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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-->

|isbnauthor=1787477681Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief 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 Police Novel)them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Martin WalkerStig Abell

|summary=It was a couple of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his sonrustic life at Little Sky. Gaston's father had sold There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy which he had used to secure a future of his life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlatwith his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, owned by as moving in together would mean a Russian oligarch. Before he even got to go there he died, apparently lot of a heart attack, 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 retirement home collected future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the proceeds of moment they’re enjoying life in the policy present and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just putting the contents of future on the farmhouse. The family hadn't exactly fallen out, but Gaston lived some way away and Claudette had fallen out of favour when she announced that she was gay, but they weren't expecting to be almost completely disinheritedback burner.

|isbn=B083Z3ZZ611786482126|title=Broken Silence The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil 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 Nikki Parekh 2Max 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=Liz MistryJane Casey|rating=45|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5

|summary=When we first meet him Stefan Marcovici has been in the UK Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his daughter Maria for upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a whiletheatre director. He came expecting 's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to work as a gardener run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and Maria was he's drunkenly confided how he feels to be a nannyRobert. Stefan ends up doing slave labour Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a chicken factoryrelationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: you can imagine what happens Edward is left to an eighteen-year-old girlstumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.

|author=Justine Avery and Daria YudinaJo Callaghan|title=This Book Is Alive! (Living Book)Leave No Trace

|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Books ''want'' you When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to read them! Theythe case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readerss their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Books ''want'' But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be read. This is able to solve the key message case in Justine Avery's latest offeringtime, ''This Book Is Alive!''. By anthropomorphising or will Kat find herself taken off the relationship between book case and young reader, she's sending an invitation to all - pick me up, read me, be my friendpotentially, we can go on out of a journey together. It's a great message, don't you thinkcareer?|isbn= 1948124416139851120X}}

|isbn=02419846531399613073|title=I Made a MistakeMoral Injuries|author=Jane CorryChristie Watson

|summary=We know from Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the very beginning that there's 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 tragedy about bonus when you aim to happenbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. On Laura is a January evening on perfectionist and a very crowded platform 3 trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of Waterloo Underground station the group and she becomes a man falls under an oncoming trainGP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. That man is Matthew GordonWe don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Much Twenty-five years later we see Poppy Page in there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the witness box of a crown courtthree friends. This time, getting a very rough ride from the prosecuting barristerit's their teenage children who are involved.

|authorisbn= Maryse Condé0241636604|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary FictionAutobiography|summary= We live If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in a postyour mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-world: post-colonialismstripe suit and his background is the East End, post-modernismwhere he was familiar with violence, post-truthpoverty and injustice. The list goes There was no posh public school on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix posthis CV - in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condéhe had been to the London School of Economics. In her new novel, ''The Wondrous Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and Tragic Life he has a facility with numbers which most of Ivan and Ivana'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to which it latched itselfbe stupid. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe It was his ability at what was, essentially, a French overseas department. They grow up card game which got him an internship with intense and passionate feelings for each otherCitibank. As they grow up and move overseas Eventually, the ravages of this turned into permanent employment as a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencestrader.|isbn=1642860697

|authorisbn= Abi Elphinstone1035021803|title= Jungle Drop (The Unmapped Chronicles)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating= 43.5|genre= Confident ReadersCrime|summary= Abi Elphinstone It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has said that been back to the English country village where she connects with grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her world-building through her charactersbeloved aunt, Carole. In an interview with [Books For Keeps] Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, she described visualising her characters "wearing head torches which gradually reveal Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the world they are seeing circumstances seem suspicious, to her and say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the readervillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly." Just Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the darkness of a mine is cut through by a spear of light so too do quarrelsome Fox and Fibber get their first glimpse of man or pursue the profession she loved. After the phantasmagorical glow-split, she worked in-the-dark realm of Jungle Drop when they emerge through the mouth of a Dragon cafe, met and married James (on the Here and There Express. Running rebound from the opprobrium love of their demanding her life, who was murdered) and selfish parents, they must address what is in their hearts to find what they seekFreya and James have now divorced.|isbn= 1471173682

|isbn=B084VNRRD6AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Killing Mind (D I Kim Stone)All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Angela MarsonsBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=It looked very like a suicide, and ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to begin with, come.'' I've heard it said that was how both DI Kim Stone and Keats, the pathologist called it'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. It was only later Well, I must confess that Stone and her team realised that when Samantha Brown cut her throat, hers was not the only hand holding the knifethere have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. It was murder. SammyI've kept up reasonably well with what's parents. Myles and Kate were a little bit reluctant advantageous to say what their daughter had been doing recentlyme but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. The property where she was found was less homely than most hotel rooms: her mother was about to accuse her husband Some of saying that Sammy was ready..it is - frankly - quite frightening. But 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 was Sammy ready ''for'they' re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and where was their other daughter, Sophie?who could deliver information in a way I could understand.

