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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[: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. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, & self-published 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|plus 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.</metadesc>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ru FreemanSylvie Cathrall|title=A Disobedient GirlLetter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=''A Disobedient Girl'' follows two women struggling There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to retain control of their lives in the face of servitude. Latha is a servant girl to the affluent Vithanage family, whose daughter, Thara, is Latha's agecompelling premise. As children, the girls are the best of friends, but they are destined to be separated by class, which And this is made painfully obvious when boys come into the picture. Meanwhile, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband who beats her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another man's love child. Biso's husband murdered her lover in a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair and she realises that she must escape his house if she and her children are to live. Latha too seeks escape, but she finds it in the arms of Thara's boyfriend and this sets off a chain of events that will echo far into her futurethem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Debby Holt0008517061|title=Recipe For ScandalDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=There's evidently a market for scandalous talesFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, or else many has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a women's weekly would have gone out little uncertainty about the future of business by nowhis life with his vet girlfriend, but this bookLivia and her daughter Diana, though full as moving in together would mean a lot of scandal, compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is slightly different. This isn't council estate scandal or even trashy celebrity scandal, it's juicy, firmly middle class scandal of the type [[:Category:Zoe Heller|Zoë Heller]] might write about, future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and it's wickedly captivatingputting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847396542</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dana Fowley1786482126|title=How Could She?The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=From Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the age of five Dana Fowley site was subjected going to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of the same. She was raped by her motherhold seventy-five 'luxury's partner and taken to apartments - when they discovered the homes bones of her grandparents where she was abused by them and othersa child beneath a doorway. At other times she was forced to go to the homes of other men where she There was raped and abusedno skull. Did her mother not know what was going onWas this a ritual killing or murder? Did Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she turn is pregnant with his child as a blind eye? It was neither result of thosethe one night they spent together some three months ago. Her mother was a willing participant in the abuse and organised much condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of itsickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Robson0008551324|title=Catch|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Catharine's husband Tom is away on business in Birmingham, and so Catharine awakes alone for the first time in their little cottage at the end of their lane. They moved there a few months previously, and since then Catharine has spent her days quietly awaiting her husband's return from work. She is sure that she will figure out, some day, what her purpose in life is. She thought it might be to have a baby, but they have been trying for some time and it hasn't happened as yet. Meanwhile she waits, and thinks, and waits. In the lounge stands her piano, a stark reminder of the life she didn't manage to realise because although she studied music she found, quite quickly, that in spite of being passionate she lacked any kind of talent for it whatsoever. So, on this day, alone at home, Catharine finds herself tormented by the piano's presence and over-thinking every second of the day. She worries away at who she is, and what her life is, as her loneliness and the day itself unravel around her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090232</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Nick Wadley|title=Man + DogNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourCrime|summary=Throughout my life IIt've lived with dogs or deeply regretted s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the fact that I lacked a canine companionpolice. Watching a dog – Neither side likes or better still, has any respect for the interaction between dogs – other. But Davie Hardie is infinitely better than anything on television struggling in prison and ithe's sheer joy prepared to see how man tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and dog interacts who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and howit will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so often, they hold a mirror up and she's even prepared to each do the otherthing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564785521</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jules Stanbridge0008405026|title=A Date Stranger in Your Diarythe Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Harry knows that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but she also knows thereIt's a difference between what we need sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and what we want – and she wants the investigation ground to a blokehalt. More specifically Now, she wants a date for the latest her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in a string of friend-and-family weddingstheir bed. Initially, it looks like a wedding where, thanks to a straightforward murder/suicide but there'tricky' seating plan, she will be sitting on s something about the positioning of the same table as bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her most recent ex..boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and his new girlfriend-shut case is now a complex double murder. With no prospects in sight, Harry comes to the conclusion Kerrigan is convinced that internet dating might be the way to go. At best, sheexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent'll find a guy who ticks all her boxes and will joyfully accompany her to the wedding before they live happily ever afters boss, and at worst, well, she might get a story out of it, never a bad thing for a magazine journoUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347137</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Harker0571379877|title=House of SecretsThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Jane has had to grow up fast. Constantly moving from place to placeEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, never staying in the same school for longobsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and always reminded of her motherStanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's money worriesalso self-obsessed, Jane longs for the kind of life where she can just be a kiddemanding, handsome and entitled and not have uses Edward to deal run errands for him. Edward has been in love with adult problems. When sheStanza since their university days - and he's sent drunkenly confided how he feels to stay at her sisterRobert. Most men in Robert's student digs, the Laurels, things go position would stay away from bad to worse. The Laurels is Stanza or tell Edward that a decrepit Victorian Townhouse, freezing cold, with no food, and to make matters worse, Janerelationship had begun between them but he's sister, Billa, doesn't even want her therenot like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846243572</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen BlackJo