132,610
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Richard BrookSylvie Cathrall|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide Letter to Lifethe Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary= I am There are few greater joys than a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose usbook which lives up to a compelling premise. In my case, And this is one of the latterthem. Not so very long ago|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed itJake Johnson, found some has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of it interestinghis life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, but it as moving in together would not have 'hit home' mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in the way that it with Livia or does now. I believe it came Livia move to me Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. this is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right nowfuture she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.|isbn=1800461682
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B095CY7NBN1786482126|title=Autumn CampThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Barry FowlerElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to be Brianhold seventy-five 'luxury's last campapartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. He'd founded the organisation some four years ago and had done all the organisation since but he There was leaving school and the time had come to hand the reins to someone elseno skull. The obvious person was Gary, who'd always been the fun element of the camps and Brian had said that on Was this campa ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Gary should act as the leader and he'd just be there to observeDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The problem with this was that Gary wasnIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't really an organiser, an administrator if you likethat she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. He was the entertainerHer condition will be obvious before long, the person who basked in the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in and did the organising. He handed the camp over - and then took it back. And Gary determined not least because Ruth is prone to have his revenge. This should have been ''his'' campsudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=194812467X0008551324|title=The Farm ShopDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Devon Avery, Justine Avery and Ema TepicNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Kirelle and her best friend Sam It's unusual for anyone from the cat decide Hardie family to go approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for a walkthe other. Kirelle But Davie Hardie is dressed for all weathers struggling in her bright yellow wellies prison and Sam is perfectly turned out as ever in his smart grey fur coat. As they walk he's prepared to tell the top police where the body of the hilla missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, they see a is someone big barn with a sign outsideand it will be worth the police doing what he wants. It's a farm shop! But this And what he wants is a farm shop with a difference: all to be transferred to an open prison to serve the stallholders remainder of his sentence and customers are farmyard animalsto get an early parole date. There are sheep and ducks and cows, goats and chickens Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even some mice. Excited, Kirelle prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and Sam go shoppinganyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. What will they buy?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084049250008405026|title=The Killing KindA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Difficult clients were nothing new 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 barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something of a surprisehalt. After allNow, her mother, it was Helena, and her cross-examination of the 'victim' which saved him from a lengthy prison sentencefather are dead in their bed. HeInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there'd been accused s something about the positioning of stalking the woman but it didn't take long to establish bodies that - if anything - makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was the other way around. Soon Ingrid never seemed going to be free of John Webster an open-and then she came to see him as -shut case is now a threat and was forced to remember complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the police officer at his trial had told her that this was the best chance theyexplanation lies in Rosalie'd had to put Webster away for a long times disappearance: he was a very dangerous manothers (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083955940571379877|title=Both of YouThe Kellerby Code|author=Adele ParksJonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adores. ThenEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, one Mondayobsessed with his upper-class friends, she went to work Robert and never came homeStanza. Mark, Oli and Seb are shatteredRobert's a theatre director. WellHe's also self-obsessed, Mark demanding, handsome and Seb are but Oli's sixteen entitled and at the stage where he thinks boredom is his best lookuses Edward to run errands for him. He's Edward has been a bit off in love with Leigh for a while but she put it down to him growing up Stanza since their university days - and starting he's drunkenly confided how he feels to become independentRobert. SebMost men in Robert's only twelve and Leighposition would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's absence hits him hard. Then Daan Janssen, not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missing. She too has vanished without tracedark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1473685745Jo Callaghan|title=Unbreak Your Heart|author=Katie MarshLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=When Beth Carlyle and Simon Withers first met they were a man is found crucified on opposite ends the top of an angry exchange - wella hill in Nuneaton, Simon was angry and Beth was doing DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her best to apologise for having knocked Simon's sonsidekick, Jake, off his bikethe AI detective Lock. He wasn't hurt but Jake has history. He has HLHS - thatIt's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome for those of you who are not ''au fait'' their first live case together, having previously been very successful with your medical acronymsseveral cold cases. When he was born, the left side of his heart hadn't developed properly and he needed open-heart surgery But when he was there is a second body found crucified a few days oldlater, 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. SoWill they be able to solve the case in time, Simon has every right to be over-protective particularly when someone isn't looking where they're driving.or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell1399613073|title=OtherlandMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary= Myra Olivia, Laura and Rohan are like Yin Anjali met on the first day of medical school and Yang – Myra their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is loudruthlessly ambitious, bright which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and hates rules, while Rohan a trauma doctor. Anjali is very polite, serious the free spirit of the group and worries about the tiniest thingsshe becomes a GP. Their only connection? Being born When we first meet them they're at a drug and briefly dying at the same time at the same hospital on Midsummeralcohol-fuelled party and it's day. And so, every year their families get together going to celebrate the two's birthday/deathdayend in tragedy. But when Rohan We don's little sister Shilpa is taken by t know who suffered the tragedy or the fairy queen, they must journey to consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the Otherland, a magical realm full of fairiesthree friends. This time, vampires, dragons, and Gods. Itit's going to be the worst night of their livesteenage children who are involved.|isbn=1788000463
