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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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Morton0008517061|title=The Forgotten GardenDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Just before the First World War Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little girl was found abandoned on uncertainty about the wharf after future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a dreadful sea voyage from England lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to Australia. She appears not move in with Livia or does Livia move to know Little Sky despite her name – reservations about whether or not this is unwilling to tell it – the future she wants for herself and all she will say is that a mysterious lady she calls the Authoress had promised to look after her. daughter? There's no trace of her though For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the little girl was taken in a by a friendly family. She forgot all about future on the events until many years later when her adopted father told her what had happenedback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330449605</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1786482126|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious RevolutionThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time on Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another 'site was going to hold seventy-five 'meaningfulluxury'' period – apartments - when they discovered the Victorian erabones of a child beneath a doorway. The importance of William and Mary There was completely overlooked in favour of no skull. Was this a quick mention of the fact that William wasnritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't in direct line , that she is pregnant with his child as a result of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first placeone night they spent together some three months ago. Their successorHer condition will be obvious before long, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Samuel Bonner0008551324|title=PlaygroundThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Jonah grew up 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 London but his mother, getting increasingly worried about social disintegration prison and increasing crime, has moved them up he's prepared to Nottingham. Jonah tell the police where the body of a missing person is a bright lad buried and halfway through a media coursewho was responsible for her death. This person, but he's finding promises, is someone big and it difficult will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to fit inan open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. He Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's also finding even prepared to do the new racial mix a problem other thing that Hardie demanded - theremake certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's palpable tension between black and brown-skinned people on campus, and he often feels alienated and a bit like a fish out of waterhappening. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902835190</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clare Morrall0008405026|title=The Man Who DisappearedA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=I was drawn to this book straight awayIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Firstly, She was never found and the jacket cover is lovelyinvestigation ground to a halt. The subliminal message is read meNow, please read me. We are introduced to the Kendall family; her mother, Helena, and her father and three childrenare dead in their bed. All leading unremarkableInitially, rather ordinary livesit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. The father, Felix, works hard What looked as though it was going to provide for his family. He loves them all dearly. They all love him back. It be an open-and-shut case is now a secure family unit. Until - completely out of the blue - he simply disappearscomplex double murder. His family Kerrigan is distraught and mystified. We all know convinced that a person cannot simply disappear. But Felix Kendall has taken himself off the radarexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994274</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ellie Sandall0571379877|title=BirdsongThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=One by one the birds land on the branch. Each Edward Jevons is a different speciesworking-class young man, each has different plumageobsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and most importantly each has Stanza. Robert's a different calltheatre director. The chorus of birdsong builds up He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and up entitled and up until the biggest bird of all lands on the branch, uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with his loud shriekStanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Ah, Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but whohe's this about not like most men: Edward is left to land on stumble upon the branch with him?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405247371</amazonuk>two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joan BradyJo Callaghan|title=VenomLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=David Marion isn't used to finding hitmen standing at his front doorWhen a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, though you wouldn't be able DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to tell that such a thing might be true, given the speed and competency with which Marion dispatches said hitman and then disappears, seeminglycase alongside her sidekick, off the face of the EarthAI detective Lock. Dr It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Helen Freyl But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a physicist working for one lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the largest pharmaceutical companies case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the world. She is alsocase and, up until his disappearancepotentially, David Marion's sometime lover and is grief-stricken to the point out of distraction by his sudden absence from her life, as she believes him to be dead.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0743267907</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathy Marie Buchanan 1399613073|title=The Day The Falls Stood StillMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionThrillers|summary=I imagined this title as Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a 'Gone With quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the Wind' sort free spirit of novel, the group and she becomes a saga-esque historical romance, with GP. When we first meet them they're at a characterful heroine drug and pagealcohol-turning story line that necessitates reading late into the nightfuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. Well, I wasnWe don't disappointed in this paperback edition of know who suffered the tragedy or the hardback, already a bestconsequences. Twenty-seller in five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the Uthree friends.S This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091925967</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anu Stohner and Henrike Wilson0241636604|title=Charlotte and the WolvesThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary=Hot on the heels If you were to bring up an image of her adventure a city banker in [[Brave Charlotte by Anu Stohner your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and Henrike Wilson|Brave Charlotte]], jeans replaces the brave little sheep pin-stripe suit and his background is back. She's as bold as everthe East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the older sheep have stopped worrying about her wild waysLondon School of Economics. Added into the mix are Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a gang facility with numbers which most of teenage sheep who call themselves The Wolves and worry the lambsus can only envy. When real wolf howls can He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be heardstupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, but not by the shepherd or Jack the old sheepdoga card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, it's down to Charlotte to save the day againthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802589</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hiawyn Oram and Sarah Warburton1035021803|title=Rumblewick and the Dinner Dragons (The Rumblewick Letters)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Haggy Aggy is an unscary witch and decides It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she wants to make friends with dragonsgrew up. Her cat, Rumblewick Spellwacker Mortimer B, is She's back now because of a little unsure of thisrequest for help from her beloved aunt, so writes to his friend Grimey for adviceCarole. Their correspondence fills this latest book in the Freya's former mentor and Carole'Rumblewick Letters'' seriess close friend, Arthur Crockleford, following on from [[My Unwilling Witch (The Rumblewick Letters) by Hiawyn Oram|My Unwilling Witch]].