned upprofession she loved. Gillard didn't understand why his immediate involvement was necessary until Chief Constable Alison Rigby explained that Beatrice's father was Karl-Otto UlbrichtAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, Germany's Minister met and married James (on the rebound from the love of Justiceher life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Linda ScottAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= The Double X EconomyAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre= Politics and SocietyScience Fiction|summary=''Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in Opening up new ways of thinking about the worldshape 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. It I've kept up reasonably well with what's a bold statement for an opening chapter, advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's far all getting away from hyperbole as the following pages explainme. This book shines a light on what Some of it is happening in different places- frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the impact on the local probabilities and world economy. What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the selling of young women into marriage, latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering?|isbn=0571353606who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=J 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=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=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 her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398524085|title=Has 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 Hendersonand 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=DaisyGoodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is the story We tend to think of Herod S. PinkneyMaria Callas as Greek, a rather unusual (yet somehow charming) man who is but she was born to Greek parents in search of a woman called DaisyManhattan, New York, whom he first sees in an episode of Judge Judy on television December 1923 and instantly falls 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 love with Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her! Rod is writing voice - she was raised under the novel of his quest, guided Nazi occupation by an embittered ex-literary agent a mother who is now clearing glasses in a pub for a living. Determined to find and meet Daisy, the book takes us through Rod's life, introduces us to his friends, mercilessly exploited her and tells us made no secret of what happens in his quest her preference for loveher elder sister, Jackie.|isbn=0857303309
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1544641923Christopher Edge|title=Ambassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra AragonaBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary=ItLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they's tempting re looking forward to think lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that the diplomatic life something about this new film format is privileged very different, and luxuriousthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. It might be privilegedBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, but family connections tell me that it can they figure out what on earth is far from luxurious. going on? Now you're not going Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to get many ambassadors telling you what ittheir real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary='s really like (it's not I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''diplomatic 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 do sosave him from death, you know)Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, but she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the diplomatic spousesea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the accompanying baggagewatched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, wellMira 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=James Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that's took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an entirely different matterawful pandemic. She (Life was pretty much shut down and , along with it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes , all the many daily social interactions onwhich they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838851011Matthew Tree|title=The Sideman|author=Caro RamsayWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=No one thought that it could happen Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and can't ''quite'' believe that it has: Costello has resigned from Police Scotland. It's all down to her pursuit chronic underachiever whose dreams of George Haggerty whom she believes to be responsible for the murder being exceptional at any of Abigail Haggerty (his wife) artistic passions all failed miserably and Malcolm (her son)who had endless crises of self confidence. Haggerty has a water-tight alibi (caught speeding by Police ScotlandSo Tim applied himself to his studies, no less) and the powers that be have told Costello to lay off: she's decided to go her own way cultivated his abilities rather than be hampered by the badge. She didn't even bother telling her long-time partner, DCI Colin Anderson, that she was going. Since then there might have been the occasional text from her, his daydreams and set himself high but that's itachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B08774SJYNA G Slatter|title=The Greenbecker Gambit|author=Ben GraffBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=''There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I suppose the odd fleeting sense can. This secret magic of loneliness is a price my own, all truly successful people must pay for our giftsmine, at last. I tell myself that I do so willinglyjust want to enjoy it for a while.''
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083901691529900360|title=Silent Cry (Gaby Darin Book 1)The Ghost Orchid|author=Jenny O'BrienJonathan Kellerman|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Alys Grant 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 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 few days old when her father took her out psychologist only worked for the first timea while. Her motherFinally, Izzyit was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was tired and fell asleepsomething that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, but when she woke though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a couple of hours later there was no sign of Charlie Dawson or Alysremote property in Bel Air. There He was a hand-delivered postcard which simply said: the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it''I've got Alyss not the Italian. Don't try to find us, Charlie'' But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Holly Jackson1529395224|title=A Good Girl's Guide to MurderLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary=5 years ago, the tiny town of Little Kilton was rocked when beautiful, popular Andie Bell disappeared without a trace, presumed murderedSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Her boyfriend Salil Singh His father was everyone's number 1 suspect – especially after Sal sent a GP and Rowlands didn'confession' text t want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his dad and died in an apparent suicide just days after her disappearancefather's life. His guilt When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was sealed a vet and the case was closed, so convinced this was the town and its families tried to move onjob for him. Now Pippa is determined to prove that Sal Before long, he was innocent, at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with the help of so many students - been his brother Ravidream since he was a child. What started out as an innocent school project quickly turns into something much more sinister If anything, and Pippa begins he'd wanted to unearth the dark truth about the beautiful, innocent queen bee of Kilton Grammar School and what really happened all those years ago. But the closer she gets, the more dangerous it becomesbe a professional footballer.|isbn=1405293187
