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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>
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__ ==The Best New Books== '''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br> '''Read [[:Category:Features|new the latest features]].'''__NOTOC__'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jethro AdlingtonSylvie Cathrall|title=Online Therapy: Reading Between A Letter to the LinesLuminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=You can get most things online these days and even therapy is becoming more widely available on the internetFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. It might seem like There’s perhaps a simple step to take but many little uncertainty about the future of the signals beyond the spoken word are not available to the online therapist. In his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a facelot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to-face situation body language move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is an added form of communication the future she wants for herself and even small changes her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in skin tone can give clues as to state of mind. In a situation where these clues are not available it's essential to make the most of ''all'' present and putting the clues offered by future on the written wordback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312748</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laurie Halse Anderson1786482126|title=ChainsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Isabel and her sister Ruth are slaves. But Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they should be free - Miss Mary Finch left discovered the bones of a child beneath a will that said sodoorway. But Miss Mary Finch is dead and her greedy nephew and heir denies all knowledge of the will There was no skull. So Isabel and Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth are sold to the Locktons and taken to New YorkGalloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The Revolutionary War is underway and New York It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a dangerous placeresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. The Locktons are loyalists Her condition will be obvious before long, but the patriots are in control not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of the citysickness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747598061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lorraine Jenkin0008551324|title=Chocolate Mousse and Two SpoonsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=From It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the first sentence: other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he'With one hell s prepared to tell the police where the body of a crash, Lettie Howell’s dinner service hit the wall…', I knew that I missing person is buried and who was going to enjoy this taleresponsible for her death. An opening thus full of expletive This person, he promises, is someone big and resounding Welsh Voice immediately makes it clear who’s will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the boss remainder of his sentence and I can relax, knowing I’m in competent handsto get an early parole date. Welcome, Lorraine JenkinNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to my handful of favourite chickdo the other thing that Hardie demanded -lit authorsmake certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1870206959</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Wolfe0008405026|title=The Bonfire of A Stranger in the VanitiesFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=In his own mind, bond trader Sherman McCoy is a It'Master of s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the Universe'investigation ground to a halt. He has a pleasant wife Now, her mother, a beautiful mistressHelena, and a sweet six year old daughterher father are dead in their bed. Henry Lamb is a black student from the projects. Under normal circumstances Initially, itlooks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's clear something about the positioning of the bodies that McCoy's world makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and Lamb's world would never overlapher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. But when McCoy What looked as though it was going to be an open-and his mistress Maria Ruskin end up lost -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in the Bronx, and an accident leads to Lamb being hit by McCoyRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's Mercedesboss, a chain of events start which will lead to his downfallUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548798</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michelle Harrison0571379877|title=The Thirteen CursesKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Red Edward Jevons is backa working-class young man, but sheobsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's trapped in the fairy realma theatre director. Having swapped places with Tanya He's also self-obsessed, she is bound theredemanding, but is still desperate to get both her handsome and her brother back into the human world. She must seek an audience with the fairy court, but the realm is full of deception entitled and cruelty – it will be a challenge just uses Edward to get thererun errands for him. And guess what happens when she gets there? She is set another challenge, twisted Edward has been in love with the cruelty of the Unseelie (Boo! Hiss!) court. Whilst the journey goes on, she reflects on her past: the car crash that killed her parents Stanza since their university days - and her time at the childrenhe's homedrunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Meanwhile, Tanya has returned to Elvesden Manor for half term and letMost men in Robert's just say position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that her ability a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to see fairies comes back into use when stumble upon the new housekeeper and her pesky parrot land her and Fabian and the whole Manor crew into trouble with the little peopletwo of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384501</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate Cole-AdamsJo