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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>
==The Best New Books== '''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br> '''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gene KempSylvie Cathrall|title=No Way OutA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Alex and Adam There are twins, and they're telepathic few greater joys than a book which lives up to boota compelling premise. They're very close, but are also like chalk and cheese: Adam's looking forward to their holiday on Uncle Ben and Aunt Sadie's farm, but Alex can't think And this is one of anything worse. Adam is always happy to read to their little sister Emmy, but Alex resents the attention she gets (she's disabled, y'see). By and large, they're just ordinary kids, with ordinary grumbles. When the car they're in goes through thick fog and crashes, they find themselves in a town from times past, with inhabitants who don't want to let them leave, and who have an eye on Emmy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571244556</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Allan Manham and Penny Dann0008517061|title=The Giant CarrotDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Jack is quite Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the gardener. All future of his hard work means life with his vegetable patch is awash with lucious veggies. One dayvet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, he decides to pull as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up some carrots his off-grid and make soup, but the biggest carrot just wouldn't budge. He's going relaxing life to have move in with Livia or does Livia move to get some chums to help himLittle 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843625911</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Castle Freeman1786482126|title=All That I HaveThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Castle Freeman may sound like two thirds Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a firm of provincial solicitors but thankfully this Castle Freeman is child beneath a man very skilled in writing about the law rather than practicing it. In his latest novel Freeman tells an intriguing tale involving local Sheriff Lucian Wing and his practical yet low-key approach to maintaining order in rural Vermontdoorway. Not for Wing the gung ho approach to fighting crime There was no skull. He doesn't wear Was this a uniformritual killing or murder? Inevitably, he drives a battered old car rather than the standard issue sheriffDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's wagon and his gundifficult as Ruth knows, so ubiquitous in US law enforcementbut Nelson doesn't, that she is safely tucked away in pregnant with his bottom drawer. Everyone in child as a result of the area knows the sheriff and by and large one night they respect him and his slightly unorthodox way spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of doing businesssickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715639021</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dan Rhodes0008551324|title=Little Hands ClappingThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The first character It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to mention in this book is a mothapproach the police. ItNeither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's a human moth, drawn prepared to tell the police where the flame that is a museum body of suicide - a supposedly cautionarymissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, life-affirminghe promises, memento mori, somewhere in Germanyis someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Its curator And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an old hand at lonelyearly parole date. Not much to ask, unloved museums, fresh from an art gallery in an airport - is it didn? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't take off think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who notices works with him is kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the noise of Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the latest suicide investigation ground to happen a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the museum, positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and goes right back her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to sleepbe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. A spider crawls into his mouth and gets eatenKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847675298</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lindsey Leavitt0571379877|title=Princess for HireThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Desi Edward Jevons is not the happiest of teenagersa working-class young man, although when are teenage girls ever actually happy? Anyway, her exobsessed with his upper-best friend Celeste is doing everything possible to humiliate and alienate her from their class friends, Robert and to top it all off Celeste is also dating the boy Desi has Stanza. Robert's a huge crush on, Haydentheatre director. (He is perhaps a dubious prospect 's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for Desi since he can't even get her name right)him. Still, she Edward has landed herself summer job working for a pet store and although it involves being dressed been in a furry groundhog costume at least nolove with Stanza since their university days -one can tell itand he's her in theredrunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Well, not until Celeste comes along and unmasks her. In front of Hayden. Desi finds herself feeling more and more like vapour every day, that she doesnMost men in Robert't matter s position would stay away from Stanza or almost doesntell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he't exist. Cue s not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the fairy-godmother style entrance two of Meredith, an agent for Facade which is them kissing in a magical company that offer jobs to teens with magical potential to work as substitute princessesdark passageway...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524612X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Giles Andreae and David WojtowyczJo Callaghan|title=Commotion In The OceanLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=There's When a man is found crucified on the top of a commotion hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the ocean: case alongside her sidekick, the dolphins are squeakingAI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, the jellyfish are jigglinghaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. 