|author= Hana TookeSunny Singh|title= The UnadoptablesHotel Arcadia|rating= 3.5|genre= Confident ReadersThrillers |summary= In 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 winter of 1880terrorists who are rampaging through, five babies are abandoned at the Little Tulip orphanage in Amsterdamkilling everyone on site, much to the annoyance of matron Gasbeek. Twelve years laterthere is Sam, Miloua wartime photographer and Abhi, the last of the five babies hotel manager. As Abhi continues to be abandoned back in that winter, struggles try to work out care remotely for the identity of her parents from residents who are still alive in the clues she was abandoned with: hotel, he forms a small coffin bond with claw-marks on the outsideSam who refuses to be cowed by events, a cat doll made by someone called Bram Poppenmaker and a velvet blanket. She, along with the other four, patiently wait for Miloukeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's parents to come back and take happened through her homephotography. However, when Although they only ever talk over the five children are sold to the dodgy merchant Meneer Rotmanphone, they know they have to escape. And so begins the adventure of a lifetime their friendship grows as the Unadoptables join forces Abhi tries to reunite Milou with help her parents, all the time being pursued keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Kinderbureau and Rotman…terrorists.|isbn=0241417465086154742X

|authorisbn= Alison Weir1529153298|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted QueenList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 45|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary= It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'Katheryn was seven when her mother dieds not what's worrying Miv's family, thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time in young Katherynthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's lifeupset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, trying to find Down South is a homefrightening, both figuratively and literallyforeign place, where she can grow and grievebest avoided. Unfortunately For Miv, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lessonthe move would mean leaving her best friend, she is too youngSharon, too poor and too unimportant to be of any value she'll do anything to anyone, but she is beautiful and surely, prevent that will count for something in . She's not worried about the end, wondangers or that her Mum't it?|isbn=1472227778s stopped talking - to anyone.

|isbn=14059461721398524085|title=The Glass HouseHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Eve ChaseNicci French|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=Rita lost both Charlotte Salter was expected at her parents in a car crash when she was just six years old: since then shehusband's always craved a familyfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. She'd lived with Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her grandmother in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with the Harrington family in Londondaughter, Etty. Soon are all worried but - strangely - her engagement to Fredhusband, a Torquay butcherAlec, fell through and the Harringtons became her familyis not. In 1971, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harrington, her childrenShortly afterwards, 13-year-old Hera Etty and 6-year-old TeddyGreg, along with Rita went to find the familybody of Greg's house father, Duncan Ackerley, in the Forest of Deanriver. It wasnwas 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''quite'' dilapidated, s little else they can do but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fireget on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.

|isbn=00083861371035906708|title=Just My LuckDiva|author=Adele ParksDaisy Goodwin

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Elaine Winterdale took 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 fall for the landlordStates. Aged 37, When she got a suspended sentence because a faulty gas boiler had caused the deaths of 29was back in Athens -yearsupposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -old Reveka Albu she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her 2-year-old son Benke. Toma Albu, husband and fatherpreference for her elder sister, had found them when he returned homeJackie.

|author=Justine Avery and Ema Tepic Christopher Edge|title=I Dreamed YouBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It is always Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a pleasure to review movie marathon at their local cinema, a new book by Justine Avery and ''I Dreamed You'' carries on place that has the tradition beautifully. This little book is the perfect exemplar nickname of our category name, ''For Sharing'The Black Hole'. It is a mother All big movie fans, they's love letter re looking forward to her childlots of exciting films, and many, told in rhyme form.|isbn=1948124505}} many snacks! {{Frontpage|author=Sharon Blackie|title=If Women Rose Rooted|rating=5|genre= Biography|summary= I normally say However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned downsomething about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out But as they lurch from one film genre to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? I want Will they ever get back to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two cinema, 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 better.to their real lives?|isbn=19128360171839942738

|author=Patrick NessRachel Greenlaw|title=BurnCompass and Blade|rating=3.5

|summary=''On a cold Sunday evening in early 1957 - I can hear the very day, in fact, that Dwight David Eisenhower took song of the oath sea. The call of office for the second time as President of deep, the United States of America - Sarah Dewhurst waited with her father answering beat in the parking lot of the Chevron gas station for the dragon he'd hired to help on the farmmy heart.''

