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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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{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a 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 future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sian Williams1786482126|title=Struggle or StarveThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Struggle or Starve is a collection of autobiographical writings about girlsBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five ' and womenluxury's lives in South Wales between apartments - when they discovered the wars. This is bones of a new edition of child beneath a book first published in 1998 by Honno, an independent publisher set up to encourage Welsh women writersdoorway. There was no skull. Most of the contributors in Was this book came from miners' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecurity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julia Green|title=Drawing with Light|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Emily doesn't remember her biological mother. She ran away a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with another man when Emily was just twoDCI Harry Nelson. Now, her older sister Kat, her father, and her stepmother Cassy make up the family unit and Emily thinks it It's just fine that way. She difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't need , that she is pregnant with his child as a mother who didn't want her and has never even tried to get in touchresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. But then Kat goes off Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to university, her father buys a rundown house in the middle sudden bouts of nowhere and moves them into a caravan while it's being renovated, and Cassy gets pregnantsickness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802732</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Dessen0008551324|title=Along for the RideThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Auden It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has always felt like any respect for the odd one out amongst her peersother. Her parents - now divorced - are both academics But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and high achievers, he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and theywho was responsible for her death. This person, especially her motherhe promises, want is someone big and it will be worth the same for Audenpolice doing what he wants. Auden's older brother And what he wants is the rebel and so Auden feels as though she needs to be transferred to an open prison to serve the one who satisfies her mother's ambition. So she works hard remainder of his sentence and never lets her diligence or conscientiousness slip for even a momentto get an early parole date. But she Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn's socially awkward t think so and lacking in experience. Sheshe's never had a boyfriend, hates even prepared to do the colour pink other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and cananyone who works with him is kept well away from what't even ride a bikes happening. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327480</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caroline Moorehead 0008405026|title=Dancing to A Stranger in the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=Two hundred It's sixteen years agosince nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, with and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the fall positioning of the monarchy bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotherher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. There were many who witnessed What looked as though it was going to be an open-and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left -shut case is now a more detailed record than complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillonexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du PinUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rook Hastings0571379877|title=Nearly DepartedThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=At first sightEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, you'd think Weirdsville was Anytown obsessed with his upper- it has a slightly rundown feel; everythingclass friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's just a little bit shabbytheatre director. But it He's pretty much like any other town. Parents go also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to workrun errands for him. Kids go to school and clump together Edward has been in little peer groups of geeks and swots and jocks love with Stanza since their university days - and bullies. But Weirdsville isnhe't like any other towns drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. There Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a strangely abundant wood right in relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the middle two of it, and at night, everythings turns, well, them kissing in a little bit weird. The darkness is so dark it almost sucks you inpassageway. And there are odd noises too... ... and Emily thinks she's seen a ghost. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007258100</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel SuarezJo Callaghan|title=DaemonLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=As When a man is found crucified on the internet grows and technology advancestop of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, itthe AI detective Lock. It's seems their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is nothing you can't do. Recent innovations mean you can operate appliances in your own home from another continent a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and cars are more automated than evera very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Huge online games allow users worldwide Will they be able to interact and play against each other solve the case in huge arenas. Thanks to social networkingtime, or will Kat find herself taken off the internet can be addictive case and, yespotentially, I'm aware out of the irony in writing that here.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847249612</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erica Bauermeister 1399613073|title=The Monday Night Cooking SchoolMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionThrillers|summary=The Monday Night Cooking School is Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first novel written by American writer Erica Bauermeister day of medical school and it really is their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a delicious read in every sensecentury. The novel tells of eight very diverse people who attend Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a cooking class once bonus when you aim to be a month at Lillian's restaurantcardiothoracic surgeon. Each has Laura is a different reason for being there perfectionist and each has his or her own story to tella trauma doctor. However, over Anjali is the months that free spirit of the course is run, group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they start to bond through the learning experience 're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and their love of food. Itit's not the sort of novel where much happens but if you are interested going to end in people and you love food, I am sure you will enjoy this booktragedy. Having said that though, I We don't think know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it is a book that should be read if you 's their teenage children who are trying to diet because you can virtually smell the food as you turn the pages!