Callaghan|title=DishonourLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Modern lives. Lily Valentine When a man is heavily pregnant and trying found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to get the case alongside her own law firm up and running (sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been sacked from her previous job for a tendency to be a trifle too ''independent'' – or maybe just disorganised)very successful with several cold cases. Ryan But when there is a boy from the sink estates. Thinsecond body found crucified a few days later, angry, rebellious, but Kat is suddenly struggling with an ability to charm a potential serial killer and a serious talent for art very high profile case that gets lost in his gansta-speak and tendency draws a lot of unwanted attention to skive off school. Lailla and Aasha are good Muslim girlstheir AI Future Policing project. Hard-working, sober, appropriately dressed, dutiful Will they be able to their families. They're also English teenagers, with a fair dose of what that normally implies. Jack is a copper, overlooked for solve the interesting cases (like murder), good at child protection, case in love with Lilytime, addicted to or will Kat find herself taken off the jobcase and, always trying to do the right thingpotentially, and not always succeeding. His current clean-living and caring attitude is driving Lily to distraction.out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847560725</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Panos Karnezis1399613073|title=The ConventMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Our Lady of Mercy is a small convent Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the Spanish sierra made up first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a handful quarter of devoted nuns who live their lives simplya century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, carrying out their daily duties like clockworkwhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. However things change when Laura is a suitcase containing perfectionist and a newborn baby trauma doctor. Anjali is left mysteriously outside the convent doorsfree spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. The Mother Superior, Sister Maria Ines, believes the baby to be When we first meet them they're at a miracle drug and alcohol-fuelled party and plans it's going to keep him end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the convent, but tragedy or the other sisters do not agreeconsequences. During the events Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that follow will impact the true characters of the nuns inside the convent three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are revealed and the peace that the sisters enjoy is stripped away to show the tension that has been bubbling away under the surfaceinvolved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079344</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joe Meno0241636604|title=The Great PerhapsTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=Jonathan Casper faints when he sees cloudsIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. His wife Madeline worries about everything, not least A hoodie and jeans replaces the way pin-stripe suit and his background is the pigeons that she is studying are murdering each otherEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Their seventeen year old daughter Amelia wants There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to overthrow the evil empire London School of capitalism and Economics. Stevenson is making her own bomb, while fourteen year old Thisbe is looking for God bright - extremely bright - and praying he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to himbe stupid. Jonathan's father It was his ability at what was, seventy six year old Henryessentially, is planning his disappearancea card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Jonathan and Madeline may be on the verge of splitting up Eventually, to the dismay of both daughtersthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512471</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruno Vincent1035021803|title=Grisly Tales from Tumblewater The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Daniel Dorey comes It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the vast and decaying city English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of Tumblewater with high hopes. He wants to study, become a surgeon, work hard and make a better life request for himself. But when the school he enrolled in turns out to be a deserted building, his money is swindled help from himher beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and heCarole's framed for breaking into a shopclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, he's ready to turn round and go say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the countryvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. His last hope is Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to collect be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a volume of local stories for a back-alley publisher. One by onecafe, he hunts down met and married James (on the rebound from the tellers love of these grisly tales her life, who was murdered) and records their words, but it soon becomes evident that he's hiding a dark secret of his own.Freya and James have now divorced..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330479512</amazonuk>
}}
{{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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth KostovaSunny Singh|title=The Swan ThievesHotel Arcadia|rating=23.5|genre=Literary FictionThrillers |summary=1999 – A renowned painter, Robert Oliver, goes mad, attacking The Hotel Arcadia is a painting with luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a knifeterrorist group. He's arrested Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, and sent to a psychiatrist who there is also an artist. The psychiatristSam, Andrew Marlowea wartime photographer and Abhi, can't get his patient the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to talk try to himcare remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, but tries he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to investigate what drove him to this be cowed by talking to his wife and his girlfriendevents, and reading some letters Oliver seems obsessed withkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. 1879 – Beatrice de Clerval Although they only ever talk over the phone, aspiring artist, corresponds with their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her uncle-by-marriage Olivier Vignot, a more experienced painter. Their letters keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be found rescued before they are discovered by Robert Oliver, 120 years later, and will lead to his loss of sanitythe terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442404</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Bowler1529153298|title=Blade: Mixing ItThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=We last saw Blade back in the Beast - the city where it all beganIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. In a last ditch attempt to rescue Jaz (A woman? I mean, the little girl with whom hehonestly...) She's made a genuine connection, henot what's worked the biggest scam of his life and heworrying Miv's risked taking up the knife againfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. He Well, they's also put himself back into the firing line of his greatest enemyve been murdered, the Hawkbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. And he Miv's upset because she's had overheard that her father wants to make contact with move the policefamily 'Down South'. Everything When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is closing ina frightening, foreign place, best avoided. But Blade doesn't just have a hostage For Miv, he also has experiencethe move would mean leaving her best friend, skillSharon, knowledge and a willingness she'll do anything to risk everythingprevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192755994</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Atiq Rahimi1398524085|title=The