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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, & self-published books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|plus author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth ChandlerSylvie Cathrall|title=Dark Secrets: Legacy of Lies and Don't TellA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=After years without seeing There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{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 grandmotherdaughter Diana, Megan receives an invitation 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 perhaps a summons - does Livia move to visit 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old lady at her house in Norwich - the town site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of Wisteriaa child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Reluctantly Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, she goes there to please her motherDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but finds out that despite the invitation, her grandmother Nelson doesn't seem happy to see her, and neither does her cute but sullen cousin Matt, who's currently living therethat she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. More worryingly, the house seems strangely familiar Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because she's seen it many times in her dreamsRuth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847388728</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Aird0008551324|title=Past TenseThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jan Wakefield was surprised It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to find herself arranging approach the refreshments police. Neither side likes or has any respect for mourners after the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a funeral, not least because she had never met the deceased missing person is buried and who was unaware that responsible for her husband was death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the next of kinpolice doing what he wants. He was working in South America And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and not expected home for some timeto get an early parole date. Josephine Short had obviously been a feisty character though. Not much to ask, is it? Despite being unmarried The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she had had a child (at a time when this would have been frowned upon) 's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and amassed a considerable fortune. Her grandson Joe was flying home anyone who works with him is kept well away from Lasserta for the funeralwhat's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007648</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=N K Jemisin0008405026|title=The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms A Stranger in the Family (Inheritance TrilogyMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=A month after her motherIt's death, outcast Yeine Darr is summoned by sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her grandfather, king of bed one summer night. She was never found and the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, investigation ground to come to the palace of Skya halt. There named one of his three heirs Now, along with her feuding cousinsmother, she quickly realizes that without allies she will surely lose Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the contest for positioning of the thronebodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Thus begins What looked as though it was going to be an epic quest to find her motheropen-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's murdererboss, save her own life, and fulfil a destiny she never knew she hadUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498173</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Conway and Dubravka Kolanovic0571379877|title=The Secret To Teddy's HappinessKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=When the toys discover an oldEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, bedraggled teddy bearobsessed with his upper-class friends, they rack their brains to find Robert and Stanza. Robert's a way to mend his broken hearttheatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to make run errands for him smile again. The velvet rabbit who knows everything offers Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the secret two of Teddy's happiness, but he wants them to do him kissing in a favour firstdark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862337624</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Jo Callaghan|title=Leave No Trace|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a 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 case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Kornberger 1399613073|title=Brand SocietyMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and FinanceThrillers|summary=Brand Society is fundamentally not a business management book. This might come as some surprise given the title. Management booksOlivia, at least Laura and Anjali met on the ''how to'' management books, tend to be simple first day of medical school and easy to follow. But, I suspect Kornberger their friendship would agree, that's what limits their use. They are over-simplified to the point keep them inseparable for a quarter of uselessnessa century. Rather Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Brand Society takes an holistic approach which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the subject free spirit of the prevailing nature of brands in todaygroup and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they's world (re at least the Western world). He suggests that todaya drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's brands exist without a prevailing theory going to understand them end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or make sense of themthe consequences. So what Kornberger does, after first looking at how brands transform management and organizations, is present a brand Twenty-centred conceptual map for thinking about things like politicsfive years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, ethics and aestheticsit's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521726905</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Ball0241636604|title=The Music InstinctTrading Game: How Music Works and Why We Can't Do without it |rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary='We need to talk about music, but it is hard. Very few people can do it.' So says Philip Ball after 400 pages of talking about music. Very few readers who make it that far will disagree with his conclusion, but most will have gained some enlightenment about how music works and why we enjoy it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847920888</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Confession|author=Phil Daniels|title=Phil Daniels: Class ActorGary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If we you were asked to nominate bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the archetypal Cockney actor on large or small screen over pin-stripe suit and his background is the last twenty years or soEast End, where he was familiar with violence, Phil Daniels