It's 1950s America but not as we know it. In this alternate USRosevear, there is still a Cold War with the Russiansremote and partially forgotten island, still a concomitant arms race. And survives on luring ships into the stain of racism is just as crushing - something mixed-race Sarah rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her Japanese American friend Jason are only too well aware mother before her, is one ofthe seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. As is But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the deeply unpleasant town deputywrecking, Kelby. But one thing is they capture the island's leader and Mira'very'' differents father. In this alternate worldDesperate to save him from death, there are dragons. The dragons live in an uneasy peace Mira makes a bargain with humans a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and communication is minimalwith only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. But a few With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of these winged creatures do hire out their labour foreign islands to human in return for gold - they are dragonsthe heart of the smuggler's territory, after allMira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.Poor Frankie! |isbn= 14063755000008664730

|author= Angela WoolfeJames Sherwood Metts|title= Roxy and Jones: The Great Fairytale Cover-UpPlanet Storyland|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= After her father gets married Things have been a bit sticky for the umpteenth Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time, Roxy Humperdinck is sent to live with her half-sister Gretel in Rexopolis, the capital city of the Kingdom of Illustriaaccomplish. Gretel works Just as a toilet cleaner for the Ministry they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of Soup. Why does a country like Illustria need an entire ministry dedicated other, new ways to soupspend time, you ask? Well, after Roxy finds a secret passage in her bathroom along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and meets a snarky young woman known only as Jones, she soon finds out why. Turns out, fairy tales are realalong with it, and the Ministry’s official job is to safeguard all knowledge of them and monitor the living fairy talesmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. And, when an evil queen breaks out of a maximum-security prison and threatens to reinstate her reign of terror, Roxy and Jones hold the fate of the world in their young hands…so, no pressure then!|isbn=14063913791736128426

|author=Kat DunnMatthew Tree|title=Dangerous RemedyWe'll Never Know

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary= It's ParisTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, 1794. The Revolution is five years old a drunk and the country in the midst chronic underachiever whose dreams of violent political turmoil between the Revolutionaries, trying to maintain their control by whatever means necessary, being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and the Royalists, still loyal to monarchy intent. Caught in a no man's land between the two warring factions is the Battalion who had endless crises of the Deadself confidence. Led by a disillusioned revolutionary's daughterSo Tim applied himself to his studies, 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 cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and powers that might just make her the spark that blows up the powder-keg of revolutionary Parisset himself high but achievable ambitions. |isbn=1789543649B0CVFXPGP8

|authorisbn=Joanne M Harris1529900360|title=A Pocketful of CrowsThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=54|genre= Confident ReadersCrime|summary= I have always It hadn't been of the mind Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that once you're above picture-book level Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and before you get even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to graphic sex & violence, there is no difference between books for children and books ask for adultshis help on difficult cases. There are good books His assertions that there were only open-and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. -shut cases which didn''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at t need the younger readers as witness the use help of the middle initial in the authora psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's name to differentiate from her adult offerspartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. Ignore She knew that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know the involvement was something that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy taleman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. This is no differentTwo lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. It He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an utter delightextremely rich man and it's not the Italian.|isbn=1473222184 But which of them was the primary target?

|authorisbn= Maggie Tokuda-Hall1529395224|title= The Mermaid, Letting the Witch and Cat Out of the SeaBag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating= 3.5|genre= TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary= On the pirate ship DoveSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, Flora particularly when he considered the girl has assumed strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the identity opportunity of Florian the man in an attempt to fit in doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the crewjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. Life is hard It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a pirate, trust and empathy are the first things to be discarded, but child. If anything has to be better than starving on the streets. Meanwhile, the young Lady Evelyn Hasegawa boards the Dove, headed off he'd wanted to be married to a military man she's never met on some far-flung colony of the Nipran Empireprofessional footballer. Neither of them expects to be thrown together by fate, never mind fall in love…|isbn=1536204315

|authorisbn=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)0861541774|title=A Life Without EndNye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows

|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=I looked at the calendar the other weekDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and disappointedly realised I have he killed a birthday this year – I know, yet another oneGhurka. It won't be one Initially, he faced a charge of the major numbers, manslaughter but the time when I evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the same number as Heinz varieties looms on man. Now he could be facing the horizondeath penalty. And then Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a few of the big 0-numbersdating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and if operating as an alternative to all goes wellthe online apps in providing a more personal, I'll be an OBEtailored service. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if that's she could come and look after the extent of my mid-life crisisbusiness, I guess I have as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to be happyget away for a while. Our author here doesn't use that exact phraseKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, but he might be said and so jumps at the chance to come home to be living oneEdinburgh. Determined And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to find out how an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with 44 Scotland Street and the assistant to the first geneticist he interviewsIsabel Dalhousie novels, and they end up but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a childbusiness, or in match-making, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genesbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and a motive to keep ongoing. But how can he get to not flick the there'final way out' switchs always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?to lend a hand…|isbn=16428606701846976596