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141038837</amazonuk>involved.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marcus Sedgwick0241636604|title=Lunatics and Luck (Raven Mysteries)The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=ItIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's obvious reallyre unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. When an earthquake hits Castle Otherhand, Valevine, A hoodie and jeans replaces the head of pin-stripe suit and his background is the householdEast End, decides what the place needs is a machine to predict the futurewhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and a new tutor for his two oldest childreninjustice. And why not? There are only those children, was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the suicidal baby twins, Valevine's dreadful failed inventions and experiments, Edgar the raven that narrates this series London School of books, Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a monkeyfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. With bells onIt was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Clearly there is not enough weirdness there already to go aroundEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556959</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett1035021803|title=The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone |rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=If you asked people why it is (or might be) a good idea Antique Hunter's Guide to reduce inequality in a society, many people would assume that reducing inequality works by making the life of the poorest better: that the poor are the ones who benefit from reduction of inequality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141032367</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMurder|author=Ken Bruen|title=The Killing of the TinkersC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jack Taylor returns It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to his native Ireland with his tail between his legsthe English country village where she grew up. HeShe's been lying low 'over the water' in Londonback now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, licking his woundsCarole. Jack (IFreya'm slightly surprised that Bruen didns former mentor and Carole't give him a more Irish name) s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is a middle-ageddead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, washed-upshe feels, disgraced ex-coplet her down badly. As if that wasn't bad enoughEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, he also she has a lot of very bad habitsnot felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. He acknowledges however that 'After the new world is designed for non-smokers.' He also admits quite freely split, she worked in a cafe, met and openly that 'An alcoholic has dreams to rival that married James (on the rebound from the love of any Vietnam vether life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224113</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave ZeltsermanAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=KillerAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=Here at the Bookbag, we've been very impressed with Dave Zeltserman's work thus far. He uses a wonderful noirish narrative that takes you straight to Opening up new ways of thinking about the heart shape of the story. His story telling is very straightforward, not weighing down the story with too much style, but sticking things to the substance and delivering a hard-hitting work every timecome. With ''Killer'', he has done the same again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668644X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony Mitton and Guy Parker-ReesSunny Singh|title=Jolly Olly OctopusHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=Jolly Olly Octopus The Hotel Arcadia is giggling underneath a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the seaterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. He's soon joined As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by two tickly turtles, three smiley seahorsesevents, and so keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the numbersphone, 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. |isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The large cast List of underwater animals are having a jolly olSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's 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' timere from Yorkshire, until Down South is a shark appearsfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846166861</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398524085|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Mo SmithNicci French|rating=5|titlegenre=Crime|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Lazy CookSalter children are not convinced but there's Family Favouriteslittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CookeryGeneral Fiction|summary=These days I get very nervous when I hear about books for 'lazy' cooksWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, or how in December 1923 and only moved to cheat Athens when preparing mealsshe was thirteen. ThereHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's a very simple reason for this: good food, prepared using seasonal ingredients which donCallas't break to make it more manageable in the budget needs skill and knowledge and neither are the prerogative of the lazyStates. Mo Smith might like us to think When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she's lazy, but take my word could get appropriate training for it – her voice - she isn't. She might have learned was raised under the Nazi occupation by a few tricks for making good food quickly, but she's a woman mother who knows mercilessly exploited her onions and all sorts made no secret of other foodher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007826</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam BladeChristopher Edge|title=Creta the Winged Terror (Beast Quest)Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Our hero, TomLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, is finding his fishing trip with his father bugged - literally - by a plague place that has the nickname of sickening cockroach things'The Black Hole'. WhatAll big movie fans, they's morere looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the whole land of Avantia movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is suffering some form of horrid heatwavevery different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Can Tom, recognising yet another threat But as they lurch from one film genre to his country from the evil Malvelnext, defeat his nemesis yet again - especially as said baddie has as a new weapon of darkness a massive host of can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the roachescinema, swarming as one giant monsterand to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408307359</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fraser's AutographsJames Sherwood Metts|title=Collect Autographs: An Illustrated Guide to Collecting and Investing in AutographsPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and FinanceConfident Readers|summary=There must be many of us who Things have at one time had an autograph book or something of been a bit sticky for the kind as children Earthlings. AI and asked friendsautomation have been proceeding apace, relations or even celebrities often replacing jobs they're paid to 'do something', written