Callaghan|title=Walking to the MoonLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=We meet the main character Jessica, or Jess as she When a man is usually called, deep in an emotional black hole. She can see no light at found crucified on the end top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the tunnel. And right from the start, right from page onecase alongside her sidekick, we have a sense of the beautiful and poetic language of Cole-AdamsAI detective Lock. It'Time and I have a new arrangements their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. We leave each other alone.' And indeed time But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is not important in this novelsuddenly 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. We have all Will they be able to solve the case in time in , or will Kat find herself taken off the world would probably be the motto case and, potentially, out of the medical staff - if they had one. a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849161348</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nancy Farmer1399613073|title=The Islands of the Blessed (Sea of Trolls Trilogy) Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=In this third adventureOlivia, JackLaura 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 fourteen year old Saxon apprentice bard, perfectionist and Thorgil, a bad-tempered shield maiden, follow trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the Bard Dragon Tongue on group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a quest drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to quell end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the draugr consequences. Twenty- five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the malevolent spirit of a drowned mermaid mistakenly summoned three friends. to JackThis time, it's village and their teenage children who seeks revenge for her earlier ill treatment at human handsare involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738630X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie McKenzie0241636604|title=The Hostage (Medusa Project)Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=Teenagers Nico, KittyIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, Ed and Dylan were implanted with the Medusa gene when they were babies. Now theyyou're adolescents, unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the intended psychic abilities are coming to pin-stripe suit and his background is the foreEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Nico has There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the power London School of telekinesis Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can move objects with his mindonly envy. Ed can read other He also realised that most rich people expect poor people's thoughtsto be stupid. Dylan has It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an invisible protective shield and no weapon can harm herinternship with Citibank. Kitty has visions that predict the future Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385265</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Garth Nix1035021803|title=Into Battle (The Seventh Tower)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=WeIt've made it s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to book five in Garth Nixthe English country village where she grew up. She's Seventh Tower series, so back now because of a quick recap: The Dark World is blocked request for help from the Sun by an enchanted Veil created by Talher beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's forebears to protect it from the creatures who inhabit Aenir - a spirit land full of magic former mentor and magical beasts.Aenir Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is lit dead and warmed by the Suncircumstances seem suspicious, but to say the least. Arthur was the Dark World uses sunstones - crystals grown and charged with light and heat reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in Aenirbusiness together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Some inhabitants of After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the Dark World - rebound from the Chosen - also bind some love of Aenir's creatures to themselves as spiritshadows or spiritguardsher life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007261233</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=John GrimsonSunny Singh|title=The Isle of Man: Portrait of a NationHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=HistoryThrillers |summary=To many of us, the Isle of Man The Hotel Arcadia is probably best known for the Tynwald, the annual TT motorcycle races, and as a holiday resortluxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. I must admit that my knowledge of it extended little further than thatHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, and therefore found this book invaluable. In these 550 pagesthere is Sam, profusely illustrated with photographs a wartime photographer and mapsAbhi, I imagine that few if any questions on the subject are left unansweredhotel manager. John Grimson has lived there As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for nearly forty yearsthe residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and as well as working with several keeps on venturing out of the islandher room to try to capture what's local authoritieshappened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, was active their friendship grows as a long-distance runner Abhi tries to help her keep safe and cyclist until his early seventiesthey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709081030</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ru Freeman1529153298|title=A Disobedient GirlThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what'A Disobedient Girls worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they' follows two women struggling ve been murdered, but to retain control of their lives in the face of servitudehave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Latha is a servant girl Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the affluent Vithanage family'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, whose daughterDown South is a frightening, Tharaforeign place, is Latha's agebest avoided. As children For Miv, the girls are the move would mean leaving her best of