|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160642</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Glenn Dakin|title=Candle Man: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance |rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Birthdays for Theo are not exactly how we would recognise them. One blandis dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, forgettable present from each of to say the three people who live in his householdleast. Some pink cake at Arthur was the best of times. A trip reason why Freya had not been back to the cemeteryvillage: Arthur, she feels, with the butler making sure nobody else is in sightlet her down badly. But this one is different - some person unknown leaves something for him. And by the time burglars break Even though they were inbusiness together as antique hunters, and force Theo she has not felt able to leave be near the confines of his bedroom and find some of man or pursue the secrets of profession she loved. After the housesplit, it is too late - Theo is set on she worked in a nightmarish trail between two warring forcescafe, as met and married James (on the truths of his destiny, his origins, and his hands, come to rebound from the fore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405246766</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christopher Isherwood|title=A Single Man|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If you've ever wanted to know what goes on inside someone's mind you'll love this short novelof her life, first published back in 1964. We join George Falconer just at the moment he awakes from sleep who was murdered) and witness his innermost thoughts as he goes about a typical day. It all sounds pretty dull Freya and monotonous but what makes this exciting is that George isn't just any old professor living the American Dream, oh no, he's so detached from the banal normality of the world that he's almost outside of his own body at timesJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548828</amazonuk>
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{{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.''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily ChanSunny Singh|title=Harvard Business School Confidential: Secrets of SuccessHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Business and FinanceThrillers |summary=Harvard Business School The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has an almost unrivalled reputation for schooling some of suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the greatest business leaders (terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and George W Bush!)Abhi, the hotel manager. Former graduate, Emily Chan, who went on As Abhi continues to try to work care remotely for leading management consultancy Boston Consulting Group and the residents who is now a director are still alive in the hotel, he forms a family direct investment business in Hong Kongbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, promises their friendship grows as Abhi tries to offer help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the secrets she learnt thereterrorists. Does she succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0470822392</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Brand1529153298|title=The More You Ignore MeList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alice It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is growing up in a cottage in Herefordshire with her gentlePrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, hippy father and her mother, Gina, who spends her days standing around like a chain-smoking zombie because she is kept on medication and has been for yearshonestly... Gina) She's first psychotic episode occured after Alicenot what's birthworrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Then there was the episode Alice remembersWell, the day her mother climbed onto the roofthey've been murdered, naked, holding Smelly the hamster, and refused but to come downhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. From Miv's upset because she's overheard that dayher father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, the old GinaDown South is a frightening, boisterous and unconventional as she wasforeign place, fell silent under the numbing impact of constant medicationbest avoided. Jo Brand tells the story of how Alice coped with the loneliness and worry of growing up with an ill mother. Most importantlyFor Miv, as I'm sure the teenage Alice move would see itmean leaving her best friend, Sharon, we are shown the birth and life of her obsession with Morrissey of The Smiths. In his music she finds escapism and comfort and in him she finds a figure 'll do anything to adoreprevent that. Her friends canShe't understand her fixation and her mother understands fixation a little too well (the local weatherman having been s not worried about the object of one of her fervent obsessions). Morrissey sings with such sensitivity and angst dangers or that surely, Alice thinks, if she could just meet him and tell him her story he could help her and she could help him..Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755322320</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit 1398524085|title=Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely FriendshipHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=In early 2005Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi woman to confirm sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and prepare for a telephone interview about day to day life in Baghdadher daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and about her thoughts on Greg, find the forthcoming elections there. Maybody of Greg's detailed and frank responses prompt more curiosity and questions from Beefather, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and a friendship develops between then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the two womenguilt. They tell each other about The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their work, relationships lives and family liveswonder about what really happened.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>0141038535</amazonuk>We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana Wynne-JonesChristopher Edge|title=Enchanted GlassBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Andrew HopeLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a rather woolly professor, learns place that his magical grandfather has died, leaving him his house and his field-the nickname of-care'The Black Hole'. Andrew remembers some things from when he was a little boyAll big movie fans, such as his grandfather leaving vegetables on the roof they're looking forward to lots of the shed for someoneexciting films, or somethingand many, to eat each night. many snacks! He also remembers that there is something special about the beautifulHowever, old coloured glass above as the kitchen doormovie starts, but not exactly what they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is. It seems he has forgotten a lot of what his grandfather taught himvery different, including the mystery of the field-of-care he has inheritedand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But with as they lurch from one film genre to the entrance of Aidan Cainnext, an orphan, into his house and his life the mysteries deepen. can they figure out what on earth is going on? The two are drawn Will they ever get back to each other, howeverthe cinema, and slowly start to unravel the truth that surrounds them.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007320787</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.''
