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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= Ashley PostonSylvie Cathrall|title= Bookish and A Letter to the BeastLuminous Deep|rating= 3.5|genre= TeensScience Fiction|summary= Set after the ExcelsiCon, we There are introduced to Rosie Thorne, few greater joys than a Small Town, USA girl who has recently lost her mother and is entering her final year of high school. Things keep piling book which lives up for Rosie, and when she follows a stray dog into what she thinks is an abandoned castle in her town, things just get worse. Rosie accidentally destroys a rare book and with her mother's hospital and funeral costs she has no money to cover the damage. She finds herself working for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty on a paparazzi escape, to repay the debtcompelling premise.  For most Starfield superfans And this would be a dream but Rosie soon realises Vance is a jerk - and he isn't too fond one of her either. However, as the two are forced to get to know each other, their guards begin to lower and they discover that maybe this situation might not be so terrible after allthem. |isbn=16836919380356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Justine Avery and Daria Yudina0008517061|title=Baby Trolls Get Death in a Bad Rap (Underrated Babies Book 1)Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. HoratioThere’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Saul Livia and Grizelda are three baby trolls who are fed her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up that everyone forgets about baby trolls. They are ignored in books his off-grid and TV shows and films relaxing life to move in favour of their very scary grown ups. Our three heroes want equal rights with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for baby trolls. They want to be seen herself and heard her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and they've started a petition about it that they want you to signputting the future on the back burner. But how should they go about it? |isbn= B07XGN4LGY}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Samira Ahmed1786482126|title= Mad, Bad and Dangerous to KnowThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating= 34.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=''In Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the end, we all become storiessite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxurySpending apartments - when they discovered the summer in Paris sounds like bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a dream for most peopleritual killing or murder? Inevitably, especially art-loversDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Khayyam canNelson doesn't relax and stop thinking about the mess , that she left behind in Chicago. On a chance encounter is pregnant with his child as a descendant result of Alexandre Dumas, Khayyam finds herself on a historical journey with him to unveil the truth about the 19th century Muslim woman who may have crossed paths with Alendre Dumasone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byron. As the two teenagers travel the city they not only discover themselves, but uncover the true story least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of the woman and why it was one that should never have been forgottensickness.|isbn=0349003556
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Hazel Barkworth0008551324|title= HeatstrokeThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating= 34.5|genre= Crime|summary=It''Too hot s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to sleepapproach the police. Too hot to think straight. Too hot to go back'' During a British heatwave 15-year-old, Lily Dixon, Neither side likes or has left home and is reported missingany respect for the other. Rachel But Davie Hardie is a teacher at Lilystruggling in prison and he's school and prepared to tell the police where the mother body of Mia, Lily's best frienda missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. As Lily's family This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police struggle doing what he wants. And what he wants is to find any evidence that may lead be transferred to Lily, Rachel takes it upon herself an open prison to start looking for clues. However, as serve the case goes on Rachel becomes fixated on finding Lily remainder of his sentence and finds herself crossing boundariesto get an early parole date. Not much to ask, breaking trust is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and facing some impossible choices. Will they find Lily? Does Lily want she's even prepared to be found? And will life for Rachel ever be do the same again?|isbn=1472265602other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15387317380008405026|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful LifeA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author= Sarah Ban BreathnachJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=Someone once said: itIt's not selfsixteen years since nine-indulgenceyear-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, itlooks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's therapy! something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. I think they were talking about shopping, but What looked as though it probably can was going to be applied to most thingsan open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. In my case, it applies to writing about things because I want toKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, rather than because I can sell it or because I've got something to sellUna Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Frederic Gros0571379877|title=A Philosophy of WalkingThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre= Politics and SocietyCrime|summary= I confess I picked this one up from the library in my preEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-lockdown forage of random stuffclass friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and return to its varying wisdom when I need uses Edward torun errands for him. Some books draw you Edward has been in slowlylove with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. This one had me Most men in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he'walking s not like most men: Edward is not left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a sport''dark passageway.|isbn=1781688370
