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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews and recommendations, with books from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crimenon-fiction, 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 reviews and recommendations from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library, the charity shop and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.

Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in! Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''], [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''], [[File:instagram_classic_logo.png|link=https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/|alt=Follow us on Instagram]] [https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/ '''Instagram'''] and [[File:LinkedIn.png|link=https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-bookbag-1b12a264/|alt=LinkedIn]] There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews ]] at TheBookbag.

==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].

|author= Joan HeSylvie Cathrall|title= Descendant of A Letter to the CraneLuminous Deep

|genre= FantasyScience Fiction|summary=''Heroes cannot be forged without villains''Princess Hesina of the kingdom of Yan has never wanted the throne. Instead of craving power, she has always considered the crown her inescapable duty and shrank away from the responsibilities of being Queen. To her, it has always been There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a distant, faraway future. Until that is, it isn'tcompelling premise. When her beloved father suddenly dies, she And this is thrust into ruling. But contrary to the official report, Hesina knows all is not as it seems, her father didn't die. He was murdered.Determined to seek the truth and discover her father's killer, Princess Hesina will stop at nothing to find justice, even committing treason. Under the cover one of darkness, her feet lead her to a soothsayer to learn what happened that day and who killed the Kingthem.|isbn=17890940460356522776

|authorisbn=Pat Grant0008517061|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City GriftersDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell

|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Everything Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in this world runs on pedaltogether would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-power, grid and that includes relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the punk bands. future she wants for herself and her daughter? There are three pedallers at For the front of moment they’re enjoying life in the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to present and putting the ferry across future on the swamp back burner.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=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 Falter City, where hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a mother and her two sons aim to set up child beneath a yoghurt factorydoorway. You could say 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 yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this she is pregnant with his child as a really rough-and-ready dump result of a placethe one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, but everyone not least because Ruth is interested in small things that growprone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4. For 5|genre=Crime|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the only money Hardie family to be had – approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the only fortunes to be found other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in Falter City – come from algae, gunk prison and other crud that – well, he's prepared to tell the police where the use body of it a missing person is never really made clearburied and who was responsible for her death. Once thereThis person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide – Lippy, police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the more forward-thinking, industrious remainder of the twohis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair. is it? But which of The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the two will come off the worse as they other thing that Hardie demanded - make their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?|isbn=1603094660certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.

|authorisbn= Ashley Poston0008405026|title= Bookish and A Stranger in the BeastFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating= 3.5|genre= TeensCrime|summary= Set after It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the ExcelsiCon, we are introduced investigation ground to Rosie Thorne, a Small Townhalt. Now, USA girl who has recently lost her mother , Helena, and is entering her final year father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of high schoolthe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Things keep piling up for Rosie, What looked as though it was going to be an open-and when she follows -shut case is now a stray dog into what she thinks complex double murder. Kerrigan is an abandoned castle convinced that the explanation lies in her townRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, things just get worseUna Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3. Rosie accidentally destroys 5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a rare book working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and with her motherStanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's hospital also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and funeral costs she has no money uses Edward to cover the damagerun errands for him. She finds herself working for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty on a paparazzi escape, Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to repay the debtRobert.  For most Starfield superfans this Most men in Robert's position would be stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a dream relationship had begun between them but Rosie soon realises Vance is a jerk - and he isn't too fond of her either. However, as s not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon 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 allof them kissing in a dark passageway. |isbn=1683691938

|author=Justine Avery and Daria YudinaJo Callaghan|title=Baby Trolls Get a Bad Rap (Underrated Babies Book 1)Leave No Trace

|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= HoratioWhen a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, Saul and Grizelda are three baby trolls who are fed up that everyone forgets about baby trollsthe AI detective Lock. They are ignored in books and TV shows and films in favour of It's their first live case together, having previously been very scary grown upssuccessful with several cold cases. Our three heroes want equal rights for baby trolls. They want to be seen and heard But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and they've started a petition about it very high profile case that they want you draws a lot of unwanted attention to signtheir AI Future Policing project. But how should Will they go about itbe able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career? |isbn= B07XGN4LGY139851120X}}

|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author= Samira AhmedChristie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title= MadThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary 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, Bad where he was familiar with violence, poverty and Dangerous 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 Knowbe 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating= 3.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole'In s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the endcircumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the 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 man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, we all become storieswho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''