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 lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the lobsters are clippetty-clapping snippety-snapping. Animal by animalcase in time, Giles Andreae (best-known for [[Giraffes Can't Dance Magnet Book by Giles Andreae or will Kat find herself taken off the case and Guy Parker-Rees|Giraffes Can't Dance]]) takes us through the underwater adventures, with shortpotentially, snappy poems.out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408308452</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Delphine de Vigan1399613073|title=No and MeMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=Lou Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a clever, clever child with an IQ approaching 160perfectionist and a trauma doctor. She's thirteen, but Anjali is the free spirit of the group and shebecomes a GP. When we first meet them they's been moved up two years re at school a drug and she compares her flat chested, nervous self somewhat unfavourably with her fifteen-yearalcohol-old peer group. Funnily enough, her only real friend at school is Lucas, who's seventeen fuelled party and such a rebel that heit's been moved down going to end in tragedy. two years. Things at home arenWe don't great for Louknow who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Her baby sister died a few Twenty-five years ago and her mother has been severely depressed ever sincelater there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. She barely talks This time, seldom gets dressed. Her father is worn down to the bone with worry and Lou doesnit't get a great deal of attention from him either, so distracted is hes their teenage children who are involved. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408807513</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Magrs0241636604|title=The Diary of a Dr Who Addict|rating=3|genre=Teens|summary=Davey, in his first term at secondary school, is horrified. Not only is his best friend trying to grow up through the use of a home gym, and standing him up on the first morning of term, he also seems to be becoming dismissive of The Show. Still, he is trying to be esoteric - just like his sister, painting her face to look like Bowie album sleeves of all things - and Davey knows better. He knows everyone should be enthralled with the spectacle of Tom Baker falling off a building and becoming Peter Davison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384129</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTrading Game: A Confession|author=Joshua Ferris |title=The Unnamed|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Tim Farnsworth seemed to have it all. He loved his wife Jane and daughter Becka and his job as a partner in prestigious law firm was enjoyable, fulfilling and financially rewarding. The fly in the ointment was that sometimes he was overtaken by a compulsion to walk. The time of day, the weather or the occasion did not matter – when the compulsion came he had to walk until he was physically exhausted and fell asleep immediately after calling his wife to come and collect him. There seemed to be no medical explanation for what was happening – and Tim and Jane had tried every source they could find – but Tim was still reluctant to accept that this was a mental rather than a physical illness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917702</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michele Monro|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's SingerGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=In terms If you were to bring up an image of British chart statistics and record salesa city banker in your mind, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potentialyou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. When measured against A hoodie and jeans replaces the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones pin-stripe suit and Engelbert Humperdinckhis background is the East End, where he fell some way shortwas familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Yet the former Terry Parsons There was a regular fixture no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the light entertainment circuit, and overseas, particularly in Latin America London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one has a facility with numbers which most of Britain's us can only envy. He also realised that most successful exports ever, and rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at one point he what was the biggest selling artist in Spain, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. His idol Frank SinatraEventually, to whom he was often compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened tothis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James A Owen1035021803|title=Shadow Dragons (Imaginarium Geographica) The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=If you want It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to know the English country village where Tolkein, C S Lewis and their ilk got their ideas she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help fromher beloved aunt, you might consider their jobsCarole. No - not their work in Oxbridge universities. In this bookFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, at leastArthur Crockleford, John, Charles is dead and Jack are guardians of a very important book, the Imaginarium Geographicacircumstances seem suspicious, within which lives a lot of secret, vital information, and almost to say the soul of the landleast. They might Arthur was the reason why Freya had not get a surname so we know immediately who is whombeen back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. They might Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be from a different world - there is certainly enough talk of those in these pagesnear the man or pursue the profession she loved. But we'll see them meet a vanishing Cheshire catAfter the split, she worked in a certain Spanish knight we might have thought fictionalcafe, met and moremarried James (on the rebound from the love of her life, en route to a quest of Arthurian proportionswho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386512</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=P C CastSunny Singh|title=Divine by Mistake (Goddess of Partholon)Hotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyThrillers |summary=Shannon Parker, broke Oklahoma English teacher, likes The Hotel Arcadia is a good bargain hunt at luxury hotel in an auctionunnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. But she gets more than her money's worth when she buys Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a vase with her likeness painted on itwartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. Somehow transported As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the magical world of Partholon, Shannon finds herself residents who are still alive in the shoes hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of Rhiannon, her mirror double. Along with Rhiannonroom to try to capture what's station happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Goddess Incarnate, Shannon finds herself landed with Abhi tries to help her double's less than enviable reputation keep safe and a Centaur husbandthey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303578</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon Mayhew1529153298|title=MortlockThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=AbyssiniaIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, 1820honestly. Three Englishment search for the Amarant..) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, a mythical flower with the power over life and death, in a strange desert oasisthough. Women have been disappearing. On finding the flower surrounded by decaying faces Well, they realize that it is cursed've been murdered, and take a blood oath never but to remove ithave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. London, 1854. 13 year old knife thrower Josie performs with Miv's upset because she's overheard that her guardian father wants to move the Great Cardamomfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, an especially gifted magician who we quickly learn Down South is Chrimesa frightening, the coward of the original three Englishmenforeign place, best avoided. Their relatively peaceful existence is shattered when three macabre Aunts (note For Miv, the capital lettermove would mean leaving her best friend, never a good sign…) descend on themSharon, and Cardamom instructs Josie, with his dying breath, she'll do anything to find the twin brother heprevent that. She'd never told her s not worried about and destroy the Amarantdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803925</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carole White and Sian Williams1398524085|title=Struggle or Starve|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Struggle or Starve is a collection of autobiographical writings about girls' and women's lives in South Wales between the wars. This is a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honno, an independent publisher set up to encourage Welsh women writers. Most of the contributors in this book came from miners' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecurity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Julia Green|title=Drawing with LightNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Emily doesnCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband't remember her biological mothers fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. She ran away with another man when Emily was just two. Now Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her older sister Katdaughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her fatherhusband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and her stepmother Cassy make up Greg, find the family unit and Emily thinks itbody of Greg's just fine father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that way. She doesnDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't need a mother who didn't want her and has never even tried to get in touchstand the guilt. But then Kat goes off to university, her father buys a rundown house in the middle of nowhere and moves them into a caravan while it The Salter children are not convinced but there's being renovated, little else they can do but get on with their lives and Cassy gets pregnantwonder about what really happened. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802732</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Dessen1035906708|title=Along for the RideDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Auden has always felt like the odd one out amongst her peers. Her We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents - now divorced - are both academics and high achieversin Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and they, especially only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her mother, want father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the same for AudenStates. Auden's older brother is the rebel and When she was back in Athens - supposedly so Auden feels as though that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she needs to be was raised under the one Nazi occupation by a mother who satisfies mercilessly exploited her mother's ambition. So she works hard and never lets made no secret of her diligence or conscientiousness slip preference for even a moment. But she's socially awkward and lacking in experience. She's never had a boyfriendher elder sister, hates the colour pink and can't even ride a bikeJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327480</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caroline Moorehead Christopher Edge|title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Two hundred years agoLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, with a place that has the fall nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of the monarchy exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the Napoleonic warsmovie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotherand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. There were many who witnessed and experienced But as they lurch from one film genre to the volatile age at first handnext, but few left a more detailed record than can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the subject of this biographycinema, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rook HastingsRachel Greenlaw|title=Nearly DepartedCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=At first sight, you'd think Weirdsville was Anytown - it has a slightly rundown feel; everything's just a little bit shabbyI can hear the song of the sea. But it's pretty much like any other town. Parents go to work. Kids go to school and clump together in little peer groups The call of geeks and swots and jocks and bullies. But Weirdsville isn't like any other town. There's a strangely abundant wood right in the middle of itdeep, and at night, everythings turns, well, a little bit weird. The darkness is so dark it almost sucks you the answering beat inmy heart. And there are odd noises too...''
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 Emily thinks with only coordinates to guide her, shesets 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 seen a ghostterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007258100</amazonuk>0008664730
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=The Monday Night Cooking School is Things have been a bit sticky for the first novel written by American writer Erica Bauermeister Earthlings. AI and it really is a delicious read in every sense. The novel tells of eight very diverse people who attend a cooking class once a month at Lillianautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's restaurant. Each has a different reason for being there re paid to do and each has his or her own story other tasks that took time to tellaccomplish. However, over the months that the course is run, Just as they start were beginning to get used to bond through the learning experience all this technological change and their love starting to think of foodother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. It's not the sort of novel where Life was pretty much happens but if you are interested in people shut down and you love food, I am sure you will enjoy this book. Having said that thoughalong with it, I don't think it is a book that should be read if you are trying to diet because you can virtually smell all the food as you turn the