and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to celebrities in the hope think of obtaining a personally signed pictureother, or even waited patiently at a stage door after a play or concert eagerly clutching a theatre programmenew ways to spend time, record or CD sleeve along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and pen in hand, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0852597525</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Derrick NiedermanMatthew Tree|title=Number Freak: A Mathematical Compendium from 1 to 200We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|summary=This is a book that definitely does what it says on the tin. Our author has the capacity Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to grab each number between one and two hundredbe different from his father, a drunk and wring it for chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all its worth - all the special status it might have in our culture (more easy with seven than, say, 187), all the special properties it might possess (perfect, triangular, prime), failed miserably and as many other things mathematicians and so on would find who had endless crises of interestself confidence. Luckily there is enough here So Tim applied himself to make the book well worth a browse for us who would not deem themselves number buffshis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>071563710X</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=Stephen Hunter1529900360|title=I, SniperThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=You donIt hadn't often find novels or films based 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 the art of the sniperdifficult cases. Hiding out for hours motionless His assertions that there were only open-and then killing someone unseen from hundreds of yards away doesn-shut cases which didn't make need the help of a psychologist only worked for as interesting a story as a face to face shoot outwhile. But with Finally, it was Robin, Delaware'Is partner, Sniper'who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, Stephen Hunter has managed to combine though. Two lovers were murdered in the art swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the sniper with heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the art Italian. But which of them was the crime thriller in a decent read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377777</amazonuk>primary target?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Coats and Anthony Lewis1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Beasts in the Jar (Greek Beasts and Heroes)Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Atticus the sandalmaker is heading Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to the great storytelling competition follow in Troy. On his wayfootsteps, particularly when he meets 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 number of people vet andwas convinced this was the job for him. Before long, always eager for an opportunity to hone he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his skillsdream since he was a child. If anything, relates he'd wanted to them tales from Ancient Greek myths and legends. The beasts in the jar of the title? Pandora released them from what we mistakenly call her boxbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000659</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jed Mercurio0861541774|title=American AdultererA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=IDCI Domenic Jejeune've often wondered how history s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would have viewed Jack Kennedy if later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he'd died killed a natural death rather than by an assassin's bulletGhurka. As an extension Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that I've also thought suggested that he might not have lived that much longer had nature been allowed planned to take its coursemurder the man. He's one of Now he could be facing the most-written-about Presidents of all time death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and finding a new angle – even a fictional one – is not easy, but Jed Mercurio has looked wouldn't help Danny at Kennedy's adult life through the prism of his sexual peccadilloes and his healthall.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515873</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe TreasureAlexander McCall Smith|title=BesottedThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It is late August 1982, the day when O level results come out. Michael Cartwright already knows he has failed his exams and is dreading his parents finding out. He, his twin brother Kieran (who has done very well) and their younger sisters are on the family holiday, staying with their mother's parents in Kilross, County Cork. To escape boredom and his parents' anger, he wanders round the village, where he meets Fergal Noonan, training to be a priest, and lively Peggy O'Connor. He has his first kiss and a bit more with Peggy. The family soon goes home to Cheltenham, but their brief visit to Ireland will have far reaching significance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330511726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Pears|title=Landed|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have hesitated The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to write this review because, truthfully, I am not ''entirely'' sure that I know what happened at the end. I read it all. I actually read the end several timesonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. And then I skipped back to Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the middlebusiness, just as Ness is planning to take a trip to check something, before trying the end againCanada to get away for a while. I have decided to just believe in what I ''think'' happenedKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and since I don't want so jumps at the chance to spoil it for other readers then I don't have come home to make a complete fool of myself writing down what it is I think! Edinburgh. And actuallyso begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, that mysteriousness is part of thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm of the story. SoKatie has no experience in running a business, slight confusion asideor in match-making, I still gave this book four starsbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and this is why...there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020079</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeff Somers0811771741|title=The Eternal Prison|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=This book stands out in the high-energy, hard-edged sci-fi adventure/thriller genre, in that it covers two stories at the same time. In one chapter we have Avery Cates, practically the best gun-for-hire in his post-apocalyptic North America, being told to kill one of the most protected and important people left in the world, by other, almost as important people, in the cruel mix of powerplays that make up the current politics. In the other corner is Cates, being thrown in prison - one of those basic, hell-on-earth, surrounded by miles of desert, prisons. Here, too, he will be told to do jobs InstaKnits for other people...