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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, biographynon-fiction, crime, cookery and children's books & self-published books plus author interviews and & top tens.</metadesc><h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[: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. It's the bag we take to the library, the charity shop and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, 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|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.

Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in! Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''], [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''], [[File:instagram_classic_logo.png|link=https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/|alt=Follow us on Instagram]] [https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/ '''Instagram'''] and [[File:LinkedIn.png|link=https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-bookbag-1b12a264/|alt=LinkedIn]] There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews ]] at TheBookbag.

==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].

|isbnauthor=B08774SJYNSylvie Cathrall|title=The Greenbecker Gambit|author=Ben GraffA Letter to the Luminous Deep

|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=''I suppose the odd fleeting sense of loneliness is There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a price all truly successful people must pay for our giftscompelling premise. I tell myself that I do so willinglyAnd this is one of them.''|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4Tennessee Greenbecker|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Isn't that 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 name lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to conjure move in withLivia 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? There are hints that it might not have been For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the name he was given at birth, but many of us have moved future on, so far as names go, from the one we back burner.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were originally saddled with. Greenbeckerdemolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's life is one apartments - when they discovered the bones of constant reinventiona child beneath a doorway. He tells us that he There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's the foremost chess player never to have been world championdifficult as Ruth knows, and it does seem that he has some considerable talent as far as chess goes. Hebut Nelson doesn's determined t, that he's going to fulfil what he sees she is pregnant with his child as his destiny. He just needs to do some study to be able to beat a result of the current players ranked at numbers one and two in the worldnight they spent together some three months ago. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana Her condition will be obvious before long, not stand in his wayleast because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.

|isbn=00083901690008551324|title=Silent Cry The Devil You Know (Gaby Darin Book 1D S Max Craigie)|author=Jenny O'BrienNeil Lancaster|rating=34.5

|summary=Alys Grant It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was only a few days old when her father took responsible for her out for the first timedeath. Her motherThis person, Izzyhe promises, was tired is someone big and fell asleep, but when she woke a couple it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of hours later there was no sign of Charlie Dawson or Alyshis sentence and to get an early parole date. There was a hand-delivered postcard which simply said: Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she'Is even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what've got Alyss happening. Don't try to find us, Charlie''

|authorisbn=Holly Jackson0008405026|title=A Good Girl's Guide to MurderStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey

|genre=TeensCrime|summary=5 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, the tiny town of Little Kilton was rocked when beautifulher mother, popular Andie Bell disappeared without a traceHelena, presumed murderedand her father are dead in their bed. Her boyfriend Salil Singh was everyone Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's number 1 suspect – especially after Sal sent a 'confession' text to his dad something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and died in an apparent suicide just days after her disappearanceboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. His guilt What looked as though it was sealed going to be an open-and -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the case was closedexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, so the town and its families tried to move onUna Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3. Now Pippa 5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is determined to prove that Sal was innocenta working-class young man, obsessed with the help of his brother Raviupper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. What started out as an innocent school project quickly turns into something much more sinister He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and Pippa begins entitled and uses Edward to unearth the dark truth about the beautiful, innocent queen bee of Kilton Grammar School run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and what really happened all those years agohe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. But 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 closer she gets, the more dangerous it becomestwo of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1405293187

|isbnauthor=1781129312Jo Callaghan|title=Sequin and Stitch|author=Laura Dockrill and Sara Ogilvie (illustrator)Leave No Trace|rating=54|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyCrime|summary=Sequin loved 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 mum to bitssidekick, but sometimes she got very cross with herthe AI detective Lock. It wasn't that mum wouldn't go outside s their flat - Sequin coped first live case together, having previously been very successful with that - it was because she never pushed to get credit for what she didseveral cold cases. Mum But when there is a seamstress second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and she makes the sort of clothes a very high profile case that you see on red carpets or at important weddings. She's not the designer - they're the people who make draws a lot of money from the clothesunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Mum is Will they be able to solve the person who actually ''makes'' case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the garments case and she's really talented, but when people talk about the dress or the suitpotentially, they talk about the designer. The seamstress is never mentioned.out of a career?|isbn=139851120X

|authorisbn=Akala1399613073|title=The Dark LadyMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson