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=walker140241636604|title=The Coldest Case (Trading Game: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)Confession|author=Martin WalkerGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=It was when he saw Elisabeth DaynesIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you' work in the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies that chief re unlikely to think of police Bruno Courreges had someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the idea which he thought might help pin-stripe suit and his bossbackground is the East End, chief of detectives Jalipeauwhere he was familiar with violence, known as J-J, to solve a case that had haunted him for thirty yearspoverty and injustice. The body of a young male There was found in the woods no posh public school on his CV - but he was never identified and his killer never brought had been to justicethe London School of Economics. What if an artist could recreate the face from the skull and the resulting publicity be used to identify the young man? JStevenson is bright - extremely bright -J calls the skull 'Oscar' and he has a picture on his door: he sees it every time he leaves his office: he doesn't want facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to forget Oscar until be stupid. It was his killer has been brought to justiceability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Martha Leigh1035021803|title= Invisible Ink: A Family MemoirThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating= 3.5|genre= BiographyCrime|summary= It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. Martha Leigh begins She's back now because of a request for help from her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentricbeloved aunt, immediately recognisable upper middle class English familyCarole. Her father Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is a Cambridge dondead and the circumstances seem suspicious, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits to say the least. Arthur was the complete correspondence of reason why Freya had not been back to the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseauvillage: Arthur, his life's workshe feels, let her down badly. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day 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. Neither parent is hugely interested After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the practicalities rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|isbn=1800460384
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren ShanAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Archibald Lox All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=So. Having done ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the impossible and unpicked the lock shape of things to the Forgotten Crypt, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has come.'' I've heard it said that 'groptechnology'is what happens after you' to think aboutre eighteen. But before Well, I must confess that, soireesthere have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. Soirees! Archie, much I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to Inezme but I'm left with the feeling that it's amusementall getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, doesnI could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I't even know m reading someone who knows what one of those isthey're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in the first volume of this seriesa way I could understand. |isbn=B093J9TF73
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Adrian TchaikovskySunny Singh|title= Shards of EarthHotel Arcadia|rating= 43.5|genre= Science FictionThrillers |summary= Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unrecognisable shape unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architectsa terrorist group. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world after world falls to Hiding from the architect's reshaping. Thenterrorists who are rampaging through, just when they had the human race killing everyone on the runsite, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the Architects vanishedhotel manager. And so, As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the memories of residents who are still alive in the war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmierhotel, he forms a man genetically engineered to try and communicate bond with the Architects, does not want Sam who refuses to be remembered. Butcowed by events, when he and the crew keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the spotlight. As he help her keep safe and his allies bounce from star system they both wait to star system, chased see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…terrorists.|isbn=1529051886086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18484584281529153298|title=Local Woman MissingThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Mary KubicaJennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Eleven years ago, a man regularly came home to his wife with lipstick marks on his collar It's 1979 and lame excuses as to why he was late - againMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. His wife was in the habit of going out for a run late at night(A woman? I mean, honestly... ) It was the only time she had for herself when she didnShe's not what's worrying Miv't s family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to look after have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her baby - but when she was out she would meet up with a man, grateful for father wants to move the unquestioning affection he gave herfamily 'Down South'. The locality was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappearedWhen you're from Yorkshire, seemingly without Down South is a tracefrightening, foreign place, leaving her husband to look after her disabled babybest avoided. Ten days laterFor Miv, a local woman and the move would mean leaving her six-year-old daughter disappeared. Meredith Dickey was a birth doula best friend, Sharon, and she'd seemed ll do anything