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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=Chinua AchebeSylvie Cathrall|title=The Education of a British-Protected ChildA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyScience Fiction|summary=This There are few greater joys than a book is which lives up to a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958compelling premise. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africa. Some of the essays are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for And this book, particularly many is one of the more personal pieces about Achebe's familythem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Norman Russell0008517061|title=The Calton PapersDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=3.54|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Philip Garamond had had an abiding interest in botany since Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his teens and when we first meet him he's on his way to Sotheby's intent on making rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a bid for little uncertainty about the Calton Papers. Sir George Calton's papers include an unpublished account future of Darwin's explorations on the Beaglehis life with his vet girlfriend, some letters Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a geographical survey lot of 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 the British Isles. future she wants for herself and her daughter? Garamond's ambition had always been to own a botanical garden on Madeira, but he lacked For the moment they’re enjoying life in the funds present and putting the Calton Papers seemed to be as close as he would get to owning something specialfuture on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089546</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie 1786482126|title=Legacy and Spellbound The Janus Stone (WickedDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Holly Cathers has returned, and Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this timea ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, sheDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's more powerful than ever. The war between difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the House of Cahors witches and House of Deveraux warlocks still rages on, and only one side night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will eventually triumphbe obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738689X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kees van Deemter0008551324|title=Not Exactly - In Praise Of VaguenessThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=Popular ScienceCrime|summary=How warm It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a warm day? Or rathermissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, given the weather at the momenthe promises, how chilly is a chilly day? Is someone big and it better will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to know I want a small helping serve the remainder of peashis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, or is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to know do the other thing that I want 82 peas? There are times when vagueness Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is more useful than being specific. Kees van Deemter makes this point, sharing many examples kept well away from a number of fields, including maths, philosophy, linguistics and AIwhat's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199545901</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Wormell0008405026|title=One Smart FishA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Many, many, many It's sixteen years ago, the ocean was full of amazing fishsince nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. The most amazing fish She was never found and the investigation ground to a boring-looking silver fish, who was smarter than all the othershalt. He played chess (against himself) Now, drew pictures and performed plays. One dayher mother, he decided to see what life was like on landHelena, so he invented feet and went for a walkher father are dead in their bed. Yep Initially, you've guessed it: itlooks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's a picture book something about evolution.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083546</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stevie Davies|title=Into Suez|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=We are introduced to the main characters Ailsa and Joe Roberts positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and their young daughter, Niaher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Joe is a downWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-toand-earth Welshman who's been posted to Egypt with the RAF. They are making shut case is now a new and exciting life for themselves amidst the heat and poverty of the Middle Eastcomplex double murder. Ailsa Kerrigan is English, rather headstrong and clever. Her parents said she'd 'convinced that the brain of a boy.explanation lies in Rosalie' There are two strands to the novel which interweave throughouts disappearance: the 1950s which see the early married life of Joe and Ailsa and then thereothers (such as Derwent's the post-invasion of Iraq period when the grown-up Nia returns to Egypt to lay some ghostsboss, as it wereUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906998000</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Norah Vincent0571379877|title=Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony BinThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jamie MeldonEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, ex-criminalobsessed with his upper-defence attorneyclass friends, now in private practice, leaves his office very late one nightRobert and Stanza. HeRobert's met by the FBIa theatre director. Very shortly afterwards Jamie Meldon is dead in a dumpster. Mace Perry is working outHe's also self-obsessed, trying to stay fitdemanding, trying handsome and entitled and uses Edward to stay sane, trying to stay alive long enough to get out jail run errands for him. Edward has been in a couple of love with Stanza since their university days- and he' times drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Perry was Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a cop. Under-cover, maverick and darn good at her job. Until she ended up stoned on meth, busted for robbery, convicted and sent downdark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706134</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David BaldwinJo Callaghan|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the RosesLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Due to When a man is found crucified on the small amount top of surviving personal sourcesa hill in Nuneaton, any book which purports DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to be the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a biography of second body found crucified a 15-century subject few days later, Kat is almost inevitably going to be more suddenly struggling with a 'life potential serial killer and times' than a lifevery high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. In Will they be able to solve the case of women who were sisters but not sovereigns in time, or consorts themselveswill Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, the lack out of data will be even more acute.