|authorisbn=Holly Jackson0811771741|title=Good Girl, Bad BloodInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=A month on Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from the explosive conclusion toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the Andie Bell mystery, a new normal has settled over Little Kilton. Max Hastings' assault trial thunders onlong, Pippa's viral podcast detailing her journey cosy afternoons in front of discovering the truth about Andie and Salfire's deaths has gained massive media attention, Cara and her sister Naomi variety. The projects are reeling from divided by the realisation that their fathertime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, Elliot Ward, had murdered Sal Singh and kidnapped a girl he thought was Andie after she stumbled out of his house, bleedingfive to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and disappeared into the nightmore than twenty hours. As All the town tries to heal againprojects are attractive, six years on from the events of that night, tragedy strikes againmodern and useable. Jamie Reynolds, older brother to one of Pippa I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's best friends has gone missing. And so, alongside her difficult life as a semisocial-famous eighteenmedia-year-old, she is once again taken down a dark, twisted path to discover the truthworthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn=1405297751

|isbnauthor=B084H8F2CFDean Koontz|title=The Body Under the Bridge|author=Nick LouthBad Weather Friend

|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=DCI Craig Gillard was annoyed to be pulled away from the funeral service for Benny is having a serving police officerterrifically bad day. He loses his job, particularly when he discovered loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that he whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to take charge of the enquiry into deserve all this bad luck. He is a missing womannice person. Beatrice Ulbricht was twenty-five years old and A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a student of music at the Royal College of Musicgood person. She had been due Spike is going to play with the other members take care of the Lysander String Quartet at the Church Benny, and will certainly take care of St Martin-in-the-Fields but hadn't turned up. Gillard didn't understand why his immediate involvement was necessary until Chief Constable Alison Rigby explained that BeatriceBenny's father was Karl-Otto Ulbrichtenemies, if he, Benny, Germanyand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's Minister of Justicewild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491

|author= Linda ScottAdam Stower|title= The Double X EconomyMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre= Politics and SocietyConfident Readers |summary=''Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in Murray 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 world''two. It But he's a bold statement for an opening chapter, but itbad magician's far from hyperbole as the following pages explain. This book shines cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a light on what is happening in different placeshyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the impact on catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the local regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and world economywhiffs. What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can 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 done about the selling of young women into marriagehonest, but he's turned up and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering?he'll have to do…|isbn=05713536060008561249

|authorisbn=J Paul HendersonB0C47LV1PC|title=DaisyFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the story of Herod S. Pinkney, a rather unusual (yet somehow charming) man who question should you make it? Or is in search of a woman called Daisythe question if you did, whom he first sees in an episode of Judge Judy on television and instantly falls in love with her! Rod would it land? The catch is writing that the novel of his quest, guided by an embittered ex-literary agent who is now clearing glasses in a pub answer for a livingboth could well be.... no. Determined to find and meet Daisy ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, the book takes us through Rod's lifeOregon, introduces us cautiously begins to his friends, and tells us of what happens in his quest for love.|isbn=0857303309emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|isbn=15446419231529431735|title=Ambassadors Do It After DinnerThe Winter Visitor|author=Sandra AragonaJames Henry

|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=It's tempting to think that February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the diplomatic life is privileged and luxuriousmore surprising. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxuriousHe'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what itThe return has come about because he's really like (ithad a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's not ''diplomaticill and hasn't long to live. It' s hard to do sofeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, you know), but stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matterboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. She (and Is it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?

|isbnauthor=1838851011Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Sideman|author=Caro RamsayGlorious Race of Magical Beasts

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=No one thought that it could happen Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and can't ''quite'' believe that it has: Costello has resigned from Police Scotlandin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. ItA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all down entrants have to her pursuit of George Haggerty whom she believes to be responsible for navigate the world in the murder company of Abigail Haggerty (his wife) and Malcolm (her son)a magical beast. Haggerty This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a water-tight alibi (caught speeding by Police Scotlandconfession from gran, no less) and the powers that be have told Costello Eli knows his only hope is to lay off: she's decided dare to go her own way rather than be hampered by enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at 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 end – the occasional text from her, but that's itonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231