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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=Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit Sylvie Cathrall|title=Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely FriendshipA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyScience Fiction|summary=In early 2005, There are few greater joys than a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi woman book which lives up to confirm and prepare for a telephone interview about day to day life in Baghdad, and about her thoughts on the forthcoming elections therecompelling premise. May's detailed and frank responses prompt more curiosity and questions from Bee, and a friendship develops between the two women. They tell each other about their work, relationships and family livesAnd this is one of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141038535</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana Wynne-Jones0008517061|title=Enchanted GlassDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Andrew HopeFormer Metropolitan Police detective, a rather woolly professorJake Johnson, learns that his magical grandfather has died, leaving him settled into his house and his field-of-carerustic life at Little Sky. Andrew remembers some things from when he was There’s perhaps a little boyuncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, such as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his grandfather leaving vegetables on the roof of the shed for someone, off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or something, does Livia move to eat each night. He also remembers that there is something special Little Sky despite her reservations about the beautiful, old coloured glass above the kitchen door, but whether or not exactly what that this is. the future she wants for herself and her daughter? It seems he has forgotten a lot of what his grandfather taught him, including For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the mystery of back burner.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the fieldsite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments -when they discovered the bones of-care he has inheriteda child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. But Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with the entrance of Aidan CainDCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, an orphanbut Nelson doesn't, into that she is pregnant with his house and his life child as a result of the mysteries deepenone night they spent together some three months ago. The two are drawn to each otherHer condition will be obvious before long, however, and slowly start not least because Ruth is prone to unravel the truth that surrounds themsudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007320787</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Delgado0008551324|title=Kamikaze: History's Greatest Naval DisasterThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=When Mongol leader, Khubilai Khan, achieved what his Grandfather Genghis had failed It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to do approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in conquering China, prison and he inherited the world's largest prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and most sophisticated navywho was responsible for her death. However This person, he promises, in attempting is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to utilise this an open prison to expand serve the remainder of his empire further sentence and to Java, Vietnam and mainly Japan, he lost the entire armada in a few short yearsget an early parole date. New marine archeological evidence from Japan Not much to ask, ironically with the site discovered in the 1990s in the construction of is it? The new defences from the weather, has raised questions on the traditional view that the defeat of the two Japanese invasion forces of 1274 Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and particlularly 1281 were solely due she's even prepared to do the intervention of the weather other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what Japanese culture claim was a Kamikaze (or ''divine wind'') summoned by the Godss happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532581</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bakewell0008405026|title=How to Live: A Life of Montaigne Stranger in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=It'Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard Beck, the Chicago School sociologists sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about She was never found and the next book for reviewinvestigation ground to a halt. I'll allow myself to fall for a quirky title or appealing coverNow, her mother, Helena, despite only a smattering of interest and her father are dead in the subject mattertheir bed. Just occasionally this wayInitially, I stumble on it looks like a golden nugget so fascinating straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and well-written that I realise how lucky I am her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a reviewercomplex double murder. IKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>s boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Conway and Melanie Williamson0571379877|title=The Great Nursery Rhyme DisasterKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Little Miss Muffet Edward Jevons is fed up of being constantly scared by a spiderworking-class young man, so she ups sticks obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and heads for Stanza. Robert's a different page of the booktheatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to see if the characters of another nursery rhyme will let her join run errands for him. Edward has been in. She tries one rhyme after another, but things never quite work love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to planRobert. Will she find Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a nursery rhyme that suits her 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 T?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340945087</amazonuk>dark passageway.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair DuncanJo Callaghan|title=The Norwood Author - Arthur Conan Doyle and the Norwood Years (1891 - 1894)Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=At When a man is found crucified on the age top of 32 Dr Arthur Conan Doyle moved from London to a house hill in South NorwoodNuneaton, at that time part of SurreyDCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, in June 1891the AI detective Lock. It 's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found him at the stage when he was torn between pursuing crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a career as an eye specialist potential serial killer and trying to make a living through his writing, after he had sold very high profile case that draws a few stories lot of unwanted attention to magazinestheir AI Future Policing project. Shortly before the move, he had been confined Will they be able to bed for three weeks with influenza, and while recovering from what had briefly threatened to be a fatal illness (or so he believed), he took solve the decision to abandon medicine case in favour of becoming a full-time author. A few Sherlock Holmes stories had been published, but or will Kat find herself taken off the man with the deerstalker case and pipe had yet to make an impact on the reading public, and his creator could not yet call himself an established writer. Neverthelesspotentially, within the next few years he and the fictional detective were to become household names.out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312691</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1399613073|title=Ice LollyMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=It's Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the funeralfirst day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Laurel - Lolly Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to those that love her - be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is concentrating very hard a perfectionist and trying desperately to turn into an ice lollya trauma doctor. Ice lollies are frozen, you see, Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they don't feel so much. They can't miss people re at a drug and alcohol- mothers - who are gone fuelled party and people who are still around can't hurt them. A frozen heart is a sad thing, but it's a safe thinggoing to end in tragedy. Auntie Ellen doesn We don't like know who suffered the music at tragedy or the service, she thinks it's inappropriateconsequences. It isn't even a hymn Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. But it was one of Laurel's mother's favourites This time, and Laurel think it's just perfecttheir teenage children who are involved. Special. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281730</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Wilcox0241636604|title=The Shangani Patrol|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This is the latest in the adventures of Simon Fonthill, a cross between a Victorian James Bond and Indianna Jones. Although one of a series, it stands alone as a novel. It's steeped in the history (and there's a lot of it) of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled the world.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345614</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTrading Game: A Confession|author=Philip Womack|title=The LiberatorsGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=Ivo's parents have gone off on If you were to bring up an image of a South American expedition. As itcity banker in your mind, you's the school holidays, Ivo is off re unlikely to London to stay with some glamorous relativesthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. Aunt Lydia is a socialite A hoodie and art expert who arranges exhibitions and parties for jeans replaces the great pin-stripe suit and his background is the good. Uncle Jago is in finance East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and there isn't much about wheeling and dealing that he doesn't knowinjustice. They're fond of Ivo and the kind of guardians who are likely to practise some benign neglect, so what Ivo is really looking forward to about There was no posh public school on his stay is freedom CV - but he intends had been to explore the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and enjoy everything it he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to offerbe stupid. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747595526</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emily Gravett|title=Blue Chameleon|rating=5|genre=For Sharing|summary=The chameleon is feeling blue because he's lonely It was his ability at what was, essentially, so he goes and visits a yellow banana, pink cockatoo, swirly snail, brown boot, and so oncard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Each time, not only does he change his colour to match the object or animal Eventually, but he also contorts himself this turned into permanent employment as a shape that matches themtrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230704247</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Inga Moore1035021803|title=Six Dinner Sid - A Highland AdventureThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Sid It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the cat has six owners in six different housesEnglish 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 he munches his way through six dinners a day. This big olCarole' greedyguts has a great lifes close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, but then one day his owners all decide they want to go on holidaysay the least. They consider putting him in a cattery Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, but let her down badly. Even though they have strange rules like one meal per catwere in business together as antique hunters, she has not sixfelt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. They give it some thought After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and eventually decide to all go married James (on holiday togetherthe rebound from the love of her life, taking Sid with themwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340988940</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=Michael ForemanSunny Singh|title=Why The Animals Came To TownHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=A young boy looks out of his bedroom window and sees The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a parade of animals walking up his streetterrorist group. They've come to show him Hiding from the deserts terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and ice capsAbhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to warn him of try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the importance hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of taking care of Earthher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Without Although they only ever talk over the animalsphone, he realises 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 world would be a much more desolate placeterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406318019</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gaby Morgan (editor)1529153298|title=In My Sky at TwilightThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Off the back of the success of Stephenie MeyerIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] series there has family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a boom in vampire novels aimed at teenagersfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. In My Sky at Twilight is perhaps one of For Miv, the most unusual books move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to come out of this craze as it is a collection of love poetry aimed at teenage fans of prevent that. She's not worried about the seriesdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230745865</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Burdett1398524085|title=The Godfather of KathmanduHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Sonchai Jitpleecheep is half Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband'farang' the son of a brothel madam and an American GI, s fiftieth birthday party but it's the latter rather than the former which is likely to hold never turned up his promotion in the Thai police force. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, where he's a detectiveEtty. He's also the part owner of a brothel where his motherare all worried but - strangely - her husband, NongAlec, is the madam in chargenot. It's no problem for his bossShortly afterwards, Colonel VikornEtty and Greg, who has a few illegal interests find the body of his own. HeGreg's currently father, Duncan Ackerley, in competition with the head of river. It was an easy assumption for the army, General Zinna, police to see who can raise make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the finance for a forty million dollar shipment of heroin which Sonchaiguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's Kathmandu-based guru has for salelittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593055462</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Blackwood1035906708|title=The Great Race: The Amazing Round-The-World Auto Race Of 1908Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-General Fiction|summary=In 1908We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, Henry Fordbut 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 's Model T hadnCallas't yet brought cars to make it more manageable in the massesStates. The pioneers of When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the world Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of automobiles were experimenting her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Edge|title=Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Lucas and discovering just what the car could dohis friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, by driving right round a place that has the worldnickname of 'The Black Hole'. Except All big movie fans, they didn't want re looking forward to be pioneers. One lots of the competitorsexciting films, and many, Antonio Scarfogliomany snacks! However, put it so perfectly when he said 'We had set out to perpetuate an act of splendid follyas the movie starts, not to open up a they very quickly realise that something about this new way for men. We wished to be madmenfilm format is very different, not pioneers.' Isnand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't that about even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the best quote you've next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever readget back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0810994895</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=P J ReeceRachel Greenlaw|title=RoxyCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Maddie was at Aunt Gretchen's funeral when she got 'I can hear the phone song of the sea. The call to tell her that her father was of the deep, the answering beat in a coma and likely to diemy heart. This might sound like a double whammy but Maddie's father had deserted her soon after her birth (during which her mother died) and she was brought up by Aunt Gretchen, who never missed an opportunity to point out that she was an unwanted burden.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1896580017</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pseudonymous BoschJames Sherwood Metts|title=This Book is Not Good for YouPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Cass is not having Things have been a bit sticky for the best of Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time when it comes to secretsaccomplish. It's Just as they were beginning to get used to all very well being involved in a top-secret society, designed this technological change and starting to keep the secret think of the most secretive secret everother, but those pesky people called adults are keeping things from her as well - namelynew ways to spend time, her very originsalong came an awful pandemic. Can Max-Ernest Life was pretty much shut down and she wade through their junk store base and find , along with it, all the box she was delivered in? Can many daily social interactions on which they survive the mysterious clown school they end up visiting? And can they keep depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a mystical tuning fork from falling into the wrong hands?drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409506312</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=David Hosp1529900360|title=Among ThievesThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 1990It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, some valuable paintings Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were stolen from only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston in involvement was something that the United Statesman she loved needed. The police investigation failed to find them and many felt they next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were lost forevermurdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. But soon He was the paintings heir to an Italian shoe empire and their whereabouts would be impacting on many peopleshe is married to an extremely rich man and it's lives…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230707238</amazonuk>not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Shields1529395224|title=Reality HungerLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: A ManifestoThe Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Politics Animals and SocietyWildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn'The Novel is Deadt want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father' is not really what s life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a novelist wants to read first on picking up family friend who was a new book – but I persevered with Shields' manifesto vet and I'm glad I didwas convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. This is a thoughtIt hadn't -provoking wakeas with so many students -up call that any artistbeen his dream since he was a child. If anything, writer or book-lover will enjoyhe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114499X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ian Rankin and Werther Dell'Edera 0861541774|title=Dark EntriesA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=The producers of Dark EntriesDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, the latest hit reality TV showhas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, are worriedGuy Trueman. Yes the six housemates are there, present Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and correcthe killed a Ghurka. Initially, and are ready he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to be scared witless en route light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the one way out, and man. Now he could be facing the brilliant prize that might await them somewhere in the merry-go-round of horror that is their new homedeath penalty. They are already being scared witless, by phantoms - but that's Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to do with the TV producershelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848563426</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Betty G BirneyAlexander McCall Smith|title=Holidays According to HumphreyThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Humphrey The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the hamster is worriedonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Everywhere he turns his little pink ears he hears noises about Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the school being closedbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. How can he survive without all his adoring fans in room 26, and what Katie is life like for coming out of a classroom pet without break up with a classroom? bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. LuckilyAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, this is only thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the summer holiday he is misunderstandingIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and what do you know - he will soon be meeting familiar facesthere's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, not at schoolWilliam, but at summer camp.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571250904</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Mansfield0811771741|title=Johnny Mackintosh: Star BlazeInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Before I get into the review of this book, IMelissa Leapman's ''d like to suggest that if you havenInstaKnits for Baby't read Keith Mansfield's first Johnny Mackintosh book, [[Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit gives us a collection of London by Keith Mansfield|The Spirit knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of London]]the 'long, you go off and read the review cosy afternoons in front of that first and then go and read the book itselffire' variety. It The projects are divided by the time they's a fantastic read. But because this is a sequelll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, there are obviously going ten to be some SPOILERS aheadtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. So All the projects are attractive, done modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that have you?