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fred Vargas1399613073|title=The Chalk Circle ManMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeThrillers|summary=Meet Jean-Baptiste AdamsbergOlivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. An unlikely police commissaireOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, he's an acquired taste for his colleagueswhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Short, ungainly, seemingly thinking about Anjali is the most obtuse things in his pursuit free spirit of the truth, group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and endlessly doodling, but beneath his deathly slow speech alcohol-fuelled party and unexpected diversions into his childhood comes a surprisingly perceptive ability it's going to find end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the culprit in whatever crime he is forced to solveconsequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099488973</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Reidy and Genevieve Leloup0241636604|title=Too Purply!The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary=It's time for schoolIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, but the young girl and her tortoise donyou't want re unlikely to wear any think of their clothessomeone like Gary Stevenson. They're too purply, too tickly, too puckery A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, too pricklywhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and so injustice. There was no posh public school onhis CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. You get the idea Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Adjectives abound in Eventually, this fun getting dressed bookturned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803151</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Isadora1035021803|title=The Twelve Dancing PrincessesAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Bookbag recently loved Rachel IsadoraIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's take on [[The Night Before Christmas by Rachel Isadora close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and Clement Clarke Moore|The Night Before Christmas]]the circumstances seem suspicious, which put to say the classic Christmas poem least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in an African setting. This time roundbusiness together as antique hunters, she has turned her eye not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the Grimms' 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses'rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0142414506</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gemma MalleyAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The ReturnersAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary='Ducks are cool. Whatever happens, whatever gets thrown at them, they just carry on, their little legs paddling. Unfazed'Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come. They always look like they're smiling.'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alex MilwaySunny Singh|title=Mousebeard's Revenge (Mousehunter Trilogy)Hotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=If you started this trilogy way back when, you would probably never expect The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the pirateterrorists who are rampaging through, Mousebeardkilling everyone on site, and the hero and heroinethere is Sam, Emiline a wartime photographer and ScratcherAbhi, to be working togetherthe hotel manager. But they As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are - so deep is still alive in the world of Old Town in intriguehotel, subterfuge and wicked planshe forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, that they need to combine forces - and get other returning characters back keeps on hand and on their side - venturing out of her room to try to counter Mousebeardcapture what's enemies once and for allhappened through her photography. OnlyAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, one great thing has changed. Yes, that's right. Mousebeard has had a shave..their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571245102</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1529153298|title=A Very British CoupThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=No one had anticipated that Labour would win the election, not least because the party leader was Harry Perkins, a former steel workerIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. His manifesto included promises to remove all American bases from British soil(A woman? I mean, public control of finance and the dismantling of media empireshonestly... ) There were a few other things too – but theyShe's not what's worrying Miv'll do for starterss family, though. The establishment – to a man – was appalledWomen have been disappearing. Press baronsWell, media stars, bishops and civil service mandarins knew that, for the good of the country (not themselvesthey've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared'doesn'of courset sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she') something had s overheard that her father wants to be done and move the family 'Down South'obviously'. When you' re from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the end move would justify whatever means they had mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to take to achieve their aimsprevent that. Harry Perkins had She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to be removed from officeanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687403</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Orson Scott Card1398524085|title=Ender in ExileHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=3.5|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary='Ender in Exile' is the most recently published in the series set in the universe of 'EnderCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's Game'fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, a long standing Paul and one of the best known series of scienceOllie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely -fiction by Orson Scott Cardher husband, Alec, is not. It's been defined as an 'interquel' Shortly afterwards, fitting chronologically between 'Ender's Game' Etty and the 'Speaker for the Dead'Greg, find the first two (and probably the best two) novels in the sequence. Technically speaking, 'Ender in Exile' actually fits in-between the last chapters body of 'EnderGreg's Game' and describes in more detail events outlined father, Duncan Ackerley, in the resolving sections of 'Ender's Game'river. Confusingly It was an easy assumption for the uninitiated, 'Ender in Exile' is also a sequel police to the make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn'Shadow of t stand the Giant', a parallel sub-series from the universe of the 'Enderguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's Game'little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Roe1035906708|title=The Private Lives of the ImpressionistsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=In the early 1860s a group We tend to think of young Parisian artists were keen Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to exhibit their workGreek parents in Manhattan, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned by the Salon, the French equivalent of the Royal AcademyNew York, resulted in their paintings being shown at the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refusés, where crowds December 1923 and critics came only moved to view - and jeerAthens when she was thirteen. When they held the first of their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said that they Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'seem to have declared war on beauty', while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes make it more manageable in paint, smeared it onto yards of canvas, and signed the result with several different namesStates.