|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=''For a street kid from Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the Devil's Gap, London's most notorious slum, life is short first day of medical school and toughtheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. For Henry Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a boy thief with brown skin inherited from bonus when you aim to be a mother who abandoned him, life cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is tougher still. The Dark Lady enters his dreams at night. She seems to represent a past, perfectionist and possibly a future.trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they''Henry re at a drug and his friends, brother alcohol-fuelled party and sister Matthew and Mary, have various ways of getting byit's going to end in tragedy. Sometimes they pickpockets. Sometimes they rob We don't know who suffered the houses of tragedy or the richconsequences. It's crime or starve Twenty- but crime is dangerous and they risk five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the terrible punishments of Elizabethan England if they are caughtthree friends. Impossible choices. But there This time, it's their teenage children who are pleasures too, and for Henry, the chief pleasure is the Globe Theatre and the plays of William Shakespeareinvolved. Henry loves language and often makes up sonnets about what he sees around him and how he feels. |isbn= 1444943693

|authorisbn=Danny Dorling0241636604|title=SlowdownThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary= We are living If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in a time of rapid changeyour mind, and weyou're worried about itunlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Dorling tells us that A hoodie and jeans replaces the latter pin-stripe suit and his background is normalthe East End, where he was familiar with violence, natural poverty and probably good for usinjustice. We are designed There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to worry and with the current state London School of what we're doing in the world, we have much to be worried aboutEconomics. However, over the next threeStevenson is bright -hundredextremely bright -and-some pages, if you he has a facility with numbers which most of us can follow the arguments, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be as worried as we are, or in some cases that we're worrying about the wrong thingsonly envy. MostlyHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Because mostlyIt was his ability at what was, things are not changing as rapidly as we think they areessentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. In factEventually, the rate of change in many things is slowing down and the direction of change will in some cases go this turned into reversepermanent employment as a trader.|isbn=0300243405

|authorisbn= M R Carey1035021803|title= The Book of KoliAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating= 43.5|genre= Science FictionCrime|summary= It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She''The Book s back now because of Kolia request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole' s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the first in a post-apocalyptic trilogyreason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, titled ''The Rampart Trilogy''she feels, by Mlet her down badly.R. Carey. The novel is set Even though they were in a world where nature business together as antique hunters, she has turned against humans. Trees move as fast as animals not felt able to crush their prey and then soak up their bloodbe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Humans have eked out a small existence in isolated villages. They are primitive except for their reverence of 'old tech'. This is technology from After the old world that seems to only work for certain chosen people. However, Kolisplit, she worked in a young woodsmithcafe, uncovers a secret about this technology that will upend his met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life , who was murdered) and Freya and take him on a perilous journeyJames have now divorced.|isbn=0316477532

|isbn=178112938XAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Survival in SpaceAll Tomorrow's Futures: The Apollo 13 MissionFictions that Disrupt|author=David Long Benjamin Greenaway and Stefano Tambellini Stephen Oram (illustratorEditors)

|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyScience Fiction|summary=It's fifty years since 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the Apollo 13 mission was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in Florida, my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the story of feeling that journey remains one it's all getting away from me. Some of the greatest survival stories of all timeit is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they'Survival re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in Space: The Apollo 13 Mission'' is a brilliant retelling of what happenedway I could understand.

|author= Grady HendrixSunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary= The Southern Book ClubHotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. 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 events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's Guide happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to Slaying Vampiressee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 5|genre= HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary= It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? WomenI mean, by and largehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have always been the subjugated sexdisappearing. Throughout history Well, they have 've been confined murdered, but to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and let nothing stand in his wayhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Grady Hendrix Miv's new novel ''The Southern Book Clubupset because she's Guide overheard that her father wants to Slaying Vampiresmove the family 'Down South' gives women their due. It When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is an ode a frightening, 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 strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to toe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sacanyone.|isbn=1683691431

|isbn=00081490891398524085|title=The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Jane CaseyNicci French

|summary=It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked like a stick she realised it Charlotte Salter was a hand, a right hand, in fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwentexpected at her husband's team would later find three other body partsfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Identification of the body was not going to be easyHer children, but eventuallysons Niall, it would be given a name - Paige HargreavesPaul and Ollie and her daughter, a twentyEtty. are all worried but -eightstrangely -year-old freelance journalisther husband, Alec, is not. Her friendShortly afterwards, Bianca DrummondEtty and Greg, another journalistfind the body of Greg's father, said Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that she was working on a story which she reckoned would be explosive - Duncan had murdered Charlie and she hadnthen committed suicide when he couldn't been willing to share any of stand the details guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with Biancatheir lives and wonder about what really happened.