pages!many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141038837</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcus SedgwickMatthew Tree|title=Lunatics and Luck (Raven Mysteries)We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=It's obvious really. When an earthquake hits Castle Otherhand, Valevine, the head of the householdTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, decides what the place needs is a machine to predict the future, drunk and a new tutor for chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his two oldest children. And why not? There are only those children, the suicidal baby twins, Valevine's dreadful artistic passions all failed inventions miserably and experiments, Edgar the raven that narrates this series who had endless crises of booksself confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and a monkey. With bells on. Clearly there is not enough weirdness there already to go aroundset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842556959</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=Ken Bruen1529900360|title=The Killing of the TinkersGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jack Taylor returns to his native Ireland with his tail between his legs. HeIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been lying low 'over the water' in Londonbadly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, licking Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his woundshelp on difficult cases. Jack (I'm slightly surprised His assertions that Bruen there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't give him need the help of a more Irish name) is psychologist only worked for a middle-agedwhile. Finally, it was Robin, washed-upDelaware's partner, disgraced ex-copwho nudged Milo into asking for help again. As if She knew that the involvement was something that wasn't bad enoughthe man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, he also has though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a lot of very bad habitsremote property in Bel Air. He acknowledges however that was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the new world is designed for non-smokersItalian.' He also admits quite freely and openly that 'An alcoholic has dreams to rival that But which of any Vietnam vet.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224113</amazonuk>them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=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.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Zeltserman0861541774|title=KillerA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Here at the BookbagDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, we've been very impressed has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with Dave Zeltserman's work thus faran old ally, Guy Trueman. He uses Maik was involved in a wonderful noirish narrative street brawl - he would later maintain that takes you straight to the heart of the storyhe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. His story telling is very straightforward, not weighing down the story with too much styleInitially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but sticking evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the substance and delivering a hard-hitting work every timeman. With ''Killer'', Now he has done could be facing the same againdeath penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668644X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger HargreavesAlexander McCall Smith|title=Mr Nobody (Mr Men and Little Misses)The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Mr Nobody The Perfect Passion Company is... well, he's somebody who sort of is and sort of isn't. Mr Happy comes across him one daya dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and does his best operating as an alternative to cheer him up. Who could possibly help all the online apps in providing a person who's sort of there and sort of isn't? Ahmore personal, the Wizard!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405251425</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tony Mitton and Guy Parker-Rees|title=Jolly Olly Octopus|rating=3tailored service.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Jolly Olly Octopus is giggling underneath the sea. He's soon joined by two tickly turtles, three smiley seahorses, Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and so on through look after the numbers. The large cast of underwater animals are having a jolly ol' timebusiness, until as Ness is planning to take a shark appears...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846166861</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mo Smith|title=The Lazy Cook's Family Favourites|rating=4.5|genre=Cookery|summary=These days I trip to Canada to get very nervous when I hear about books away for 'lazy' cooks, or how to cheat when preparing mealsa while. There's Katie is coming out of a break up with a very simple reason for this: good foodbad boyfriend, prepared using seasonal ingredients which don't break the budget needs skill and knowledge and neither are so jumps at the prerogative of the lazychance to come home to Edinburgh. Mo And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith might like , bringing us to think that she's lazyan Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but take my word for it – she isn'twith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. She might have learned Katie has no experience in running a few tricks for business, or in match-making good food quickly, but sheNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there's a woman who knows always her onions very helpful (and all sorts of other food.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749007826</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Blade0811771741|title=Creta the Winged Terror (Beast Quest)InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Our hero, Tom, is finding his fishing trip with his father bugged - literally - by Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a plague collection of sickening cockroach thingsknits from toys to blankets. WhatSome will be quick knits - others are of the 's morelong, cosy afternoons in front of the whole land of Avantia is suffering some form of horrid heatwavefire' variety. Can TomThe projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, recognising yet another threat ten to his country from twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the evil Malvelprojects are attractive, defeat his nemesis yet again modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social- especially as said baddie has as a new weapon of darkness a massive host of the roaches, swarming as one giant monster?