would undoubtedly come high poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the listLondon School of Economics. Born in Islington in 1958 Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and raised in Kings Cross, he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a graduate of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970strader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847376207</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Enthoven1035021803|title=CrawlersThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Why are the men that want It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to take over the world using evil alien beings always so stupid? Steadman is stupidEnglish country village where she grew up. Ever since the Great Fire She's back now because of London trapped a request for help from her in an underground dungeon in 1666beloved aunt, the Queen has been neutralisedCarole. Even then Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, the great is dead and the powerful couldn't quite bring themselves circumstances seem suspicious, to kill hersay the least. She Arthur was the reason why Freya had too much potentialnot been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. But Even though they did have the sense were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to keep her safely locked away. But now Steadman thinks he knows better. He thinks he can rule be near the world through man or pursue the Queen and he's set her a testprofession she loved. If After the split, she passesworked in a cafe, he will set met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her freelife, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552558702</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott WesterfeldAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Pretties|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=In the unnamed city of the future, all the adults are pretty. TheyAll Tomorrow've had mental and physical surgery to make them calm, placid and perfectly aesthetic human beings. If they have any trouble as young adults it is the problem of what to wear at parties, or how to get rid of their hangovers when they wake up at 5pm. Unfortunately, one of these bright young things is our heroine, Tally, one of the few people in the world to have learnt how damnably horrid and sapping the life of Riley can be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389074</amazonuk>}} {{newreviews Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Suzanne Bugler|title=This Perfect WorldBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=Laura Hamley sees herself as a fortunate woman. She has a successful husband, two beautiful children, a big house in a good neighbourhood, and a coterie ''Opening up new ways of friends who fall nicely into thinking about the category shape of people like usthings to come. She's always beautifully turned out, and her position in the social pecking order is never less than high. She simply shrugs off the occasional moments of dissatisfaction - what on Earth could she have to complain about?'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill NewtonSunny Singh|title=Crash Bang Donkey!Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=Farmer Gruff spends all his time chasing The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the crows from his cornterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. Eventually he needs As Abhi continues to try to sleep, so all care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the animals tiptoe aroundhotel, making no noise whatsoever. What's this coming over the hill with he forms a crash and a bang? Oh no! It's a donkey bond with a drum. How's Farmer Gruff going Sam who refuses to get his sleep? If he can't sleepbe cowed by events, howand keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's he happened through her photography. Although they only ever going talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be able to keep rescued before they are discovered by the crows from his corn?terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1862337209</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Olga Grushin1529153298|title=The Concert TicketList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'The Concert Tickets not what's worrying Miv' follows the lives of a s family in Soviet Russia who , though. Women have grown desperately distant from one anotherbeen disappearing. Sergei Well, the fatherthey've been murdered, is a frustrated musician who longs but to play the pre-revolutionary masterpieces of composers like Igor Selinsky but is forced have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to play move the kind of patriotic ditties he despisesfamily 'Down South'. His schoolteacher wife When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, Annaforeign place, longs for his lovebest avoided. For Miv, but is never quite able to get his attention with the move would mean leaving her shy gestures. Their shiftless sonbest friend, AlexanderSharon, has quietly given up going and she'll do anything to school and spends his days hanging around prevent that. She's not worried about the park, consorting with undesirables. Also living in their house is Annadangers or that her Mum's silent, elderly motherstopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918482</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aatish Taseer1398524085|title=The Temple-Goers|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Aatish Taseer is probably best known for his journalism, publishing regularly in the Indian press, in Prospect, and perhaps most prolifically in Time magazine. He has won acclaim for his memoir: Stranger to History in which he, raised by his Indian Sikh mother, traces his absent Muslim father across the border in Pakistan – and also for his translations of the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918504</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Saunders|title=Beswitched|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Flora is furious at being sent away to boarding school, even one which is very progressive with luxurious facilities and school rock bands. Her parents need to sell her grandmother's house in Italy and build a granny flat at home, and Flora is resentful at having her life turned upside down for a grumpy, unpleasant old woman. On the train, she falls asleep and wakes up to find herself in another era. Trendy 21st century Flora is horrified to find herself in a hideous pinafore dress with a childish haircut and no make up. What has happened to her Ipod, mobile phone and brand new laptopHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407108972</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julie Cohen|title=Nina Jones and the Temple of GloomNicci French|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=A sign of a good book, for me, often relates to how easily I can put it down. And then how much I want to pick it back up again. Nina Jones was a particular challenge for me as after reading it for an hour whilst my toddler napped I kept my thumb in the page whilst getting her out of bed, snuck her downstairs still saving my page, put on Cbeebies, and then sat next to her on the sofa to carry on reading for at least another hour, if not a little bit more than that. I then kept it in the kitchen so I could sneak a few more pages in between stirring the spaghetti. And then once my daughter was in bed I went on to absently ignore my poor, tired, over-worked husband (who got bored and went for a bath) so that I could read on to the end of the story. I found myself mentally yelling at a fictional character (I hope it was mentally and I wasn't actually shouting out loud...we have very thin walls), I swooned over the hero, sniggered often and I even cried a little bit too. So, a book that induces such family neglect and an emotional roller coaster of emotions is definitely a good read!