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=085752612XJo Callaghan|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?|author=Curtis SittenfeldLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I was tempted When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to read ''Rodham'' by the success of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. That book wasnIt't marketed as being a portrait of Laura Bushs their first live case together, but the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed to occur having previously been very regularly in reviewssuccessful with several cold cases. How would ''Rodham'' compare? Unfortunately, But when there is a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bushsecond body found crucified a few days later, which gave the book Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a freshness which the first third lot of ''Rodham'' lacksunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. We've all heard Will they be able to solve the storiescase in time, read or will Kat find herself taken off the books - about Hillary case and particularly about Bill. It's still an interesting concept, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's careerpotentially, if she hadn't had to carry the burden out of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't left her own run at the presidency so late? Could she have done better without the Clinton surnamea career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=07278892301399613073|title=The Red, Red SnowMoral Injuries|author=Caro RamsayChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeThrillers|summary=In GlasgowOlivia, Eric Callaghan Laura and Anjali met on the first day of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour had been to the ice show with his wife, Geraldine medical school and daughtertheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Lisa which is a bonus when he was stabbed in Planet Burgeryou aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. He died within minutes, but his murder seemed motiveless Laura is a perfectionist and there were no cluesa trauma doctor. He was a genuine man Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a talented artist: those investigating his death had hit GP. When we first meet them they're at a dead drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to endin tragedy. There were two deaths to investigate in the north of Scotland: it wasnWe don't thought wise to involve know who suffered the local murder team as someone on tragedy or the Glen Riske police force was indirectly involved in consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the casethree friends. Christmas - and a lot of snow were rapidly approachingThis time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=Pronko0241636604|title=Tokyo Traffic (Detective Hiroshi)The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Michael PronkoGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=There If you were three young womento bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, girls really if you wanted 're unlikely to be pedantic about their agesthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. Sukayana was Thai A hoodie and she'd come to Japan in jeans replaces the belief that she'd be able to pick up pin-stripe suit and his background is the documentation to get 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 StatesLondon School of Economics. Celeste was just fourteen Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and when we meet her she's already dead of he has a heart attack caused by an overdose facility with numbers which most of amphetaminesus can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Then there's RatanaIt was his ability at what was, who's the de facto leader of the groupessentially, but she's disappeared too a card game which got him an internship with the group's passportsCitibank. Eventually, leaving Sukayana in the midst of this turned into permanent employment as a scene of carnage at the Jack and Jill Studios. The dead bodies are definitely not props thoughtrader.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07S6DBCFT1035021803|title=Little Girls Tell TalesThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Rachel BennettC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 2004 Rosalie, Beth and Dallin were walking in It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the boggy wetlands by Rosalie and DallinEnglish country village where she grew up. She's cottageback now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Beth Freya's former mentor and DallinCarole's close friend, both twelve-years-oldArthur Crockleford, got ahead of ten-year-old Rosalie is dead and it wasn't long before she realised that she was lostthe circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Trying to find her way Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the main path village: Arthur, she found a skeletonfeels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, but when she finally got has not felt able to be near the road she could never find her way back to man or pursue the bog when profession she'd seen the bodyloved. Most people didn't believe herAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, putting met and married James (on the rebound from the story down to love of her vivid imaginationlife, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008273790AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Remain SilentAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Susie SteinerBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=When we first meet Matis and Dimitri, Matis is in a bad way, vomiting and obviously traumatised''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come. When he's able to speak he tells Dimitri ' I've heard it said that 'technology'Lukas is dead'what happens after you're eighteen. Lukas was in his late teens and he and Matis had come to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in Lithuaniamy lifetime. TheyI'd answered an advert offering good money and accommodation in return for their labour: they could have a decent life ve kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'andm left with the feeling that it'' send money home to their familiess all getting away from me. Sadly, Some of it doesn't work out like thatis - frankly - quite frightening. When they arrive in Of course, I could research the possibilities and the UK - on an old, uncomfortable bus, - probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have to share rooms and sleep on dirty mattresses on talking about or the floorlatest conspiracy theorist. It's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersI needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Amin MaaloufSunny Singh|title=The DisorientedHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Literary FictionThrillers |summary= Adam The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has lived in Paris for yearssuddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In factkilling everyone on site, he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend there is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him Sam, a former-friendwartime photographer and Abhi, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friend, or maybethe hotel manager. The falling out was As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a long time agobond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and Adamkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's partner has no idea what it was abouthappened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, even so she urges him their friendship grows as Abhi tries to go knowing that he'll regret not doing so. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants help her keep safe and they both wait to, or simply because he was asked, he's on see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the next planeterrorists. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Anstey Harris1529153298|title=Where We BelongThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= IIt've always believed that places and buildings absorb what happens within them s 1979 and reflect it back; this is how we can tell that a sacred space Margaret Thatcher is sacredPrime Minister. Cate Morris believes a similar thing(A woman? I mean, she believes that honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'A house absorbs happinesss family, it blooms into the wallpaperthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, the wood of the window framesthey've been murdered, the bricks: thatbut to have 'disappeared' doesn's how it becomes a homet sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' She is having these thoughts as she packs up s overheard that her home. She has father wants to leavemove the family 'Down South'. A combination of circumstances means that When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is not only redundant but also homelessa frightening, foreign place, best avoided. With nowhere else to go For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she has called on 'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her late husbandMum's family for help. Just for a few weeksstopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1471173836