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161267</amazonuk>'s me being picky.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chinua AchebeDean Koontz|title=The Education of a British-Protected ChildBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyParanormal|summary=This book Benny is having a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebeterrifically bad day. He loses his job, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Aparthe loses his fiancee, published in 1958and his house gets trashed. Topics covered include Nigerian Oh, Biafran and Igbo history and culturesomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, African literature and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the legacy of colonialism in thing that has trashed his country and house! The thing is, Benny is the rest of Africavery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Some of So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the essays are taken delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from guest lectures at universities around the world nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and conference paperswill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about AchebeHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's familywild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=Holly Cathers has returnedMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and this timefriendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, shewhatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's more powerful than ever. The war between 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 House regular back garden, but into a world of Cahors witches frightening adventure and House of Deveraux warlocks still rages onwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and only one side will eventually triumph.he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184738689X</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.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Wormell1529431735|title=One Smart FishThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=54|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Many, many, many years agoIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the ocean was full of amazing fishCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The most amazing fish was return has come about because he's had a boringletter from his ex-looking silver fishwife, who was smarter than all the others. He played chess (against himself), drew pictures saying that she's ill and performed playshasn't long to live. One day It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, he decided stripped to see what life was like on land, so he invented feet his underwear and went for sent to a watery grave in the boot of a walkstolen Ford Sierra. Yep, you've guessed Is it: it's a picture book about evolution.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083546</amazonuk>warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stevie Davies|title=Into Suez|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=We are introduced to the main characters Ailsa and Joe Roberts and their young daughter, Nia. Joe is a down-to-earth Welshman who's been posted to Egypt with the RAF. They are making a new Alex Bell and exciting life for themselves amidst the heat and poverty of the Middle East. Ailsa is English, rather headstrong and clever. Her parents said she'd 'the brain of a boy.' There are two strands to the novel which interweave throughout: the 1950s which see the early married life of Joe and Ailsa and then there's the post-invasion of Iraq period when the grown-up Nia returns to Egypt to lay some ghosts, as it were.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906998000</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Norah VincentTim McDonagh|title=Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin|rating=3.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=''Voluntary Madness'' is journalist Norah Vincent's account of her visits to three mental health facilities in America. The first is an urban, public hospital that houses mainly homeless, psychotic patients, many Glorious Race of whom are addicted to drugs. In this hospital, the doctors are overworked and jaded and medication is always the answer. Soon, the author finds that her latent depression (which led her to do the book in the first place) is returning. The process of being institutionalised breaks her sense of self-worth down astonishingly fast. Indeed, she suggests that it is the lack of autonomy in institutional life, even for those patients who voluntarily commit themselves, that makes it so hard for them to rebuild independent lives when they finally leave the institution.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513439</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neal Shusterman|title=EverwildMagical Beasts|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Neal Shusterman continues his part zany adventure, part philosophical enquiry, and part coming-of-age story that began with Everlost in this follow-up that is perhaps even better than its predecessor. Everlost Eli is a kind of limbo and home to children - Afterlights - who have diedbusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, but somehow missed the tunnel and in the light - wherever and whatever evening a helper at the light actually is. Adults never make it there, but significant or much-loved objects dessert cafe his gran owns and buildings sometimes doruns. Mary Hightower Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for instance, there is so-called because she took up residence in New York a generation missing in the Twin Towersfamily. Mary thinks Everlost is A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a wonderful place and she "saves" the Afterlights she finds by giving them repetitive but addictive tasks to fill eternity. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387322</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gabriel Weston|title=Direct Red|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Few people globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have the ability to convey navigate the minutiae of their profession world in ways which engage the reader, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such company of a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargonmagical beast. Gabriel Weston is one such This has made the race anathema to the pair – and ''Direct Red'' held me as though I was hypnotised for several hours. She's but when a surgeon and we're pulled into the intricacies of her world without bad incident at the need eatery leads to don mask and gown.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Baldacci|title=True Blue|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Jamie Meldon, ex-criminal-defence attorney, now in private practicea confession from gran, leaves Eli knows his office very late one night. He's met by the FBI. Very shortly afterwards Jamie Meldon is dead in a dumpster. Mace Perry only hope is working out, trying to stay fit, trying dare to stay saneenter what he most hates, trying to stay alive long enough to get out jail in a couple with the sole aim the prize of days' time. Perry was a cop. Under-cover, maverick and darn good magic at her job. Until she ended up stoned on meth, busted for robbery, convicted and sent downthe end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230706134</amazonuk>0571382231
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