to be under some strain for the last couple of weeks or so. Her body was eventually found in a seedy motel - it appeared prevent that she'd committed suicide. She left a note saying 's not worried about the dangers or that her daughter, Delilah, was safe and there was no point in looking for herMum's stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nicolas Bouvier1398524085|title=The Japanese ChroniclesHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=TravelCrime|summary= It never does to start a review of a book with a quote from the blurb, but sometimes itCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's unavoidablefiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Le Monde reviewed this book Her children, at some pointsons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, with the words ''what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpieceEtty.'' It are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is precisely that. A masterpiece in the sense of the craft as well as the art of writingnot. I'm going to hesitate to call it 'travel writing' because this is as much a history of Japan Shortly afterwards, a mythology-primer for the Japanese culture as it is a personal response to living and travelling in the country. |isbn=1906011044}}{{Frontpage|author=Genevieve Gornichec|title=The Witch's Heart|rating=4|genre=Fantasy|summary= A modern Etty and approachable reimagining of the Norse myths that centres around a witch named Angrboda. She hides in a forest at the edge of the nine worldsGreg, remembering nothing of her past life but that fact that she was survived burnt at find the stake three times because body of OdinGreg's wrath. Her attempts to live in peacefather, howeverDuncan Ackerley, are quickly thwarted when Loki shows up with her literal heart—the one that was cut from her chest before she was tied to in the stake—and refuses to leave her aloneriver. After It was an initial period of mistrust, Angrboda begins easy assumption for the police to fall for Lokimake that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn's charms, and t stand the two start an unusual family made of up a half-dead daughter, a son thatguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's a wolf, little else they can do but get on with their lives and another son that's a snakewonder about what really happened.|isbn=1789097061
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17885497591035906708|title=The Distant DeadDiva|author=Lesley ThomsonDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1940 1923 and twenty-four-year-old Maple Greenhill had gone out for the evening 'with her friend Ida' leaving her three-year-old son, William, at home with her parentsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. The boy thought that Maple Her original surname was his sister - it was better for the family than the shame of illegitimacy, Kalogeropoulos but Maple had high hopes of putting her life (and Williamfather changed it to 'Callas's) on a better footingto make it more manageable in the States. She When she was going to meet back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her wellvoice -to-do fiancé, hoping to persuade him to come she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and meet made no secret of her preference for her family the following week. Laterelder sister, her body would be found in the bombed-out home where he had taken herJackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529407249Christopher Edge|title=The Perfect Lie|author=Jo SpainBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=It was July 2019 Lucas and Erin was happy. She and Danny Ryan were planning his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a few days away: place thathas the nickname of 's always a dangerous thing to do when youThe Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're married looking forward to a cop but she was hopeful. They'd been married for six months lots of exciting films, and life was good with a decent apartment by the sea in Newportmany, Long Island. many snacks! The knock on However, as the door was insistent movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and when it was opened, Dannythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn's partner, Ben Mitchell was there with a couple of other officerst even imagine. Danny took But as they lurch from one lookfilm genre to the next, turned, walked can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the open window cinema, and jumped to his death from the fourth floor.their real lives? Eighteen months later, Erin would be on trial for her husband's murder.|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1523092734Rachel Greenlaw|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van CortCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTeens|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in her life. Again and again and againmy heart.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanJames Sherwood Metts|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in Things have been a bit sticky for the world of the BornEarthlings. It's not AI and automation have been easyproceeding apace, explaining often replacing jobs they're paid to his foster parents where he's been, or slipping back into ordinary life do and forgetting about Inez other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and his starting to think of other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done his bestnew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic.... wellLife was pretty much shut down and, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling along with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awayit, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008444501Matthew Tree|title=The Answer to Everything|author=Luke KennardWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Life should have been good for Emily. She had a lovely husband, StevenTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, who was a speech therapist. We'll pass over the fact that they rarely speak to each other drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and don't even sleep in the same bed. It isn't so much that Emily has left the marital bed as that she's sharing a bed with one who had endless crises of her children as it's the only way to get him to sleep during the nightself confidence. Arthur and Matty are gorgeous but they are a handful and Emily has a job So Tim applied himself to cope with too - she teaches drama two days a week. They've not long moved into a new home in Criterion Gardens: it's a trendy area that has been gentrified and it's run on semi-communal lines. The residents even share eco-friendly electric cars his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than owning their ownhis daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241985137A G Slatter|title=The Whole Truth (D I Fawley)|author=Cara HunterBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants 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.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to 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 Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.