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17874776811398524085|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Martin WalkerNicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=It Charlotte Salter was a couple of days after old Driantexpected at her husband's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from his sonfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Gaston's father had sold the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy which he had used to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near SarlatHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, owned by a Russian oligarchis not. Before he even got to go there he diedShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, apparently find the body of a heart attackGreg's father, and Duncan Ackerley, in the retirement home collected river. It was an easy assumption for the proceeds of the policy police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just the contents of then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the farmhouseguilt. The family hadnSalter children are not convinced but there't exactly fallen out, s little else they can do but Gaston lived some way away get on with their lives and Claudette had fallen out of favour when she announced that she was gay, but they weren't expecting to be almost completely disinheritedwonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B083Z3ZZ611035906708|title=Broken Silence (DS Nikki Parekh 2)Diva|author=Liz MistryDaisy 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=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=When we first meet him Stefan Marcovici has been Lucas and his friends are all booked in the UK with his daughter Maria for a whilemovie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. He came expecting All big movie fans, they're looking forward to work lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as a gardener the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and Maria was to be a nannythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Stefan ends up doing slave labour in a chicken factory: you But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can imagine they figure out what happens on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to an eighteen-year-old girl.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Daria YudinaRachel Greenlaw|title=This Book Is Alive! (Living Book)Compass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingTeens|summary= Books ''want'' you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readersI can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart. Books ''want'' to be read.
This 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 key message in Justine Averyisland's latest offering, ''This Book Is Alive!'leader and Mira's father. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and young readerwith only coordinates to guide her, she's sending an invitation sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to all - pick me up, read me, be my friendunearth what might save her father, we can go on a as her journey together. Ittakes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's a great messageterritory, don't you think?Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn= 19481244160008664730}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241984653James Sherwood Metts|title=I Made a Mistake|author=Jane CorryPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=We know from Things have been a bit sticky for the very beginning Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that there's a tragedy about took time to happenaccomplish. On a January evening on a very crowded platform 3 Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under other, new ways to spend time, along came an oncoming trainawful pandemic. That man is Matthew Gordon. Much later we see Poppy Page in the witness box of a crown courtLife was pretty much shut down and, along with it, getting a very rough ride from all the prosecuting barristermany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author= Maryse CondéMatthew Tree|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaWe'll Never Know|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live in a post-world: post-colonialism, post-modernism, post-truth. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelto be different from his father, ''The Wondrous a drunk and Tragic Life chronic underachiever whose dreams of Ivan being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and Ivana'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupehis studies, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1642860697B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author= Abi ElphinstoneA G Slatter|title= Jungle Drop (The Unmapped Chronicles)Briar Book of the Dead|rating= 45|genre= Confident ReadersFantasy|summary= Abi Elphinstone has said '' There's a part of me that she connects with her world-building through her characterswants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while. In an interview with [Books For Keeps]'' Within a remote mountain pass, she described visualising her characters "wearing head torches which gradually reveal far away from the world they are seeing to her and to , lies Silverton; a town under the reader." Just as protection of the darkness of a mine is cut through by Briar's, a spear family of light so too do quarrelsome Fox witches who protect the town and Fibber get their first glimpse of the phantasmagorical glow-in-wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is thefirst non-dark realm of Jungle Drop when they emerge through witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the mouth of a Dragon on Briar Witch, the Here town's leader, and There ExpressEllie takes her place beside her. Running from As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the opprobrium heart of a maelstrom of their demanding and selfish parentschaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, they Ellie must address decide who to trust and determine what is in their hearts to find what do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they seekhave sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn= 14711736821803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B084VNRRD61529900360|title=Killing Mind (D I Kim Stone)The Ghost Orchid|author=Angela MarsonsJonathan