Spending the summer 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 Paris sounds like a dream for most people, especially art-lovers, my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but Khayyam canI't relax and stop thinking about m left with the mess she left behind in Chicagofeeling that it's all getting away from me. On a chance encounter with a descendant Some of Alexandre Dumasit is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, Khayyam finds herself on a historical journey with him to unveil I could research the truth about possibilities and the 19th century Muslim woman probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who may have crossed paths with Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byron. As the two teenagers travel the city knows what they not only discover themselves, but uncover 're talking about or the true story of the woman latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and why it was one that should never have been forgottenwho could deliver information in a way I could understand.|isbn=0349003556

|author= Hazel BarkworthSunny Singh|title= HeatstrokeHotel Arcadia|rating= 3.5|genre= CrimeThrillers |summary=''Too hot to sleepThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Too hot to think straight. Too hot to go back'' During a British heatwave 15-year-old Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, Lily Dixonkilling everyone on site, has left home and is reported missing. Rachel there is Sam, a teacher at Lily's school wartime photographer and Abhi, the mother of Mia, Lily's best friendhotel manager. As Lily's family and Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the police struggle hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to find any evidence that may lead be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to Lily, Rachel takes it upon herself try to start looking for cluescapture what's happened through her photography. However Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as the case goes on Rachel becomes fixated on finding Lily and finds herself crossing boundaries, breaking trust Abhi tries to help her keep safe and facing some impossible choices. Will they find Lily? Does Lily want both wait to be found? And see if they will life for Rachel ever be rescued before they are discovered by the same again?terrorists.|isbn=1472265602086154742X

|isbn=15387317381529153298|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful LifeThe List of Suspicious Things|author= Sarah Ban BreathnachJennie Godfrey

|genre=LifestyleGeneral Fiction|summary=Someone once said: itIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not self-indulgence, itwhat's worrying Miv's therapy! family, though. Women have been disappearing. I think Well, they were talking about shopping've been murdered, but it probably can be applied to most thingshave '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. In my caseFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, it applies and she'll do anything to writing prevent that. She's not worried about things because I want to, rather than because I can sell it the dangers or because Ithat her Mum've got something s stopped talking - to sellanyone.

|authorisbn=Frederic Gros1398524085|title=A Philosophy of WalkingHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French

|genre= Politics and SocietyCrime|summary= I confess I picked this one Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up from . Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the library body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuffthe river. Now I have It was an easy assumption for the police to go out an buy my own copy so make that I can turn down the pages I have marked Duncan had murdered Charlie and return to its varying wisdom then committed suicide when I need to. Some books draw you in slowlyhe couldn't stand the guilt. This one had me in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is The Salter children are not a sport'convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|isbn=1781688370

|isbn=085752612X1035906708|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?Diva|author=Curtis SittenfeldDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5

|summary=I was tempted We tend to read ''Rodham'' by the success think of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''. That book wasn't marketed Maria Callas as being a portrait of Laura BushGreek, but the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed she was born to occur very regularly Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in reviewsDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. How would Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'Rodham'' compare? Unfortunately, there is a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bush, which gave the book a freshness which to make it more manageable in the first third of ''Rodham'' lacksStates. We've all heard the stories, read the books When she was back in Athens - about Hillary and particularly about Bill. It's still an interesting concept, though: how would Hillary have fared if supposedly so that she hadn't subsumed could get appropriate training for her own ambitions into Bill's career, if voice - she hadn't had to carry was raised under the burden Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret 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 surname?preference for her elder sister, Jackie.

|isbnauthor=0727889230Christopher Edge|title=The Red, Red Snow|author=Caro RamsayBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=In GlasgowLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, Eric Callaghan a place that has the nickname of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour had been 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to the ice show with his wifelots of exciting films, Geraldine and daughtermany, Lisa when he was stabbed in Planet Burger. many snacks! He died within minutesHowever, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, but his murder seemed motiveless and there were no cluesthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. He was a genuine man and a talented artist: those investigating his death had hit a dead end. There were two deaths But as they lurch from one film genre to investigate in the north of Scotland: it wasn't thought wise next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to involve the local murder team as someone on the Glen Riske police force was indirectly involved in the case. Christmas - cinema, and a lot of snow were rapidly approaching.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}

|isbnauthor=B07S6DBCFTRachel Greenlaw|title=Little Girls Tell Tales|author=Rachel BennettCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=In 2004 Rosalie''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, Beth a remote and Dallin were walking in partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the boggy wetlands by Rosalie rocks and Dallin's cottageplundering the wrecks. Beth and DallinMira, both twelve-years-oldlike her mother before her, got ahead is one of ten-year-old Rosalie the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and it wasn't long before she realised any treasure that she was lostlies within. Trying But when the Council Watch lays a trap to find her way back end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to the main path she found save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a skeletonwreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, but when she finally got sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the road she could never find her way back watched streets of foreign islands to the bog when she'd seen heart of the body. Most people didnsmuggler't believe hers territory, putting Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the story down to future of her vivid imaginationhome and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730