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755341414</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ken Bruen|title=The Guards|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=A woman makes an unlikely choice by asking Jack Taylor to investigate the apparent suicide of Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her teenage daughter in Galway, Etty. Jack is ex Irish police (Garda) are all worried but also a known alcoholic with nothing much else in his life. His approach to investigation is haphazard - he doesn't really have a method beyond asking direct questions andstrangely - her husband, if necessaryAlec, using his fistsis not. Predictably Shortly afterwards, there is more to the suicide case than first meets the eye Etty and JackGreg, aided by his unsavoury friendfind the body of Greg's father, SuttonDuncan Ackerley, uncover some very disturbing secrets in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and levels of corruption within then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the cityguilt. '' The Guards'' is Salter children are not your conventional crime thriller; itconvinced but there's darker little else they can do but get on with their lives and has a grim realismwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224105</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Speller1035906708|title=The Return of Captain John EmmettDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Laurence Bartram has survived the warWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but his life has changed dramatically. It will never be the same again. It's almost as if he doesn't recognize himself. Domestic life is now non-existent and he has no-one she was born to please but himself. He is unsettled and edgy. War has obviously left its mark. He retreats graciously and wonders what he'll do with the rest of his life. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086070</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Salman Rushdie|title=Imaginary Homelands: Essays Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and Criticisms 1981 - 1991|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We read some authors because we know we're going only moved to enjoy themAthens when she was thirteen. Others, we feel somehow obliged Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to read. If we consider ourselves ''readers'Callas', and certainly if we have any pretensions (I use the word advisedly) to being ''well-read'', then there are some books and make it more particularly some authors with whom we are required to become familiar.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542250</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neel Mukherjee|title=A Life Apart|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ritwik Ghosh grows up in India manageable in the 1970's, one of two children of an abusive motherStates. In the 1990's, finally escaping the country after her death, he comes to England to study at Oxford, then moves to London. There, he looks after 86 year old Anne Cameron When she was back in exchange Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for free accommodation, while looking for work, and for sexual encounters with other men. He also writes a novel her voice - she was raised under the extended story Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of Miss Gilbyher preference for her elder sister, a character in Rabindranath Tagore's novel Ghare Baire. Miss Gilby becomes English teacher to Bimala, the wife of a minor official in 1900's Bengal just before the Partition of the provinceJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901101X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark Sperring and Leo TimmersChristopher Edge|title=GreenBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Clive loves wearing green. ItLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole's all he ever wears. He thinks he looks mighty snazzy All big movie fans, but his big sister (boo! hiss!) takes every opportunity they're looking forward to call him a cabbagelots of exciting films, mossand many, a sprout or a toad. Clive keeps wearing his green clothesmany snacks! However, as the movie starts, certain they very quickly realise that hesomething about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn'll have t even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the last laugh next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and get one over on his sister.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845394534</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=Josephine WilkinsonJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Early Loves of Anne BoleynPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already Things have been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on a bit sticky for the scaffoldEarthlings. The first was her Irish cousin James ButlerAI and automation have been proceeding apace, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time intended to marry in order accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to settle a family dispute over the title all this technological change and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came starting to an end in the face think of legal obstaclesother, she became betrothed new ways to Henry Percyspend time, heir to the Duke of Northumberlandalong came an awful pandemic. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the DukeLife was pretty much shut down and, who had little time for his sonalong with it, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this all the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealedmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott WesterfeldMatthew Tree|title=UgliesWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary="This city is a paradise, Tally. It feeds you, educates you, keeps you safe. It makes you pretty." And that's meant literally. As soon as they're sixteen years old, ugly people like Tally are completely rebuilt - no Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more freckles, dull eyes, rough skin, or ideas about biting their fingernailsthan to be different from his father, and made a pretty. It's scientific, drunk and obviously chronic underachiever whose dreams of benefit, considering the parties, status being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and love afforded to prettieswho had endless crises of self confidence. But is it essential? When her best friend is prettified Tally finds a new friend, Shay, who has secrets to share in the few weeks before the operation they're due So Tim applied himself to have on the same day. Secrets of another place, another wayhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and of people staying forever ugly - through choiceset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847389066</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Preston Rutt and Ben RedlichA G Slatter|title=Tortoise vs. Hare - The Rematch!Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingFantasy|summary=Harry 'The Hurricane' Hare has been licking his wounds since There'Steady' Eddie Tortoise beat him in the famous races 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. It's time I just want to enjoy it for a rematch, and Harrywhile.'s been training hard. Eddie couldn't possibly win again, could he?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845394186</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicole Dryburgh1529900360|title=Talk to the HandThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book ''The Way I See Ithadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, which she wrote at eighteen, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and -shut cases which detailed her battles with cancer and didn't need the loss help of her sighta psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. We loved She knew that the warts-and-all picture of her life involvement was something that the man she gave us thenloved needed. The next case did look simple, and so we though. Two lovers were really pleased murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to see that an Italian shoe empire and sheis married to an extremely rich man and it's written a second booknot the Italian. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Man Secret Life of Passagea Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Ian MathieSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn's association with Africa began 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 posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was in a convent vet and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he convinced this was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africansjob for him. Even when Before long, he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didnat Liverpool University. It hadn't realise it! He - as with so many students - been his dream since he was taught in the local language and grew up with the local childrena child. It was his home and was If anything, he'd wanted to be the centre of his life for decades to comea professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=K A S Quinn0861541774|title=The Queen Must Die (Chronicles A Nye of the Tempus) Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=In this historical time-travelling extravaganzaDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Katie Berger-Jones-Burg (I knowDanny Maik, it's has taken a mouthful, but stay short holiday in Singapore to meet up with me) is the daughter of Mimi, an ex-girl band member who has been married three timesold ally, so far, hence Katie's hyphenated nameGuy Trueman. Katie has come home from school to find Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that Mimi has gone off he was facing a man armed with another man, Dr Fishberg, a knife - and as she begins to stress about the potential new addition to her surname she crawls into her hidey-hole space beneath her bed to escape for he killed a little whileGhurka. Here she keeps her diary and her stash of books, and she curls up to read her latest bookInitially, he faced a compilation charge of letters from Princess Alice, Queen Victoria's youngest daughtermanslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. She starts to feel a bit sleepy, but is suddenly startled awake by a flash of lightNow he could be facing the death penalty. She finds herself in Victorian England, underneath Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a sofa diplomatic incident and staring into the eyes of Princess Alice, who is just as startled as she iswouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873700</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert WilliamsAlexander McCall Smith|title=Luke and JonThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Luke's mum died The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a car accident more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while ago and since then his father has let things go. The house has been repossessed Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and they are forced so jumps at the chance to move come home to a new townEdinburgh. The And so begins this new place is falling down - it's all they can afford after story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the debts were paidIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Neither Luke nor his father are really that bothered Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- what can a house be when making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's no mum to fill it with always her brightness very helpful (and vivacity and love? The bottle of whisky that has begun rather handsome) neighbour, William, to live in his father's hand though - that's lend a worry for Luke; that makes him feel rather sick inside. hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571249639</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melanie Rose0811771741|title=Coming HomeInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrafts|summary=We meet the narrator Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of this story drinking coffee knits from a thermos in a laytoys to blankets. Some will be quick knits -byothers are of the 'long, on a cold grey daycosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. All her worldly possessions The projects are travelling with her in her cardivided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, including her catten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. She has clearly made some momentous decisionAll the projects are attractive, modern and is on her way to somewhere newuseable. I assumed that as story unfolded, perhaps show my age when Iwonder about 'd learn more about her and where she was going.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561063</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P C Cast|title=Divine by Choice (Goddess of Partholon)|rating=3|genre=Fantasy|summary=A few months after the Formorian war, Shannon Parker is living the high life. Hailed as Goddess Incarnate, married to a man (well, centaur) who was born to love her, carrying her first child, the next daughter of Epona and royally spoiled with amazing jewels and clothes, life really cansocial-media-worthy projects' but that't get much betters me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303586</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephanie TillotsonDean Koontz|title=Cut on the BiasThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesParanormal|summary=If Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it''Cut on s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the Bias'' thing that has trashed his house! The thing is in your local bookshop, you will surely be won over by Benny is the feisty coververy last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Stories about women and their clothes are about identitySo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, so what better start who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a set good person. Spike is going to take care of short stories than Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a fashion statement cover featuring the bags in which said clothes arrive home?waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784132</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HornbyAdam Stower|title=Juliet, Naked|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=A clever, comic delight, pitch-perfect, astutely observed, particularly insightful, must-read. Crumbs. Whatever else is there to say about Nick Hornby's latest book that isn't already plastered on this newly-published paperback edition? I can only report that ''Juliet,'' ''Naked'' bowled me over with yet another Hornby strike.