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBaby|author=A.Roger Ekirch |title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired KidnappedMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrafts|summary=They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and it is not unusual Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for novels Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to be based partly on factblankets. So it was in Some will be quick knits - others are of the case of Robert Louis Stevenson's ''Kidnapped''long, Sir Walter Scott's ''Guy Manneringcosy afternoons in front of the fire'variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, and at least three othersfive to ten hours, all of which can point ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the saga of James Annesley for inspirationprojects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laila Lalami Dean Koontz|title=Secret SonThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=''Secret Son'' Benny is the story of Youssef El-Mekki, the slum-dwelling teenage son of single mother Rachidahaving a terrifically bad day. Youssef has always been told that He loses his father is deadjob, so when he finds out loses his fiancee, and his mother house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has lied delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to conceal his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the fact thing that he was born out of wedlockhas trashed his house! The thing is, he plunges headlong into an identity crisisBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He tracks down is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his real fatherhouse is a new friend, a wealthy businessman bad weather friend called Nabil Amrani Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is surprisingly enthusiastic about his illegitimate songoing to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's arrival. Nabil has recently fallen out with his daughter enemies, if he, Benny, and he seizes this opportunity to mould Youssef Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into the obedient son he has always wantedBenny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918296</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bonnie Hearn HillAdam Stower|title=Star Crossed: Aries RisingMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=Ordinary teen Logan McRae discovers an old book called 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 the two. But he'Fearless Astrologys a bad magician'. Can the book help her s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and her friends get the boys catflap they wantboth use can chuck them out, catch not into the vandals who are shocking their school with pranksregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and win her the approval of cantankerous English teacher Mr 'Frankenstein' Franklin? whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is a novel written for teens expected – of course it can.well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0762436700</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gabrielle LordB0C47LV1PC|title=January (Conspiracy 365)Fragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Callum is wandering along home on New YearCan you make a 's Eve when crazed itinerant accosts him. 'Yo birthing person'They killed your father! They'll kill joke? And if you! You must survive could, is the next 365 days!''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=Steve Feasey1529431735|title=Changeling: Blood WolfThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Trey It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the last living hereditary werewolf - or so he thinksCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. So when The return has come about because he discovers he has 's had a long-lost uncle, he shrugs off all objections letter from his vampire guardian, Lucien and catches the first available plane to Canada. When he arrivesex-wife, he finds saying that not all werewolves are fearsome, forbidding and courageous creatures. And theyshe're certainly not all family-friendly. His uncle is old, half-blind and alcoholic. He lives in filth s ill and he couldnhasn't give a fig for Treylong to live. But there is a pack out there, and it It's vicioushard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, bloodthirsty stripped to his underwear and rapidly spinning out sent to a watery grave in the boot of controla stolen Ford Sierra. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330470493</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cliff McNish|title=Savannah Grey: A Horror Story|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Savannah Grey is doing her best to settle into her latest foster placement - Annette is really nice; she's warm and kind Alex Bell and respects her adolescent charge's privacy. But Savannah has perenially itchy feet and she finds it difficult to make lasting relationships. She's never had a boyfriend and friendships are often fleeting. Nina is the only one that seems to stick around. Then her throat gets sore. Then Annette tells her that she's making odd noises at night. Savannah knows her body is changing and she's developing powers that she doesn't understand. Then the leaves start to swirl for no apparent reason and the birds to behave oddly. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842551124</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daren KingTim McDonagh|title=Frightfully Friendly GhostiesThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Pamela Fraidy has gotten herself locked Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the attic wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a leggy spiderhelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Her fellow frightfully friendly ghosties are doing all they can to help her Eli lives with his lovely gran, but it's not easy to pick up too – for there is a key and carry it up generation missing in the stairs if you don't have a bodyfamily. In the process of rescuing their friends A few short years ago, they also decide Eli's parents were both lost to make friends with the stilltitular race, a globe-alives who inhabit their house. The ghosties are fed up of trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the still-alives being so mean - running off screaming every time world in the ghosties say hello.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249930</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aravind Adiga|title=The White Tiger|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Balram Halwai, a Bangalore entrepreneur (company of sorts) and a natural philosopher, hears that there is a planned visit from magical beast. This has made the Chinese leader to India race anathema to learn the source of Indian entrepreneurial talent. Balram knows that pair – but when a bad incident at the story he will be told by the Indian leader will be eatery leads to a long way confession from the true story of modern Indian life, and so resolves, over the course of seven nightsgran, Eli knows his only hope is to write dare to enter what he most hates, with the Chinese premier with sole aim the story prize of his life and his own journey from a poor son of a rickshaw driver to magic at the end – the head of his own business.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843547228</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jane Casey|title=The Missing|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=In 1992, Sarah Finch's twelve year old brother Charlie says only thing to her ''Tell mum I'll be back soon.'' Sixteen years later, possibly save his family are still waiting to find out what happened to him. Now in her twenties, Sarah is teaching at a local private school while looking after her uncaring mother, who since Charlie's disappearance has slid into alcoholismgran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091935997</amazonuk>0571382231
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