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Angela McAllister and Alex T Smith|title=My Mum Has X When she was back in Athens -Ray Vision|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Milo suspects his mum has xsupposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -ray vision. She can see through the ceiling downstairs when he's jumping on her bed. She can see through the outside wall when he's making potions in the garden in her saucepans. Is she really a superhero? Milo puts her to was raised under the test...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407105388</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Angelica Garnett|title=The Unspoken Truth|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I would not normally start a review with the biography of the author, but The Unspoken Truth is presented as autobiographical fiction Nazi occupation by a child of the Bloomsbury Group – in fact the subtitle is 'A Quartet of Bloomsbury Stories'. The blurb on the inside cover even identifies which character is based on the author in each of the four stories, just in case we are not sure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184353</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Amos Oz|title=Rhyming Life and Death|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Rhyming Love mother who mercilessly exploited her and Death is a kind made no secret of philosophical love letter to literature, or perhaps more so to fiction. It is a book about how to write, about the compulsion to writeher preference for her elder sister, and about the strange world that the writer of fiction must live inJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521024</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean Hannah Edelstein Christopher Edge|title=Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don't Get Why Men Don't Get ThemBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Who turns off Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the lights at Halloween? nickname of 'The lights witchBlack Hole'. What does All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an Australian witch ride adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? A broomerang. Yep Will they ever get back to the cinema, it's a joke book.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192729063</amazonuk>1839942738
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{{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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jasper FfordeJames Sherwood Metts|title=Shades of GreyPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=Sometimes with authors you just don't know what you've Things have been missinga bit sticky for the Earthlings. Other times you AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to doand other tasks that took time to accomplish. Jasper Fforde has long been on my catch-up list. Snippets of Thursday Next and reviews and interviews Just as they were enough to convince me I had beginning to get used to know all this worktechnological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. My chance finally came Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the first in a completely new series: Shades of Greymany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340963034</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam MillsMatthew Tree|title=BlackoutWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary='I am a murderer. 'I'm standing in a bookshop, a gun hot in my palm. The bullet that sat in my barrel thirty seconds ago has pierced flesh, blown into brain tissue, metal now fighting consciousness. The woman slumps ont the floor. Blood begins Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to trickle be different from her head. It drips onto his father, a pile drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of signed copies stacked on the floorhis artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence.' Oh my word! What an explosive beginning So Tim applied himself to a book! But what made a boy do something like this? his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571239412</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=Jean Rowden1529900360|title=More Deaths Than OneThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Constable Thomas It hadn'Thornyt been Lt Milo Sturgis' Deepbriar has a broken leg 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 involvement in a case help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and so is taken by his wife, Mary, to recuperate in -shut cases which didn't need the seaside town where he help of a psychologist only worked as for a policeman during the warwhile. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. He expects to be bored - She knew that the most interesting thing on involvement was something that the horizon is a man she loved needed. The next case of missing gnomesdid look simple, though. Then he bumps into an old colleague - someone who left Two lovers were murdered in the force swimming pool of a remote property in a haze of suspicionBel Air. Shortly afterwards, a body is found on He was the beach. Even stranger heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is that the dead married to an extremely rich man is someone that Thorny and his colleague thought had died during it's not the warItalian. It seems that things are not as they seem. Can Thorny work out what is going on, even with a broken leg But which of them was the primary target?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089309</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Strathern1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Artist, The Philosopher and The WarriorSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=HistoryAnimals and Wildlife|summary=The interaction between three very different, not Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to say contrastingfollow in his footsteps, personalities particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the Renaissance period sets the scene job for what promises him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be an intriguing a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0861541774|title. In 1502 the paths =A Nye of Cesare BorgiaPheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, notorious son of the equally infamous Pope Alexander VIDanny Maik, Niccolò Machiavellihas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, the intellectual Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and diplomathe killed a Ghurka. Initially, and Leonardo da Vinci, at he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the time best known death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a military engineer though remembered today primarily as a great artist, were destined to crossdiplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951212</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel HeathAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Finest Type Of English WomanhoodPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was just after The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the end of the Second World War and seventeen year old Laura Trelling was at online apps in providing a loose end in her Sussex villagemore personal, tailored service. She didn't really fit in with the other young people and Ness has asked her eccentric parents were becoming more younger cousin Katie if she could come and more isolatedlook after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the extent that Laura was embarrassed by their carelessness of her welfarechance to come home to Edinburgh. A chance encounter And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with Paul Lovell was some new characters who quickly begin to change everything charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and before long she was on there's always her way very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a South Africa not yet burdened with apartheid.