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141020644</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joanne Owen|title=The Alchemist Murray and the Angel|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=When Jan's parents die of the plague, he is sent to the great city of Vienna to live with his aunt and uncle. His uncle is a distinguished alchemist, and, hoping to take the boy's mind off his grief, hires him as his apprentice. Jan loves the work, learns quickly, and soon the two of them are on the verge of perfecting a serum said to bring the dead back to life. But then his uncle is found dead, and Jan is being whisked off to Prague by his vain and calculating aunt. She has her own plans for the serum, and she will stop at nothing to accomplish them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Connolly|title=The Spider TrucesBun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers |summary=The title of this debut novel by Tom Connolly Murray is enigmatic, mysterious. It draws the reader in - just like a fly supposed to be a spider's web. And in fairness 'The Spider Truces' does exactly what it say on the tin as the main characterhumble, Ellistidy and friendly cat, one who is obsessed able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and terrified in equal measure, well, whatever takes his fancy next of spidersthe two. ... But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and when you live in an old housethe catflap they both use can chuck them out, as not into the O'Rourke family doesregular back garden, there are plenty but into a world of spiders frightening adventure and other creepy crawlies aboutwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956251528</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William HusseyB0C47LV1PC|title=Witchfinder: Dawn of the DemontideFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This story is set in Kyoto, Japan, starting in June 1978. Fourteen year old Sarah Rexford and her Japanese mother, Yoko, have come back from the US to stay with family for Can you make a few weeks. Sarah was born and brought up in Japan but has lived in the US with her mother and white American father for five years. She is very conscious of the differences between life in Kyoto and in Fielder's Butte, California. Here in Kyoto'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the women, including Sarah and her mum, go shopping every day for food, and question should you make it? Or is the food is very different – in an opening scenequestion if you did, Sarah would it land? The catch is trying to explain to her grandfather what she normally has that the answer for breakfast in the US, and becoming aware of the gulf between her life in Japan and in Californiaboth could well be.... no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847392334</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick 1529431735|title=TimecatcherThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Jessie Minahan It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a pretty average fictional twelve year old girl: she has wanted drug smuggler for a dog side-kick named Duff and she craves adventuredecade. One day, when her scatty mother The return has an urgent need for buttons Jessie discovers the abandoned Dublin Button Factory in an old mill, now inhabited by two detectives, who have come about because he's had a big, big secret. She also meets G who is not your average fictional twelve year old boy letter from his ex- for onewife, hesaying that she's dead. His worst enemy is Greenwood – a large ghost who lives in the mill ill and is full of rules. Greenwood is also involved in this big secret which Jessie and G soon discover is the Timecatcherhasn't long to live. It opens every seven years for three days and reveals the past - 'shadow days' and 'shadow people'. It s hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is about abducted, stripped to open again his underwear and there is sent to a ghostly villain named Sullivan Ellz'mede who would do anything to have watery grave in the power source at its heartboot of a stolen Ford Sierra... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556770</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rose TremainAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=TrespassThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you haven't been to Grubtown before, then feel welcome. It's Eli is a busy lad – by day an auspicious day for apprentice in the town of grubby and inept people wondrous library we start by visiting with names like Rambo Sanskrithim, and Mango Claptrap, as wellin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. For today Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the day of film star Tawdrey Hipbone's gala charity premierefamily. But thereA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to be no gala, and little charity either, when a pelican (and not the town mascot eithertitular race, but a different one) comes and steals globe- yes, steals - the beloved dog Snooks - yes, Snooks - from trotting adventure where he was living the fine life in Tawdrey's hair - yes, hair.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124792X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christi Phillips |title=The Devlin Diary|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by King Charles II's advisors and forced entrants have to use her skills to treat his mistress, Louise de Keroualle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pauline Fisk|title=In navigate the Trees|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Since his mother died, Kid has been staying with Nadine and flipping burgers world in the company of a fast food joint after schoolmagical beast. It's not an exciting life, This has made the race anathema to the pair – but he isn't unhappy. And then Nadine gets when a boyfriend and bad incident at the flat gets rather cramped. And then eatery leads to a box of confession from gran, Eli knows his mother's possessions arrives. Insideonly hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, he finds a photo of with the sole aim the father he's never met and a copy prize of his birth certificate, which tells him that his father comes from Belize. And suddenly, Kid makes a decision. He's going nowhere fast in London, so he's going to head out to Belize and find magic at the man in end – the photo. He's on a plane within daysonly thing to possibly save his gran. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571236200</amazonuk>0571382231
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