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17811293120861541774|title=Sequin and StitchA Nye of Pheasants|author=Laura Dockrill and Sara Ogilvie (illustrator)Steve Burrows|rating=54|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyCrime|summary=Sequin loved her mum DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to bitsmeet up with an old ally, but sometimes she got very cross with herGuy Trueman. It wasn't Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that mum wouldn't go outside their flat - Sequin coped he was facing a man armed with that a knife - it was because she never pushed to get credit for what she didand he killed a Ghurka. Mum is Initially, he faced a seamstress and she makes the sort charge of clothes manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that you see on red carpets or at important weddingshe might have planned to murder the man. She's not the designer - they're Now he could be facing the people who make a lot of money from the clothesdeath penalty. Mum is the person who actually ''makes'' the garments Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and shewouldn's really talented, but when people talk about the dress or the suit, they talk about the designer. The seamstress is never mentionedt help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author=AkalaAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Dark LadyPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=''For The Perfect Passion Company is a street kid from dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the Devil's Gaponline apps in providing a more personal, London's most notorious slumtailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, life as Ness is short and toughplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. For Henry, Katie is coming out of a boy thief break up with brown skin inherited from a mother who abandoned himbad boyfriend, life is tougher still. The Dark Lady enters his dreams and so jumps at nightthe chance to come home to Edinburgh. She seems And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to represent a pastan Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and possibly the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a future...''Henry and his friends, brother and sister Matthew and Marybusiness, have various ways of getting by. Sometimes they pickpockets. Sometimes they rob the houses of the rich. It's crime or starve in match- making, but crime is dangerous Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and they risk the terrible punishments of Elizabethan England if they are caught. Impossible choices. But there are pleasures too, 's always her very helpful (and for Henryrather handsome) neighbour, the chief pleasure is the Globe Theatre and the plays of William Shakespeare. Henry loves language and often makes up sonnets about what he sees around him and how he feels. , to lend a hand…|isbn= 14449436931846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Danny Dorling0811771741|title=SlowdownInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrafts|summary= We are living in Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a time collection of rapid change, and we're worried about itknits from toys to blankets. Dorling tells us that Some will be quick knits - others are of the latter is normal'long, natural and probably good for uscosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. We The projects are designed to worry and with divided by the current state of what wetime they're doing in the worldll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, we have much ten to be worried abouttwenty hours and more than twenty hours. HoweverAll the projects are attractive, over the next threemodern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-hundred-andmedia-some pages, if you can follow the arguments, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldnworthy projects't be as worried as we are, or in some cases but that we're worrying about the wrong thingss me being picky. Mostly. Because mostly, things are not changing as rapidly as we think they are. In fact, the rate of change in many things is slowing down and the direction of change will in some cases go into reverse.|isbn=0300243405
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|author= M R CareyDean Koontz|title= The Book of KoliBad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= Science FictionParanormal|summary= Benny is having a terrifically bad day. ''The Book of Koli'' is the first in He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a postreally weird, disturbing coffin-apocalyptic trilogysized object to his home, titled 'and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The Rampart Trilogy''thing is, by MBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck.R He is a nice person. Carey A really nice person. The novel So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is set in a world where nature new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has turned against humansbeen sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Trees move as fast as animals Spike is going to crush their prey take care of Benny, and then soak up their blood. Humans have eked out a small existence in isolated villages. They are primitive except for their reverence will certainly take care of Benny'old tech'. This is technology from the old world that seems to only work for certain chosen people. Howevers enemies, Koliif he, a young woodsmithBenny, uncovers a secret about this technology that will upend his life and take him on Harper (a perilous journeywaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=03164775321662500491
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|isbnauthor=178112938XAdam Stower|title=Survival in Space: The Apollo 13 Mission|author=David Long Murray and Stefano Tambellini (illustrator)Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers |summary=ItMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's fifty years since cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the Apollo 13 mission was launched from catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Kennedy Space Centre in Floridaregular back garden, but the story into a world of that journey remains one of the greatest survival stories of all timefrightening adventure and whiffs. This 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, but he's turned up and he'Survival in Space: The Apollo 13 Mission'' is a brilliant retelling of what happened.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|authorisbn= Grady HendrixB0C47LV1PC|title= The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying VampiresFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= HorrorLiterary Fiction|summary= WomenCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, by and largeis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, have always been would it land? The catch is that the subjugated sexanswer for both could well be. Throughout history, they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix.. no. 's new novel 'Fragility'The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires'' gives women their due. It is an ode set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to toe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac.|isbn=1683691431covid pandemic
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|isbn=00081490891529431735|title=The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)Winter Visitor|author=Jane CaseyJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was Kim Weldon who found 's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker more surprising. He'd been exiled on the banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked like Costa del Sol as a stick she realised it was a hand, wanted drug smuggler for a right hand, in factdecade. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent The return has come about because he's team would later find three other body parts. Identification of the body was not going to be easy, but eventually, it would be given had a name letter from his ex- Paige Hargreaveswife, a twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. Her friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, said saying that she was working on a story which she reckoned would be explosive - 's ill and she hadnhasn't been willing long to live. It's hard to share feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of the details with Biancaa stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|author=Jenny ValentineAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Hello NowThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary= Jude reluctantly moves to Eli is a smallbusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and settle into runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a biggeneration missing in the family. A few short years ago, old house overlooking Eli's parents were both lost to the sea titular race, a globe- which happens trotting adventure where all entrants have to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted navigate the world in the house like company of a ghost that just won't leave magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – or can't. As Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, reality, she is consumed by but when a longing for her old life in London and anger bad incident at another forced change – but this will be the last timeeatery leads to a confession from gran, she swears. This world Eli knows his only hope is quietto dare to enter what he most hates, dull and yet suffocating for Jude. That is until with the sole aim the day Novo arrives, and her entire concept prize of magic at the world changes foreverend – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=00074664980571382231
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