|authorisbn=Jenny Valentine1035906708|title=Hello NowDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= Jude reluctantly moves We tend to a smallthink of Maria Callas as Greek, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and settle into a big, old house overlooking the sea - which happens but she was born to contain a strangeGreek parents in Manhattan, old sitting tenant named HenryNew York, who stays rooted in the house like a ghost that just wonDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 't leave – or canCallas'tto make it more manageable in the States. As Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, reality, When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she is consumed was raised under the Nazi occupation by a longing for mother who mercilessly exploited her old life in London and anger at another forced change – but this will be the last time, she swears. This world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating made no secret of her preference for Jude. That is until the day Novo arrivesher elder sister, and her entire concept of the world changes foreverJackie.|isbn=0007466498

|isbnauthor=B0867X8NW7Christopher Edge|title=Access Point|author=T R GabbayBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=When we first meet Ula Mishkin she's having something of Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a professional success: using movie marathon at their local cinema, a device place that has the nickname of her own invention she's helped a man who has been blind for decades to see an image of a hummingbirdThe Black Hole'. SheAll big movie fans, they's thirty-six years old re looking forward to lots of exciting films, and her life is about to change radically many, many snacks! However, asthe movie starts, cycling homethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, sheand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's involved in an accident with a bust even imagine. It's two years before we meet her again and in But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the meantimecinema, she's spent 392 days in a coma and now walks with a stick. A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to bring in some income.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|author= Ben OliverRachel Greenlaw|title= The LoopCompass and Blade|rating= 3.5|genre= Teens|summary= Set during ''I can hear the aftermath song of a Third World War where methods the sea. The call of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a horrific level by machinesthe deep, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kaneanswering beat in my heart. In '' Rosevear, a world of Have remote and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regularspartially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance one of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him the seven who swim out to a trigger held by survey the guards who can end his life with one squeezeruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. Luka is taunted by limited access But when the Council Watch lays a trap to his memories end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritualMira's father. Doomed Desperate to Delay [save him from death, Mira makes a risky medical trial where bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is a guinea pig for Alts secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in place search of execution] after Delay he is a family secret that lies buried deep in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffersea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the only glimmers watched streets of hope being foreign islands to the rumours heart of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wrensmuggler's territory, can Luka ever Mira must be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the loop?ones she holds most dear.|isbn=19126265510008664730

|author= Kirsty ApplebaumJames Sherwood Metts|title= TroofriendPlanet Storyland|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Are you tired of your child's classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to Things have some positive experiences with people? Introducing been a bit sticky for the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lyingEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, stealing or bullying. Theyoften replacing jobs they're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention paid to do and other tasks that these androids are took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and have absolutely no basis in reality…right?, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=17880034701736128426

{{Frontpage |isbnauthor=1529123941 Matthew Tree|title=The Silent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves We'll Never Know|rating=4.5 |genre=General Literary Fiction |summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his wifefather, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his computer, although not very successfully. Maggie, on the other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, in fact - artistic passions all failed miserably and before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has a bit who had endless crises of a problemself confidence. He has So Tim applied himself to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long? Wellhis studies, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own lifeset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

|authorisbn=Rob Harrell1529900360|title=WinkThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=When Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his desperate attempts at school to just be help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn'normal' become impossiblet need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Suddenly he is the cancer kidFinally, and everything he doesit was Robin, how he looksDelaware's partner, and how he behaves falls under who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the scrutiny of involvement was something that the other kids in schoolman she loved needed. Ross isThe next case did look simple, understandably, angrythough. He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a permanent winkremote property in Bel Air. He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with the pain, plus was the need heir to wear a hat at all times to protect his face due an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the ongoing treatmentItalian. With But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the sudden ghosting by one 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 best friendsfootsteps, and a series of horrible memes particularly when he considered the strain that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about being on-call put on his father's life is normal any more. 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, and he has to find new ways to deal was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his feelingsdream since he was a child. If anything, and survivehe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|isbn=1471409147

|isbn=17864855750861541774|title=Magpie LaneA Nye of Pheasants|author=Lucy AtkinsSteve Burrows|rating=54

|summary=When we first meet Dee sheDCI Domenic Jejeune's talking close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to Nick Lawmeet up with an old ally, the new college masterGuy Trueman. Law's lately of the BBC and Maik was involved in a street brawl - he doesn't come with an entirely good reputation: would later maintain that he's was facing a bit of man armed with a bully knife - and Dee can sense something of that in their first conversationhe killed a Ghurka. She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on Initially, he faced a new job as a nanny, charge of manslaughter but somehow she finds herself going evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to see Mariah, the Danish wife of murder the masterman. She's pregnant and looking for help, not with Now he could be facing the new baby but with the master's daughter by his first wife, Anadeath penalty. Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to her father, but to no one else. The eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and struggling wouldn't help Danny at schoolall.