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James DelgadoSherwood Metts|title=Kamikaze: HistoryPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We's Greatest Naval Disasterll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryLiterary Fiction|summary=When Mongol leaderTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Khubilai Khan, achieved what a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his Grandfather Genghis had artistic passions all failed to do in conquering China, he inherited the world's largest miserably and most sophisticated navywho had endless crises of self confidence. However, in attempting to utilise this So Tim applied himself to expand his empire further to Javastudies, Vietnam and mainly Japan, he lost the entire armada in a few short years. New marine archeological evidence from Japan, ironically with the site discovered in the 1990s in the construction of new defences from the weather, has raised questions on the traditional view that the defeat of the two Japanese invasion forces of 1274 and particlularly 1281 were solely due to the intervention of the weather cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and what Japanese culture claim was a Kamikaze (or ''divine wind'') summoned by the Godsset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532581</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{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 Conway and Melanie Williamson1529900360|title=The Great Nursery Rhyme DisasterGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Little Miss Muffet is fed up It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of being constantly scared by a spiderpsychologist only worked for a while. Finally, so she ups sticks and heads it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for a different page of help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the bookman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, to see if though. Two lovers were murdered in the characters swimming pool of another nursery rhyme will let her join a remote property inBel Air. She tries one rhyme after another, but things never quite work He was the heir to plan. Will an Italian shoe empire and she find a nursery rhyme that suits her is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a T?Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>0340945087</amazonuk>Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, 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 job for 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 a professional footballer.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alistair Duncan0861541774|title=The Norwood Author - Arthur Conan Doyle and the Norwood Years (1891 - 1894)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=At the age of 32 Dr Arthur Conan Doyle moved from London to DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a house short holiday in South NorwoodSingapore to meet up with an old ally, at that time part of Surrey, in June 1891Guy Trueman. It found him at the stage when Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was torn between pursuing facing a man armed with a career as an eye specialist knife - and trying to make a living through his writing, after he had sold killed a few stories to magazinesGhurka. Shortly before the moveInitially, he had been confined faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to bed for three weeks with influenza, and while recovering from what had briefly threatened to be a fatal illness (or so light that suggested that he believed), he took the decision might have planned to abandon medicine in favour of becoming a full-time author. A few Sherlock Holmes stories had been published, but murder the man with the deerstalker and pipe had yet to make an impact on the reading public, and his creator could not yet call himself an established writer. Nevertheless, within the next few years Now he and could be facing the fictional detective were death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to become household nameshelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312691</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreAlexander McCall Smith|title=Ice LollyThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=It's The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the funeralonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Laurel - Lolly to those that love Ness has asked her - younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is concentrating very hard and trying desperately planning to take a trip to Canada to turn into an ice lollyget away for a while. Ice lollies are frozen, you see Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and they don't feel so muchjumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. They can't miss people - mothers - who are gone And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and people the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who are still around can't hurt themquickly begin to charm. A frozen heart is Katie has no experience in running a sad thingbusiness, or in match-making, but itNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there's a safe thing. Auntie Ellen doesn't like the music at the servicealways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, she thinks it's inappropriate. It isn't even to lend a hymn. But it was one of Laurel's mother's favourites, and Laurel think it's just perfect. Special. hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007281730</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Wilcox0811771741|title=The Shangani PatrolInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary=This is 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 latest 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the adventures of Simon Fonthilltime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, a cross between a Victorian James Bond ten to twenty hours and Indianna Jonesmore than twenty hours. Although one of a seriesAll the projects are attractive, it stands alone as a novelmodern and useable. ItI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's steeped in the history (and theresocial-media-worthy projects' but that's a lot of it) of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled the worldme being picky.