friendsfriend, but they are destined to be separated by class, which is made painfully obvious when boys come into the picture. MeanwhileSharon, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband who beats her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another manshe's love childll do anything to prevent that. Biso She's husband murdered her lover in a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair and she realises not worried about the dangers or 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 TharaMum's boyfriend and this sets off a chain of events that will echo far into her futurestopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Debby Holt1398524085|title=Recipe For ScandalHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=ThereCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's evidently a market for scandalous talesfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, or else many a women's weekly would have gone out of business by nowPaul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but this book- strangely - her husband, though full of scandalAlec, is slightly differentnot. This isn't council estate scandal or even trashy celebrity scandal Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, itfind the body of Greg's juicyfather, Duncan Ackerley, firmly middle class scandal of in the river. It was an easy assumption for the type [[:Category:Zoe Heller|Zoë Heller]] might write about, police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and itthen committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's wickedly captivatinglittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847396542</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dana Fowley1035906708|title=How Could She?Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=From the age We tend to think of five Dana Fowley Maria Callas as Greek, but she was subjected born to unimaginable sexual abuse Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and before long her sister would be subjected only moved to more of the sameAthens when she was thirteen. She Her original surname was raped by Kalogeropoulos but her motherfather changed it to 'Callas's partner and taken to make it more manageable in the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them and othersStates. At other times When she was forced to go to the homes of other men where back in Athens - supposedly so that she was raped and abused. Did could get appropriate training for her mother not know what voice - she was going on? Did she turn raised under the Nazi occupation by a blind eye? It was neither of those. Her mother was a willing participant in the abuse who mercilessly exploited her and organised much made no secret of ither preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon RobsonChristopher Edge|title=CatchBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=Catharine's husband Tom is away on business Lucas and his friends are all booked in Birmingham, and so Catharine awakes alone for the first time in their little cottage a movie marathon at the end of their lane. They moved there local cinema, a few months previously, and since then Catharine place that has spent her days quietly awaiting her husbandthe nickname of 'The Black Hole'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 babyAll big movie fans, but they have been trying for some time and it hasn't happened as yet. Meanwhile she waitsre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and thinksmany, and waits. many snacks! In the lounge stands her pianoHowever, a stark reminder of as the life she didn't manage to realise because although she studied music she foundmovie starts, quite they very quickly, realise that in spite of being passionate she lacked any kind of talent for it whatsoever. So, on something about this daynew film format is very different, alone at home, Catharine finds herself tormented by the pianoand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's presence and over-thinking every second of the dayt even imagine. She worries away at who she isBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, and can they figure out what her life on earth isgoing on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, as her loneliness and the day itself unravel around her.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090232</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick WadleyRachel Greenlaw|title=Man + Dog|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Throughout my life I've lived with dogs or deeply regretted the fact that I lacked a canine companion. Watching a dog – or better still, the interaction between dogs – is infinitely better than anything on television and it's sheer joy to see how man Compass and dog interacts and how, so often, they hold a mirror up to each other.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564785521</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jules Stanbridge|title=A Date in Your Diary|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Harry knows that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but she also knows there's a difference between what we need and what we want – and she wants a bloke. More specifically, she wants a date for the latest in a string of friend-and-family weddings, a wedding where, thanks to a 'tricky' seating plan, she will be sitting on the same table as her most recent ex...and his new girlfriend. With no prospects in sight, Harry comes to the conclusion that internet dating might be the way to go. At best, she'll find a guy who ticks all her boxes and will joyfully accompany her to the wedding before they live happily ever after, and at worst, well, she might get a story out of it, never a bad thing for a magazine journo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347137</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diane Harker|title=House of SecretsBlade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jane has had to grow up fast. Constantly moving from place to place, never staying in ''I can hear the same school for long, and always reminded song of her mother's money worries, Jane longs for the kind sea. The call of life where she can just be a kidthe deep, and not have to deal with adult problemsthe answering beat in my heart. ''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen BlackJames Sherwood