Kellerman|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It looked very like a suicidehadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, and Sturgis was reluctant to begin with, ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that was how both DI Kim Stone there were only open-and Keats-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, the pathologist called itwas Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. It She knew that the involvement was only later something that Stone and her team realised that when Samantha Brown cut her throat, hers was not the only hand holding the knifeman she loved needed. It was murderThe next case did look simple, though. Sammy's parents. Myles and Kate Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a little bit reluctant to say what their daughter had been doing recentlyremote property in Bel Air. The property where He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she was found was less homely than most hotel rooms: her mother was about is married to accuse her husband of saying that Sammy was ready..an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But what which of them was Sammy ready ''for'' and where was their other daughter, Sophiethe primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Hana Tooke1529395224|title= Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The UnadoptablesSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating= 3.5|genre= Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary= In the winter of 1880, five babies are abandoned at the Little Tulip orphanage Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in Amsterdamhis footsteps, much to particularly when he considered the annoyance of matron Gasbeekstrain that being on-call put on his father's life. Twelve years later, Milou, When he was seventeen he took the last opportunity of the five babies to be abandoned back in that winter, struggles to doing work out the identity of her parents from the clues she was abandoned experience with: a small coffin with claw-marks on the outside, family friend who was a cat doll made by someone called Bram Poppenmaker vet and a velvet blanket. She, along with was convinced this was the other four, patiently wait job for Milou's parents to come back and take her homehim. However Before long, when the five children are sold to the dodgy merchant Meneer Rotman, they know they have to escapehe was at Liverpool University. And It hadn't - as with so begins the adventure of many students - been his dream since he was a lifetime as the Unadoptables join forces child. If anything, he'd wanted to reunite Milou with her parents, all the time being pursued by the Kinderbureau and Rotman…|isbn=0241417465be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Alison Weir0861541774|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted QueenA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating= 4|genre= Historical FictionCrime|summary= DCI Domenic Jejeune''Katheryn was seven when her mother died''s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time has taken a short holiday in young Katheryn's lifeSingapore to meet up with an old ally, trying to find Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a home, both figuratively knife - and literally, where she can grow and grievehe killed a Ghurka. Unfortunately Initially, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lesson, she is too young, too poor and too unimportant he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be of facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any value to anyone, but she is beautiful interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and surely, that will count for something in the end, wonwouldn't it?|isbn=1472227778help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405946172Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Glass House|author=Eve ChasePerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Rita lost both her parents The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a car crash when she was just six years old: since then she's always craved a familymore personal, tailored service. She'd lived with Ness has asked her grandmother in Torquay until younger cousin Katie if she got could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a job as while. Katie is coming out of a nanny break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the Harrington family in Londonchance to come home to Edinburgh. Soon her engagement And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to Fredan Edinburgh we already love, a Torquay butcher, fell through thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Harringtons became her familyIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. In 1971, after Katie has no experience in running a fire at the London housebusiness, Jeannie Harringtonor in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her childrenabilities, 13-year-old Hera and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went to the familythere's house in the Forest of Dean. It wasn't ''quite'' dilapidatedalways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fire.to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083861370811771741|title=Just My LuckInstaKnits for Baby|author=Adele ParksMelissa 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.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary=Elaine Winterdale took Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he 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 whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the fall very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the landlord. Aged 37delivery to his house is a new friend, she got a suspended sentence because bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a faulty gas boiler had caused the deaths good person. Spike is going to take care of 29-year-old Reveka Albu and her 2-year-old son Benke. Toma AlbuBenny, husband and fatherwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, had found them when if he returned home, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Ema Tepic Adam Stower|title=I Dreamed YouMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=It Murray is always supposed to be a pleasure humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to review sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a new book by Justine Avery troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''I Dreamed YouYo birthing person'' carries on joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the tradition beautifullyanswer for both could well be.... no. This little book  ''Fragility'' is set as the perfect exemplar city of our category namePortland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529431735|title=The Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he'For Sharings had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It 's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a motherwarning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in 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. A few short years ago, Eli's love letter parents were both lost to her childthe titular race, told a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in rhyme formthe company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=19481245050571382231
}}

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