Patience StoneHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Set in AfghanistanCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, ''The Patience Stone'' is a partly allegorical tale of a Muslim wife tending to Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her comatose soldier husband who has been shot in the neck, Alec, is not. As she cares for him Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, for find the first time ever she is able to speak to him without fear body of censorship and he becomesGreg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for her, like the mythical Patience Stone police to which you tell your troubles make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the stone finally bursts, you guilt. The Salter children are free from your torments. But also this might mean the Apocalypsenot convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184167</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joyce Carol Oates1035906708|title=A Fair MaidenDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=I've recently read the terrific short story collection ''The Female Of The SpeciesWe 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' also by Oates and couldn't wait to start her latest bookmake it more manageable in the States. I felt sure that I When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for a literary treat her voice - and I she was. Firstly, raised under the book itselfNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, a hardback with a beautifully nostalgic cover is a book lover's delightJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847248586</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pamela FreemanChristopher Edge|title=Full Circle (Castings Trilogy)Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=Pamela Freeman's ''Castings'' trilogy is written Lucas and his friends are all booked in an unusual way for a fantasy novelmovie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. It tells the story from the charactersAll big movie fans, they' points re looking forward to lots of viewexciting films, in a style more common to the chick-lit novels of Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees. many, many snacks! This interrupted However, as the flow of the story quite noticeably in ''Blood Ties''movie starts, the first of the trilogythey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, but didnand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't seem quite so much of a distraction in even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the second partnext, ''Deep Water''. can they figure out what on earth is going on? UnfortunatelyWill they ever get back to the cinema, this time around it works against the story.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497037</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she 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 watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John DickinsonJames Sherwood Metts|title=WEPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Paul Munro has Things have been disconnected from a bit sticky for the World Ear in readiness for a mission Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that will last a lifetimetook time to accomplish. Sent Just as they were beginning to get used to man a tiny station built at enormous effort all this technological change and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches starting to think of our solar systemother, he will never be able new ways to returnspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Gravity is one-tenth that of Earth Life was pretty much shut down and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without along with it, all the strength of calcium. ''If he stood many daily social interactions on the Earth now... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.'' It took eight years to get there and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfullywhich they depend so heavily. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jim Lahey Matthew Tree|title=My Bread: the Revolutionary No-work, No-knead MethodWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=It's a long time since I did Home Economics at schoolTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, but a major part drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of it was learning methods, which, I was assured would stand me in good stead for the rest of my life. A Victoria sponge was a careful progression being exceptional at any of creaming and gently adding flour his artistic passions all failed miserably and eggs. A white sauce who had a couple endless crises of these methods, but essentially it meant working through a series of instructions until they became second natureself confidence. Bread was the worst requiring fermentingSo Tim applied himself to his studies, kneading, proving cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and then more kneading and risingset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393066304</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar 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}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amy V Fetzer and Shari Aaron1529900360|title=Climb the Green Ladder: Make Your Company and Career More SustainableThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Business and FinanceCrime|summary=With It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the abject failure help of the Denmark Climate Change Conference fresh in our mindsa psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it is perhaps time to turn away from was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the politicians and man she loved needed. The next case did look back toward what we can dosimple, though. The Conference may have finally got Two lovers were murdered in the likes swimming pool of the USA, India and China to acknowledge that they have to join a remote property in if we are going to save Bel Air. He was the planet as a benevolent place for our species heir to live, but there an Italian shoe empire and she is still too much posturing married to an extremely rich man and it's not enough commitmentthe Italian. Clearly our governments and 'leaders' are not going to do this for us; we have to do it for ourselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>047074801X</amazonuk>But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jaki Scarcello1529395224|title=Fifty and FabulousLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Best Years Secret Life of a Woman's LifeVet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=LifestyleAnimals and Wildlife|summary=When you open Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a package GP and find a bright pink book which proudly proclaims Rowlands didn'Fifty and Fabulous: t want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the best years of a womanstrain that being on-call put on his father's life' you can be forgiven for wondering if this is going to be another . When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of those books which recommends strenuous exercise regimes, strict diets and just doing work experience with a family friend who was a little nip vet and tuck under was convinced this was the chinjob for him. PersonallyBefore long, my heart sank becausehe was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, er, well, Ihe'm no longer fiftyd wanted to be a professional footballer. Were my fabulous years behind me?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906787603</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Birch0861541774|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive BiographyA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Ian Dury was always one of the most individualDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, even contrary characters has taken a short holiday in the musical worldSingapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. In Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as man armed with a short cut to stardom, knife - and he was no oil paintingkilled a Ghurka. During the pub rock eraInitially, he and his group, the Blockheads, ploughed faced a lonely furrow which owed more charge of manslaughter but evidence came to jazz-funk than rock'n'roll, and his songs extolled light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or Californiaman. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom Now he competed for inches in could be facing the rock press, he was comparatively middle-ageddeath penalty. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a permanent 'raspberry ripplediplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Glenn CooperAlexander McCall Smith|title=Book of SoulsThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Area 51 is not what you think it The Perfect Passion Company isa dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. No - all that UFO kerfuffle Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a smokescreen for the powers that be trip to hide even better the most unusual manuscript known Canada to (get away for a handful while. Katie is coming out of) mankind - a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the most unearthlychance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, singularbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and unsettling bookthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, in thousands and thousands of volumesbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. All except one, which is about to come under the hammer Katie has no experience in running a London auction house. Our hero Will Piper must go very reluctantly on the trail of it and its secretsbusiness, a trail which will force him and others to become entangled with shadowy agentsor in match-making, who but Ness has full confidence in turn know the very day of all their enemyher abilities, and there's deaths.always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099534479</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sharon Owens0811771741|title=The Seven Secrets of HappinessInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrafts|summary=It was hard Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to think that life wasnblankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 't perfect for Ruby Olong, cosy afternoons in front of the fire'Neillvariety. She 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 Jonathan had an idyllic marriage 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=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a beautiful hometerrifically bad day. There was a He loses his job in , he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a dress shop which she enjoyed really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and although she might not be close it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to her parents she had good friendsdeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. It was Christmas Eve and So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the tree had just delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been delivered by sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a lovely man on behalf good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of the garden centre when her world fell apart. Jonathan had been killed in Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a car crashwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141028564</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan SkinnerAdam Stower|title=Furnaces of ForgeMurray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=In this [[Blue Fire Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and Ice (The Land) by Alan Skinner|sequel]]friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, itwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's almost as you werecat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, except here and the mysterious powers of catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the blue flame are not being used by some outlander arsonistregular back garden, but have been usurped by two inept young scientists from the Myrmidots, to fuel their industryinto a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. We can predict this will prove This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a bad thingtroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, but the breadth of the journey to capture the flamebe honest, but he's turned up and the efforts of all our returning characters he'll have to put things right might still be a surprise.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955726859</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark SimpsonB0C47LV1PC|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian'sFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during the 1950s when Can you make a more gentle humour was ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the order of question should you make it? Or is the day. Yet the man hated and question if you did his best to avoid publicity, claiming would it land? The catch is that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about himanswer for both could well be.... How he would have fared twenty years later in the age of a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonderno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=P Robert Smith1529431735|title=Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy EndingsThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=3.54|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It''Sunday Daffodil s February 1991 and Other Happy EndingsEssex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'return all the more surprising. He' is d been exiled on the sort of book you finish with the feeling Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that youshe's ill and hasn've just read something with a million different meaningst long to live. Don It't be surprised if you s hard to feel like you should start the whole thing again but with your brain more fully engagedany sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and perhaps that's sent to a watery grave in the whole pointboot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535238</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dai Sijie Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Once on a Moonless NightThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=3.54|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=A French female scholar, studying in China, finds herself caught up in the search for Eli is a lost, sacred text that was inscribed on busy lad – by day an ancient scroll. The scroll was torn apprentice in two the wondrous library we start by Emperor Puyi years agovisiting with him, and was lost. After falling in love with the evening a young grocer called Tumchooq helper at the young woman becomes caught up in tales within tales, as she finds that Tumchooq's father found dessert cafe his gran owns and translated half of the missing scroll and became obsessed runs. Eli lives with finding the other halfhis lovely gran, and soon Tumchooq too becomes embroiled – for there is a generation missing in the searchfamily.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521326</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicholas Stern|title= A Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How We Can Save few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the World and Create Prosperity|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The hardback edition of 'A Blueprint for titular race, a Safer Planet' was published early in 2009 as an update globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the 2006 Stern Review on world in the economics company of climate changea magical beast. Now here is This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the paperback editioneatery leads to a confession from gran, published too early Eli knows his only hope is to dare to critique Copenhagenenter what he most hates, but nonetheless an interesting read. Stern is an expert witness who presents with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his evidence understandably for the layman; he is unemotional and very convincinggran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099524058</amazonuk>0571382231
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