Metts|title=DishonourPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Modern lives. Lily Valentine is heavily pregnant and trying to get her own law firm up and running (having Things have been sacked from her previous job a bit sticky for a tendency to be a trifle too ''independent'' – or maybe just disorganised). Ryan is a boy from the sink estatesEarthlings. ThinAI and automation have been proceeding apace, angry, rebellious, but with an ability often replacing jobs they're paid to charm do and a serious talent for art other tasks that gets lost in his gansta-speak and tendency took time to skive off schoolaccomplish. Lailla Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and Aasha are good Muslim girls. Hard-working, sober, appropriately dressedstarting to think of other, dutiful new ways to their families. They're also English teenagersspend time, with a fair dose of what that normally impliesalong came an awful pandemic. Jack is a copperLife was pretty much shut down and, overlooked for the interesting cases (like murder), good at child protection, in love along with Lilyit, addicted to all the job, always trying to do the right thing, and not always succeeding. His current clean-living and caring attitude is driving Lily to distractionmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847560725</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jonathan Casper faints when he sees clouds. His wife Madeline worries about everything, not least the way the pigeons that she is studying are murdering each other. Their seventeen year old daughter Amelia Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to overthrow the evil empire be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of capitalism being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and is making her own bomb, while fourteen year old Thisbe is looking for God and praying who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to him. Jonathan's fatherhis studies, seventy six year old Henry, is planning cultivated his abilities rather than his disappearance. Jonathan daydreams and Madeline may be on the verge of splitting up, to the dismay of both daughtersset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330512471</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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dervla Murphy1529900360|title=The Island That Dared: Journeys in CubaGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=TravelCrime|summary=In her latest literary outing, the now elderly and increasingly opinionated travel writer and veteran cyclist Dervla Murphy describes a series of trips to Cuba. The opening section deals with a family trip in late 2005. Readers who have followed DervlaIt hadn's books from the beginning will have grown up with Rachel, the authort been Lt Milo Sturgis's daughterfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, who accompanied her Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on a number of trips between difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the ages help of five and eighteena psychologist only worked for a while. Now Dervla travels with Rachel and Rachel Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's three young daughterspartner, Clodagh, Rose and Zea, known who nudged Milo into asking for ease throughout help again. She knew that the book as ''involvement was something that the Trio''man she loved needed. The middle section sees Dervla return alone to spend several months trekking in places such as the Sierra del Escambray mountainsnext case did look simple, and though. Two lovers were murdered in the final third swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the book, Dervla returns heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the city Italian. But which of Santa Clara for them was the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the death of Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190601146X</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Kostova1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Swan ThievesSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=23.5|genre=Literary FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=1999 – A renowned painter, Robert Oliver, goes mad, attacking Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a painting with a knife. He's arrested, GP and sent to a psychiatrist who is also an artist. The psychiatrist, Andrew Marlowe, canRowlands didn't get want to follow in his patient to talk to himfootsteps, but tries to investigate what drove him to this by talking to particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his wife father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and his girlfriendwas convinced this was the job for him. Before long, and reading some letters Oliver seems obsessed withhe was at Liverpool University. 1879 – Beatrice de Clerval, aspiring artist, corresponds It hadn't - as with her uncleso many students -by-marriage Olivier Vignot, been his dream since he was a more experienced painterchild. Their letters will be found by Robert Oliver If anything, 120 years later, and will lead he'd wanted to his loss of sanitybe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847442404</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Bowler0861541774|title=Blade: Mixing It|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=We last saw Blade back in the Beast - the city where it all began. In a last ditch attempt to rescue Jaz, the little girl with whom he's made a genuine connection, he's worked the biggest scam of his life and he's risked taking up the knife again. He's also put himself back into the firing line of his greatest enemy, the Hawk. And he's had to make contact with the police. Everything is closing in. But Blade doesn't just have a hostage, he also has experience, skill, knowledge and a willingness to risk everything... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192755994</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Atiq Rahimi|title=The Patience Stone|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Set in Afghanistan, ''The Patience Stone'' is a partly allegorical tale of a Muslim wife tending to her comatose soldier husband who has been shot in the neck. As she cares for him, for the first time ever she is able to speak to him without fear A Nye of censorship and he becomes, for her, like the mythical Patience Stone to which you tell your troubles and when the stone finally bursts, you are free from your torments. But also this might mean the Apocalypse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184167</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPheasants|author=Joyce Carol Oates|title=A Fair Maiden|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I've recently read the terrific short story collection ''The Female Of The Species'' also by Oates and couldn't wait to start her latest book. I felt sure that I was in for a literary treat - and I was. Firstly, the book itself, a hardback with a beautifully nostalgic cover is a book lover's delight.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847248586</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pamela Freeman|title=Full Circle (Castings Trilogy)Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=Pamela FreemanDCI Domenic Jejeune's ''Castings'' trilogy is written in an unusual way for a fantasy novel. It tells the story from the characters' points of view, in a style more common to the chick-lit novels of Josie Lloyd close friend and Emlyn Rees. This interrupted the flow of the story quite noticeably in ''Blood Ties''former colleague, the first of the trilogyDanny Maik, but didn't seem quite so much of has taken a distraction short holiday in the second partSingapore to meet up with an old ally, ''Deep Water''Guy Trueman. Unfortunately, this time around it works against the story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497037</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Dickinson|title=WE|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected from the World Ear Maik was involved in readiness for a mission street brawl - he would later maintain that will last he was facing a lifetime. Sent to man armed with a tiny station built at enormous effort knife - and expense on he killed a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar systemGhurka. Initially, he will never be able faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to return. Gravity is one-tenth light that suggested that of Earth and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without he might have planned to murder the strength of calciumman. ''If Now he stood on could be facing the Earth nowdeath penalty... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.'' It took eight years Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to get there help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfullywouldn't help Danny at all. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jim Lahey Alexander McCall Smith|title=My Bread: the Revolutionary No-work, No-knead MethodThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=CookeryGeneral Fiction|summary=It's The Perfect Passion Company is a long time since I did Home Economics at schooldating agency in Edinburgh, but run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a major part of it was learning methodsmore personal, whichtailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, I was assured would stand me in good stead as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for the rest of my lifea while. A Victoria sponge was Katie is coming out of a break up with a careful progression of creaming bad boyfriend, and gently adding flour and eggsso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. A white sauce had a couple of these methodsAnd 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 essentially it meant working through a series of instructions until they became second naturewith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Bread was the worst requiring fermentingKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, kneadingbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, proving and then more kneading there's always her very helpful (and rising.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393066304</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amy V Fetzer and Shari Aaron0811771741|title=Climb the Green Ladder: Make Your Company and Career More SustainableInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Business and FinanceCrafts|summary=With the abject failure Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the Denmark Climate Change Conference fresh 'long, cosy afternoons in our minds, it is perhaps time to turn away from front of the politicians and look back toward what we can dofire' variety. The Conference may have finally got projects are divided by the likes of the USAtime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, India and China five to acknowledge that they have ten hours, ten to join in if we twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are going to save the planet as a benevolent place for our species to liveattractive, but there is still too much posturing modern and not enough commitmentuseable. Clearly our governments and I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'leadersbut that' are not going to do this for us; we have to do it for ourselvess me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>047074801X</amazonuk>
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|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyParanormal|summary=Ian Dury was always one of the most individual, even contrary characters in the musical worldBenny is having a terrifically bad day. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardomHe loses his job, he was no oil paintingloses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. During the pub rock eraOh, he and his groupsomeone has delivered a really weird, the Blockheads, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more disturbing coffin-sized object to jazz-funk than rock'n'rollhis home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his songs extolled house! The thing is, Benny is the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or Californiavery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed So fortunately for inches in Benny it turns out that the rock pressdelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, he was comparatively middle-agedwho has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. As Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if that was not enoughhe, Benny, in his own words childhood illness had left him and Harper (a permanent 'raspberry ripplewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Glenn