|isbnauthor=0008273790James Sherwood Metts|title=Remain Silent|author=Susie SteinerPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=When we first meet Matis Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and Dimitriautomation have been proceeding apace, Matis is in a bad way, vomiting and obviously traumatised. When heoften replacing jobs they's able re paid to speak he tells Dimitri do and other tasks that ''Lukas is dead''. Lukas was in his late teens and he and Matis had come took time to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuaniaaccomplish. They'd answered an advert offering good money and accommodation in return for their labour: Just as they could have a decent life ''were beginning to get used to all this technological change and'' send money home starting to think of other, new ways to their familiesspend time, along came an awful pandemic. SadlyLife was pretty much shut down and, along with it doesn't work out like that. When they arrive in , all the UK - many daily social interactions on an old, uncomfortable bus, - which they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have to share rooms and sleep on dirty mattresses on the floor. It's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersdepend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|author=Amin MaaloufMatthew Tree|title=The DisorientedWe'll Never Know

|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more easily than his native Arabic. In fact, he hasn't been back to be different from his homeland for 25 years. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friendfather, or maybe. The falling out was a long time ago, drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and Adam's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him to go knowing that he'll regret not doing sowho had endless crises of self confidence. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants So Tim applied himself tohis studies, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next planecultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CYB0CVFXPGP8

|author=Anstey HarrisA G Slatter|title=Where We BelongThe Briar Book of the Dead

|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary= I've always believed ' There's a part of me that places and buildings absorb what happens within them and reflect it back; wants to keep this is how we just to myself for however long I can tell that . This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a sacred space is sacredwhile. Cate Morris believes a similar thing, she believes that ''A house absorbs happiness Within a remote mountain pass, it blooms into far away from the wallpaperworld, lies Silverton; a town under the wood protection of the window frames, the bricks: thatBriar's how it becomes , a homefamily of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands.'' She Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is having these thoughts the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she packs up 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 Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her home. She has As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to leave. A combination communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of circumstances means that is not only redundant but also homelesschaos. With nowhere else Reeling from one family secret to goanother, she has called on her late husbandEllie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches's family for help. Just for a few weekslegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=14711738361803364548

|isbn=17874776811529900360|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)The Ghost Orchid|author=Martin WalkerJonathan Kellerman

|summary=It was a couple of days after old Drianthadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's funeral fault that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his sonhelp on difficult cases. GastonHis assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's father had sold partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the family farm swimming pool of a remote property in order Bel Air. He was the heir to buy an insurance policy which he had used Italian shoe empire and she is married to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlat, owned by a Russian oligarchextremely rich man and it's not the Italian. Before he even got to go there he died, apparently But which of a heart attack, and them was the retirement home collected primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the proceeds Cat Out of the policy Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Gaston Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Claudette Driant were left with just Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the contents opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the farmhousejob for him. The family Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't exactly fallen out, but Gaston lived some way away and Claudette had fallen out of favour when she announced that she - as with so many students - been his dream since he was gaya child. If anything, but they werenhe't expecting d wanted to be almost completely disinheriteda professional footballer.

|isbn=B083Z3ZZ610861541774|title=Broken Silence (DS Nikki Parekh 2)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Liz MistrySteve Burrows

|summary=When we first DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet him Stefan Marcovici has been up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in the UK a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with his daughter Maria for a whileknife - and he killed a Ghurka. He Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came expecting to work as a gardener and Maria was light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be a nannyfacing the death penalty. Stefan ends up doing slave labour in a chicken factory: you Domenic Jejeune can imagine what happens do nothing to an eighteen-year-old girlhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.

|author=Justine Avery and Daria YudinaAlexander McCall Smith|title=This Book Is Alive! (Living Book)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Books ''want'' you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readers. Books ''want'' to be read. This is the key message in Justine Avery's latest offering, ''This Book Is Alive!''. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book and young reader, she's sending an invitation to all - pick me up, read me, be my friend, we can go on a journey together. It's a great message, don't you think?|isbn= 1948124416}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0241984653|title=I Made a Mistake|author=Jane CorryThe Perfect Passion Company