|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529900360
|title=The Ghost Orchid
|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Adam FawleyIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's team got to Edith Launceleve College firstfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, called there by Jancis Appleby Sturgis was reluctant to see the Principal, Professor Hilary Reynoldsask for his help on difficult cases. There had been an accusation His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of sexual assault by a professor on psychologist only worked for a studentwhile. When Fawley arrived he Finally, it was almost cross: what was the alleged perpetrator doing in the room before theyRobin, Delaware'd even got the details from s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the victim? The problem involvement was something that Caleb Morgan ''was'' the 'victim' and the alleged perpetrator was Professor Marina Fisherman she loved needed. Just to complicate matters further, Caleb's mother is Petra NewsonThe next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the local MP, and Professor Fisher is swimming pool of a big name remote property in Artificial IntelligenceBel Air. She has He was the heir to an eight-year-old son, buys her wine by the case from Berry Brothers & Rudd, spends more than £1000 a month on clothes Italian shoe empire and has more than ten thousand Twitter followers. When the excrement encounters the ventilation equipment, this she is going married to be an extremely rich man and it''very'' publics not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker1529395224|title=A Tattoo on my BrainLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Alzheimer's is Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a disease that slowly wears away your identity GP and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel diseaseRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected particularly when he considered the elements. It seems as if nature wants strain that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbsbeing on-call put on his father' memoir so admirables life. Daniel Gibbs is When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a neurologist family friend who was diagnosed a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with Alzheimers and has documented so many students - been his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain'dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|isbn=1108838936
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=16358623530861541774|title=The Sandalmaking WorkshopA Nye of Pheasants|author=Rachel CorrySteve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=A sandal-making workshop? I couldnDCI Domenic Jejeune't really believe its close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, mainly because I'd always thought Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that you'd need more equipment than the average home he was likely to be able to contain but I was intriguedfacing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Rachel Corry started sandal making accidentally - Initially, he faced a small fire destroyed some charge of her shoesmanslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. One pair had come apart and she Now he could see how be facing the sandal was constructeddeath penalty. Then she realised that she couldn't afford Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to replace all her shoes. Could she combine these two facts to create help as any interference from another police force could provoke a new diplomatic incident and worthwhile craft? She showed quite a few people her first pair and they wouldn't help Danny at all either wanted to know how to do it - or if she'd make them a pair. A new career was born.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787332098Alexander McCall Smith|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Henry ManceThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyGeneral Fiction|summary=''When we do think about animalsThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, we break them down into species run by Ness and groups: cows, dogs, foxesoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, elephants and so ontailored service. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and millions of wild animals stay out therelook after the business, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.'' I was going as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to argueget away for a while. I meanKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in so jumps at the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of itchance to come home to Edinburgh. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had Edinburgh we already love, thanks to choose between the company of humans 44 Scotland Street and the company of animalsIsabel Dalhousie novels, I would probably choose the animalsbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. I insisted that I read this book: Katie has no one was trying to stop me experience in running a business, or in match-making, but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggsNess has full confidence in her abilities, chicken and fish there's always her very helpful (and I needed rather handsome) neighbour, William, to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ananda Devi0811771741|title=Eve Out of Her RuinsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary=At not even 200 pages, Eve Out Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of Her Ruins is one knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the shortest books I've read in a long while, but it's one cosy afternoons in front of the most dramaticfire' variety. It The projects are divided by the time they's also told in a way that I can only describe as brutal: it spares nothing ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and pulls very few punchesmore than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, the descriptions stark modern and unromanticuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn=0993009344}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241985137Dean Koontz|title=The Whole Truth (D I Fawley)|author=Cara HunterBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=DI Adam Fawley's team got to Edith Launceleve College first, called there by Jancis Appleby to see the Principal, Professor Hilary Reynolds. There had been an accusation of sexual assault by Benny is having a professor on a studentterrifically bad day. When Fawley arrived He loses his job, he was almost cross: what was the alleged perpetrator doing in the room before they'd even got the details from the victim? The problem was that Caleb Morgan ''was'' the 'victim' loses his fiancee, and the alleged perpetrator was Professor Marina Fisherhis house gets trashed. Just Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to complicate matters furtherhis home, Caleband it's mother possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is Petra Newson, Benny is the local MP, and Professor Fisher very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a big name is Artificial Intelligencenice person. A really nice person. She has an eight-year-old son, buys her wine by So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the case from Berry Brothers & Rudddelivery to his house is a new friend, spends more than £1000 a month on clothes and bad weather friend called Spike, who has more than ten thousand Twitter followersbeen sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. When the excrement encounters the ventilation equipment, this Spike is going to be take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'very'' publics wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0753558378Adam Stower|title=Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters|author=Greg McKeownMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers |summary=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 two. But he's a bad magician'The marginal return 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 working harder frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, in factto be honest, negative.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 ''Yo birthing person''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 answer for both could well be.... no.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711814051529431735|title=NighthawkingThe Winter Visitor|author=Russ ThomasJames Henry|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=SheffieldIt's [http://www.sbg.org.uk/ Botanical Gardens] (on Clarkehouse RoadFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, if you'd like to visit) are an oasis of calm in whatwhich made Bruce Hopkins's otherwise thought of as an industrial city but this was disrupted when return all the body of a young woman was discoveredmore surprising. It had obviously He'd been buried in one of exiled on the beds but who would have started to dig her up? It had been in the earth Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for months and could have been undiscovered for yearsa decade. The police need to establish who stabbed her return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex- and who left the twowife, very rare, gold aurei on her eyes. DCI Diane Jordan is the Investigating Officer saying that she's ill and her foot soldiers are DS Adam Tyler and DC Mina Rabbanihasn't long to live. They're joined by DS Guy Daley whoIt's just returned from extended sick leavehard 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. Mina thinks he's as obnoxious as ever but suspects that he's not fully recovered Is it a warning from his injuries.a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Jennifer Saint Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title= Ariadne |rating= 4.5 |genre= Women's Fiction |summary= This re-telling of the myth of Ariadne and the Minotaur is interesting and unusual. Jennifer Saint presents the story in a way that is sympathetic to its origins but also appealing to a modern audience. Saint's narrative is told predominantly through the viewpoint of Ariadne, spanning from her childhood to her death, allowing the reader to really connect with Ariadne as a character in her own right rather than just a prop in the heroics The Glorious Race of Theseus. |isbn=1472273869}} {{Frontpage|author=Gianna Pollero and Sarah Horne|title=Monster DoughnutsMagical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After their parents mysteriously disappearedEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, Grace and Danni have been left to run in the evening a helper at the family bakerydessert cafe his gran owns and runs. But Grace needs the doughnuts and sweet treats that Danni bakes Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a rather unusual reasongeneration missing in the family...even though she A few short years ago, Eli's only ten years oldparents were both lost to the titular race, she is a monster hunter! Monsters globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have a very sweet tooth, and Grace uses a number to navigate the world in the company of methods to defeat them such as throwing baking powder on them, or tricking them into eating a sweet treat that will, ultimately, be their demisemagical beast. One day, though, Grace finds herself facing This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a cyclops monster called Mr Harrisconfession from gran, who has a weakness for doughnuts but doesn't seem Eli knows his only hope is to dare to explode as enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the other monsters do, and so things start prize of magic at the end – the only thing to get very strange…possibly save his gran.|isbn=18481294320571382231
}}