CooperAdam Stower|title=Book of SoulsMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=Area 51 Murray is not what you think it is. No - all that UFO kerfuffle is a smokescreen for the powers that supposed to be to hide even better the most unusual manuscript known to (a handful of) mankind - the most unearthlyhumble, singulartidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and unsettling book, in thousands and thousands well, whatever takes his fancy next of volumesthe two. All except oneBut he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, which is about to come under not into the hammer in regular back garden, but into a London auction houseworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. Our hero Will Piper must go very reluctantly on the trail of This time round it and its secretsdrops them into a Viking land, where a trail which will force him and others troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to become entangled with shadowy agentsbe honest, who in turn know the very day of all their enemybut he's deaths.turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099534479</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sharon OwensB0C47LV1PC|title=The Seven Secrets of HappinessFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=It was hard to think 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 life wasn't perfect the answer for Ruby O'Neillboth could well be.. She and Jonathan had an idyllic marriage and a beautiful home. There was a job in a dress shop which she enjoyed and although she might not be close to her parents she had good friends. It was Christmas Eve and the tree had just been delivered by a lovely man on behalf of the garden centre when her world fell apartno.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Skinner1529431735|title=Furnaces of ForgeThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=3.54|genre=TeensCrime|summary=In this [[Blue Fire It's February 1991 and Ice (The Land) by Alan Skinner|sequel]]Essex is bitingly cold, itwhich made Bruce Hopkins's almost as you were, except here return all the mysterious powers of more surprising. He'd been exiled on the blue flame are not being used by some outlander arsonist, but have been usurped by two inept young scientists Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from the Myrmidotshis ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to fuel their industrylive. We can predict this will prove a bad thingIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, but the breadth of the journey stripped to capture the flame, his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the efforts boot of all our returning characters to put things right might still be a surprisestolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955726859</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark SimpsonAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles Glorious Race of St Trinian'sMagical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyConfident Readers|summary=The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during the 1950s when Eli is a more gentle humour was the order of the busy lad – by day. Yet the man hated and did his best to avoid publicity, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about him. How he would have fared twenty years later an apprentice in the age of a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonder.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Saci Lloyd|title=The Carbon Diaries 2017|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=It's been a year since wondrous library we read a diary entry from Laura Brown. We left her start by visiting with a boyfriend him, and just about adjusted to in the evening a Britain in helper at the full throes of carbon rationingdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Her nu-punk band Eli lives with his lovely gran, ''dirty angels'', hadn't quite made it, but things were looking rather promising too – for its future. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970162</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P Robert Smith|title=Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy Endings|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy Endings'' there is the sort of book you finish with the feeling that you've just read something with a million different meanings. Don't be surprised if you feel like you should start the whole thing again but with your brain more fully engaged, and perhaps that's the whole point.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535238</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dai Sijie |title=Once on a Moonless Night|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A French female scholar, studying in China, finds herself caught up generation missing in the search for a lost, sacred text that was inscribed on an ancient scrollfamily. The scroll was torn in two by Emperor Puyi A few short years ago, and was Eli's parents were both lost. After falling in love with to the titular race, a young grocer called Tumchooq globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the young woman becomes caught up world in tales within tales, as she finds that Tumchooq's father found and translated half the company of a magical beast. This has made the missing scroll and became obsessed with finding race anathema to the other half, and soon Tumchooq too becomes embroiled in the search.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521326</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicholas Stern|title=A Blueprint for pair – but when a Safer Planet: How We Can Save bad incident at the World and Create Prosperity|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The hardback edition of 'A Blueprint for eatery leads to a Safer Planet' was published early in 2009 as an update confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the 2006 Stern Review on sole aim the economics prize of climate change. Now here is magic at the end – the paperback edition, published too early only thing to critique Copenhagen, but nonetheless an interesting read. Stern is an expert witness who presents possibly save his evidence understandably for the layman; he is unemotional and very convincinggran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099524058</amazonuk>0571382231
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