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=We know from The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the very beginning that there's online apps in providing a tragedy about to happenmore personal, tailored service. On Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a January evening on trip to Canada to get away for a very crowded platform 3 while. Katie is coming out of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under an oncoming trainbreak up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. That man is Matthew GordonAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Much later we see Poppy Page Katie has no experience in the witness box of running a crown courtbusiness, or in match-making, getting but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a very rough ride from the prosecuting barrister.hand…|isbn=1846976596

|authorisbn= Maryse Condé0811771741|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary FictionCrafts|summary= We live in Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a postcollection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits -world: post-colonialismothers are of the 'long, post-modernism, post-truthcosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The list goes on. There projects are numerous works that utilise divided by the prefix posttime they'll take to complete - in their categorisationless than five hours, five to ten hours, but perhaps none ten to twenty hours and more so than Maryse Condétwenty hours. In her new novel, ''The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana'', Condé writes with fervour about All the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana projects are twins born in Guadeloupeattractive, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense modern and passionate feelings for each otheruseable. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages of a post I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesworthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn=1642860697

|author= Abi ElphinstoneDean Koontz|title= Jungle Drop (The Unmapped Chronicles)Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersParanormal|summary= Abi Elphinstone Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has said delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that she connects with her world-building through her characters. In an interview with [Books For Keeps]whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, she described visualising her characters "wearing head torches which gradually reveal Benny is the world they are seeing very last person to her and to the readerdeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person." Just as So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the darkness of delivery to his house is a new friend, a mine bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is cut through by clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a spear good person. Spike is going to take care of light so too do quarrelsome Fox Benny, and Fibber get their first glimpse of the phantasmagorical glow-in-the-dark realm of Jungle Drop when they emerge through the mouth will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a Dragon on the Here and There Express. Running from the opprobrium of their demanding and selfish parents, waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they must address what is in their hearts to find what they seekare.|isbn= 14711736821662500491

|isbnauthor=B084VNRRD6Adam Stower|title=Killing Mind (D I Kim Stone)|author=Angela MarsonsMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=It looked very like Murray is supposed to be a suicidehumble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to begin withsleep and eat and eat and sleep and, that was how both DI Kim Stone and Keatswell, whatever takes his fancy next of the pathologist called ittwo. It was only later that Stone But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and her team realised that when Samantha Brown cut her throatthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, hers was not into the only hand holding the kniferegular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. It was murder. Sammy's parents. Myles and Kate were This time round it drops them into a little bit reluctant to say what their daughter had been doing recently. The property Viking land, where she was found was less homely a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than most hotel rooms: her mother Murray was about , to accuse her husband of saying that Sammy was ready... But what was Sammy ready be honest, but he's turned up and he'for'' and where was their other daughter, Sophie?ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249

|authorisbn= Hana TookeB0C47LV1PC|title= The UnadoptablesFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= In the winter of 1880Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, five babies are abandoned at is the Little Tulip orphanage in Amsterdam, much to question should you make it? Or is the annoyance of matron Gasbeek. Twelve years later, Milouquestion if you did, would it land? The catch is that the last of the five babies to answer for both could well be abandoned back in that winter, struggles to work out .... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the identity city of her parents from the clues she was abandoned with: a small coffin with claw-marks on the outside, a cat doll made by someone called Bram Poppenmaker and a velvet blanket. She, along with the other four, patiently wait for Milou's parents to come back and take her home. HoweverPortland, when the five children are sold to the dodgy merchant Meneer RotmanOregon, they know they have to escape. And so cautiously begins the adventure of a lifetime as the Unadoptables join forces to reunite Milou with her parents, all emerge from the time being pursued by restrictions imposed during the Kinderbureau and Rotman…|isbn=0241417465covid pandemic

|authorisbn= Alison Weir1529431735|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted QueenWinter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating= 4|genre= Historical FictionCrime|summary= It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'Katheryn was seven when her mother diedreturn all the more surprising. He'', thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time in young Katherynd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's life, trying to find had a homeletter from his ex-wife, both figuratively and literally, where saying that she can grow 's ill and grievehasn't long to live. Unfortunately, Katheryn It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lessonabducted, she is too young, too poor stripped to his underwear and too unimportant sent to be of any value to anyone, but she is beautiful and surely, that will count for something a watery grave in the end, won't boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is ita warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?|isbn=1472227778

|isbnauthor=1405946172Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Glass House|author=Eve ChaseGlorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary=Rita lost both her parents Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in a car crash when she was just six years old: since then she's always craved a family. She'd lived the wondrous library we start by visiting with her grandmother him, and in Torquay until she got the evening a job as a nanny with helper at the Harrington family in Londondessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Soon her engagement to FredEli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a Torquay butcher, fell through and generation missing in the Harringtons became her family. In 1971A few short years ago, after a fire at Eli's parents were both lost to the London housetitular race, Jeannie Harrington, her children, 13a globe-year-old Hera and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the family's house world in the Forest company of Deana magical beast. It wasn't ''quite'' dilapidatedThis 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, but it certainly wasn't with the sole aim the same standard as prize of magic at the London house had been before end – the fireonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231