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408307359</amazonuk>media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karan MahajanDean Koontz|title=Family Planning|rating=2|genre=General Fiction|summary=Mr Rakesh Ahuja is Delhi's Mister of Urban Development and so far, has managed to do well in his career. However, his family life is beginning to take over - he already has thirteen children and a fourteenth is on the way. The eldest, Arjun, now a teenager was born to Mr Ahuja's first wife, but up til now, Arjun is unaware of this fact. Sangita Ahuja, the long-suffering wife, is aware that her relationship with Arjun may never be the same again. Meanwhile, Arjun is only interested in one thing - how to attract the attention of the gorgeous girl on his school bus. What will happen to the family when Mr Ahuja finally tells the truth?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523299</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Fraser's Autographs|title=Collect Autographs: An Illustrated Guide to Collecting and Investing in AutographsBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and FinanceParanormal|summary=There must be many of us who have at one time had an autograph book or something of the kind as children Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and asked friendssomeone has delivered a really weird, relations or even celebrities disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it'do something's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, written Benny is the very last person to celebrities in deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the hope of obtaining delivery to his house is a personally signed picturenew friend, or even waited patiently at a stage door after bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a play or concert eagerly clutching a theatre programmegood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, record or CD sleeve and pen in handHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0852597525</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Derrick NiedermanAdam Stower|title=Number Freak: A Mathematical Compendium from 1 to 200Murray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceConfident Readers |summary=This Murray is supposed to be a book that definitely does what it says on 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 tintwo. Our author But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has the capacity to grab each number between one and two hundredbeen turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and wring it for all its worth - all the special status it might have in our culture (more easy with seven thancatflap they both use can chuck them out, saynot into the regular back garden, 187), all the special properties but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it might possess (perfectdrops them into a Viking land, triangularwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, prime)one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and as many other things mathematicians and so on would find of interest. Luckily there is enough here he'll have to make the book well worth a browse for us who would not deem themselves number buffs.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>071563710X</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Hunter1529431735|title=I, SniperThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=You donIt't often find novels or films based on the art of s February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the snipermore surprising. Hiding out for hours motionless and then killing someone unseen from hundreds of yards away doesnHe't make for d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as interesting a story as wanted drug smuggler for a face to face shoot outdecade. But with The return has come about because he'Is had a letter from his ex-wife, Snipersaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, Stephen Hunter has managed stripped to his underwear and sent to combine a watery grave in the art boot of the sniper with the art of the crime thriller in a decent readstolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377777</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy Coats Alex Bell and Anthony LewisTim McDonagh|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts in the Jar (Greek Beasts and Heroes)|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Atticus the sandalmaker Eli is heading to the great storytelling competition in Troy. On his way, he meets a number of people and, always eager for busy lad – by day an opportunity to hone his skills, relates to them tales from Ancient Greek myths and legends. The beasts apprentice in the jar of the title? Pandora released them from what wondrous library we mistakenly call her box.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000659</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jed Mercurio|title=American Adulterer|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I've often wondered how history would have viewed Jack Kennedy if he'd died a natural death rather than start by an assassin's bullet. As an extension of that I've also thought that he might not have lived that much longer had nature been allowed to take its course. He's one of visiting with him, and in the most-written-about Presidents of all time and finding a new angle – even evening a fictional one – is not easy, but Jed Mercurio has looked helper at Kennedy's adult life through the prism of dessert cafe his sexual peccadilloes gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515873</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joe Treasure|title=Besotted|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It is late August 1982lovely gran, the day when O level results come out. Michael Cartwright already knows he has failed his exams and too – for there is dreading his parents finding out. He, his twin brother Kieran (who has done very well) and their younger sisters are on a generation missing in the family holiday. A few short years ago, staying with their motherEli's parents in Kilross, County Cork. To escape boredom and his parents' anger, he wanders round were both lost to the villagetitular race, a globe-trotting adventure 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 all entrants have far reaching significance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330511726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Pears|title=Landed|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I have hesitated to write this review because, truthfully, I am not ''entirely'' sure that I know what happened at navigate the world in the endcompany of a magical beast. I read it all. I actually read This has made the end several times. And then I skipped back race anathema to the middle, just to check something, before trying pair – but when a bad incident at the end again. I have decided eatery leads to just believe in what I ''think'' happeneda confession from gran, and since I don't want Eli knows his only hope is to spoil it for other readers then I don't have dare to make a complete fool of myself writing down enter what it is I think! And actuallyhe most hates, that mysteriousness is part with the sole aim the prize of magic at the charm of end – the story. So, slight confusion aside, I still gave this book four stars, and this is why..only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020079</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