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532743</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bobbie Darbyshire0811771741|title=Truth GamesInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary=The central theme in this book is sex - and lots Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of itknits from toys to blankets. WeSome will be quick knits - others are of the 're introduced to a group long, cosy afternoons in front of mainly twentysomethings and thirtysomethingsthe fire' variety. Men 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 womenmore than twenty hours. Most of them All the projects are attractive , modern and hold down glamorous jobs and careersuseable. All in rude health, with wonderful I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social lives and trendy homes-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky. They all appear, on the surface, to be a bunch of shiny, happy people. What on earth could be missing?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905614721</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nia PritchardDean Koontz|title=More Than Just A HairdresserThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=24.5|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=ItBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's a brand new yearpossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, and Liverpudlian hairdresser Shirley Benny is looking forward the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the months ahead following one hell of delivery to his house is a new year's eve partyfriend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. What's more, she's Spike is going to chronicle her adventures in her brand spanking new diary which she take care of Benny, and will write in diligently, even when shecertainly take care of Benny's feeling enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a bit 'morning after the night beforewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1870206851</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony QuinnAdam Stower|title=The Rescue ManMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=This love affair tale with the city 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 Liverpool is mostly told through the eyes of architect Tom Bainestwo. With But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Second World War loomingregular back garden, Baines is desperately working on but into a book to capture the memory world of buildings that are at riskfrightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, and appears where a man more in love with the past and solidtroll hunter is expected – well, cold structures one much bigger than mankind.Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531933</amazonuk>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.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A G Taylor1529431735|title=Meteorite StrikeThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Sarah It's February 1991 and Essex is not readybitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. SheHe's not ready to forgive d been exiled on the man who is her father, Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for abandoning her and her young brother Robert eight years agoa decade. She cannot yet forgive the circumstances of her mother dyingThe return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and of the promise they were forced hasn't long to live. It's hard to makefeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to go his underwear and sent to Australia with a watery grave in the man, and start boot of a new lifestolen Ford Sierra. She is certainly not prepared for the meteor strike to smash into Australia just as they fly above Is it, which downs the plane in a horrid crash, and seems to carry with it an alien virus which forces many people warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to drop permanently asleep.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409508579</amazonuk>home?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane Yolen Alex Bell and Mark Teague|title=How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=[[How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen|How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?]] was a witty and visually creative tale of Very Bad Bedtime Behaviour for modern children enamoured of dinosaurs. 'How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?' continues the formula, this time with table manners.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007216092</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cynthia KadohataTim McDonagh|title=A Million Shades The Glorious Race of GreyMagical Beasts|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=At just twelve, Tin Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the youngest elephant handler in his village. Ever since he can rememberwondrous library we start by visiting with him, Tin has dreamed of working with elephants and he loves his own elephant, Lady, to distraction, even spending most of his nights sleeping by her side. Tin is much less keen on school, but his parents insist that he goes. Tin really can't see in the point, as his sole ambition is to become evening a fully-fledged elephant trainer. His parents may talk about opportunities in helper at the world outside dessert cafe his village but if they don't involve elephants, he's not interested. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738823X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chloe Hooper|title=The Tall Man: Life gran owns and Death on Palm Island|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Cameron Doomadgee – Mulrunji – was just thirty six years old when he was arrested on Palm Islandruns. Quite why he was arrested was never clear. He wasn't drunkEli lives with his lovely gran, although he had been drinking beer too – and was walking along the road singing ''Who Let the Dogs Out?'' Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley felt that for there was reason to arrest Mulrunji for creating as public nuisance and he was taken to is a generation missing in the police stationfamily. What happened next was to be the subject of intense media speculation and legal proceedings over the coming A few short yearsago, but within forty five minutes Mulrunji was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520761</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Timothy W Ryback|title=HitlerEli's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=As parents were both lost to the fictional schoolboy hero Nigel Molesworth might titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have said, 'any fule kno' that Adolf Hitler was notorious for burning books. Nevertheless he was also an avid collector and passionate reader, as around 1200 surviving volumes once in his possession now to navigate the world in the Rare Book Division company of the Library of Congress, and a smaller quantity in Brown University, Rhode Island, demonstratemagical beast. Among them were world literature classics, such as 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and 'Gulliver's Travels'. He also owned an edition of This has made the race anathema to the collected works of Shakespeare, in hand-tooled Moroccan leather with pair – but when a gold-embossed eagle flanked by his initials on bad incident at the spine. The Bardeatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he once saidmost hates, was greatly superior with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to Goethe and Schillerpossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532174</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