|author=Sally MagnussonAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Sealwoman's GiftPerfect Passion Company

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary= There The Perfect Passion Company is a legend that God came dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to visit Adam & Eve all the online apps in the Gardenproviding a more personal, tailored service. Eve had not finished bathing Ness has asked her children younger cousin Katie if she could come and ashamed of those still not cleansedlook after the business, she attempted as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded get away for hima while. God was not to be deceived, howeverKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and decreed that what was sought so jumps at the chance to be hidden come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of manAlexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and so the Elves were born: the hidden folkIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. They can see manKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but man can only see them if they so choose.Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=14736389841846976596

|authorisbn=Wendy Cheyne 0811771741|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard PlaceInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman

|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary= After the Jacobite defeat at the Battle Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given knits from toys to English lordsblankets. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on Some will be quick knits - others are of the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the islands such as Shetland, fire' variety. The projects are divided by the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders time they'll take to leave complete - less than five hours, five to port cities on the mainlandten hours, ten to North America twenty hours and even to Australia more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and New Zealanduseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky. |isbn= 1838591753

|author=Ele FountainDean Koontz|title=LostThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Lola lives in an Indian city with her fatherBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and her brother, Amithis house gets trashed. She lives with them in Oh, and someone has delivered a nice apartmentreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and although they are not rich like some of it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the girls at schoolthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, they have enough money Benny is the very last person to be comfortabledeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and trying So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to fit in with themhis house is a new friend, until one daya bad weather friend called Spike, suddenly, everything in her life changes. After taking who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a work trip away, Lola's father doesn't come homegood person. They have nobody else Spike is going to helptake care of Benny, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become certainly take care of them untilBenny's enemies, if he, finallyBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are evicted from their flat, and she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the streets.|isbn=178269255X1662500491

|author= N K JemisinAdam Stower|title= The City We BecameMurray and Bun|rating= 4.5|genre= Science FictionConfident Readers |summary= New York Murray is being bornsupposed 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 city has reached critical mass and two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has matured been turned into a living almost-breathing entity hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and is ready to make its way the catflap they both use can chuck them out , not into the regular back garden, but into a worldof frightening adventure and whiffs. Before This time round it can be establisheddrops them into a Viking land, an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and other forgotten places. The city where a troll hunter is not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the values are selected to become the living embodiment of the cityexpected – well, some cities have onemuch bigger than Murray was, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the woman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eyebe honest, itbut he's a personality clash on an epic scale turned up and unity is both critical and not remotely guaranteed.he'll have to do…|isbn=03565126650008561249

|isbn=0241446732B0C47LV1PC|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in CrisisFragility|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante ThunbergMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, question should you make it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually? Or is the question if you did, would it became clear to land? The catch is that the family that they were answer for both could well be.... no. ''burned-out people on a burned-out planetFragility''. If they were is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|isbn=178730101X1529431735|title=Keep Him CloseThe Winter Visitor|author=Emily KochJames Henry|rating=3.54

|summary=Alice had two children: Benny (wellIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, Benoît, actually) and Louiswhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. LouHe's seventeen and d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's just got had a letter from his A level results ex-wife, saying that she's ill and he and his brother are going out hasn't long to celebratelive. Someone has It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to find something his underwear and sent to celebrate a watery grave in the letters, D, D and Eboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Alice has always had Is it a warning from a good relationship with nineteen-year-old Benny but it's Spanish gang or a touch problematic with Lou and being honest, he's not terribly likeable. The letters which kept coming problem closer to my mind were ADHD.home?

|isbnauthor=0241396840Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Keeper|author=Jessica MoorThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Katie Straw worked Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the women's refuge wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the women who lived dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there liked and respected heris a generation missing in the family. She treated them well and seemed A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have an understanding to navigate the world in the company of what they were going througha magical beast. Why then did she jump from This has made the race anathema to the local suicide spot into pair – but when a bad incident at the river below? There had been no signs that she was unhappy and she and her boyfriend seemed eatery leads to have been content together - and Noah has a decent alibi for the time when she diedconfession from gran, but Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what other explanation could there be for her death? The police are convinced that it's suicidehe most hates, but with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the women who knew her believed otherwiseonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231