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345614</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip WomackDean Koontz|title=The LiberatorsBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensParanormal|summary=Ivo's parents have gone off on Benny is having a South American expeditionterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. As Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the school holidaysthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Ivo Benny is off the very last person to London deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to stay with some glamorous relatives. Aunt Lydia his house is a socialite and art expert new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who arranges exhibitions and parties has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for the great and the being a goodperson. Uncle Jago Spike is in finance going to take care of Benny, and there isnwill certainly take care of Benny't much about wheeling s enemies, if he, Benny, and dealing that he doesnHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny't know. They're fond of Ivo and the kind of guardians s wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are likely to practise some benign neglect, so what Ivo is really looking forward to about his stay is freedom - he intends to explore London and enjoy everything it has to offer. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747595526</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily GravettAdam Stower|title=Blue ChameleonMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=The chameleon Murray is feeling blue because supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's lonelya bad magician's cat, so he goes and visits his favourite bun has been turned into a yellow banana, pink cockatoo, swirly snail, brown boothyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and so on. Each timethe catflap they both use can chuck them out, not only does he change his colour to match into the object or animalregular back garden, but he also contorts himself into a shape that matches them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230704247</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Inga Moore|title=Six Dinner Sid - A Highland Adventure|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Sid the cat has six owners in six different houses, world of frightening adventure and he munches his way through six dinners a daywhiffs. This big ol' greedyguts has time round it drops them into a great lifeViking land, but then one day his owners all decide they want to go on holiday. They consider putting him in where a catterytroll hunter is expected – well, but they have strange rules like one meal per catmuch bigger than Murray was, not six. They give it some thoughtto be honest, but he's turned up and eventually decide he'll have to all go on holiday together, taking Sid with them.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340988940</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jaclyn DolamoreB0C47LV1PC|title=Magic Under GlassFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Namira is Can you make a trouser girl - a music hall performer. In Lorinar, she's regarded as a faintly risque curiosity but at home in Tiansher it wasn't like this. Performers like her mother were feted and respected and Namira grew up in a palace. In Lorianar, she lives in poverty, performing for drunken fools who donYo birthing person''t understand her art. joke? And then suddenlyif you could, she's freed from is the question should you make it? Or is the seedy music hall by Hollin Parryquestion if you did, a wealthy man and a member of Lorinar's Sorcerer Council. Parry has an automaton, a curiosity would it land? The catch is that plays the piano, and he wants Namira's unique voice to accompany itanswer for both could well be.... no. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802120</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gaby Morgan (editor)1529431735|title=In My Sky at TwilightThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Off It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the back of more surprising. He'd been exiled on the success of Stephenie MeyerCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] series there has been had a boom in vampire novels aimed at teenagersletter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. In My Sky at Twilight It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is perhaps one of abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the most unusual books to come out boot of this craze as a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it is a collection of love poetry aimed at teenage fans of the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230745865</amazonuk>warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BurdettAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Godfather Glorious Race of KathmanduMagical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Sonchai Jitpleecheep Eli is half 'farang' the son of a brothel madam and busy lad – by day an American GIapprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, but it's and in the latter rather than evening a helper at the former which is likely to hold up dessert cafe his promotion in the Thai police force, where he's a detectivegran owns and runs. He's also the part owner of a brothel where Eli lives with his mother, Nonglovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the madam in chargefamily. It's no problem for his bossA few short years ago, Colonel Vikorn, who has a few illegal interests of his own. HeEli's currently in competition with parents were both lost to the head of the armytitular race, General Zinna, to see who can raise the finance for a forty million dollar shipment of heroin which Sonchai's Kathmanduglobe-based guru has for sale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593055462</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gary Blackwood|title=The Great Race: The Amazing Round-The-World Auto Race Of 1908|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=In 1908, Henry Ford's Model T hadn't yet brought cars trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the masses. The pioneers of world in the world company of automobiles were experimenting and discovering just what a magical beast. This has made the car could do, by driving right round the world. Except they didn't want race anathema to be pioneers. One of the competitors, Antonio Scarfoglio, put it so perfectly pair – but when he said 'We had set out a bad incident at the eatery leads to perpetuate an act of splendid follya confession from gran, not Eli knows his only hope is to open up a new way for men. We wished dare to be madmenenter what he most hates, not pioneerswith the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.' Isn't that about the best quote you've ever read?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0810994895</amazonuk>0571382231
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