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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.
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==Reviews of the 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]].{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= 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 daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B084H8F2CF1786482126|title=The Body Under the BridgeJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Nick LouthElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Craig Gillard Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was annoyed going to be pulled away from the funeral service for a serving police officer, particularly hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when he they discovered that he was to take charge the bones of the enquiry into a missing womanchild beneath a doorway. Beatrice Ulbricht There was twenty-five years old and no skull. Was this a student of music at the Royal College of Musicritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. She had been due to play It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with the other members of the Lysander String Quartet at the Church his child as a result of St Martin-in-the-Fields but hadn't turned upone night they spent together some three months ago. Gillard didn't understand why his immediate involvement was necessary until Chief Constable Alison Rigby explained that Beatrice's father was Karl-Otto UlbrichtHer condition will be obvious before long, Germany's Minister not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of Justicesickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author= Linda ScottNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=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 responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and 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 his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's 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's happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title= The Double X EconomyA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre= Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=It''Women s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are economically disadvantaged dead in every country in the world''their bed. It's Initially, it looks like a bold statement for an opening chapter, straightforward murder/suicide but itthere's far from hyperbole as something about the positioning of the following pages explainbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. This book shines What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a light on what complex double murder. Kerrigan is happening convinced that the explanation lies in different placesRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and the impact on the local entitled and world economyuses Edward to run errands for him. What can be learnt from the great strides Edward has been in genderlove with Stanza since their university days -equalising legislation 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 west? What can be done about the selling two of young women into marriage, and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering?|isbn=0571353606them kissing in a dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=J Paul HendersonJo Callaghan|title=DaisyLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=This When a man is found crucified on the story top of Herod Sa hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. Pinkney It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a rather unusual (yet somehow charming) man who 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 search time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a woman called Daisycareer?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, whom he Laura and Anjali met on the first sees in an episode day of Judge Judy on television medical school and instantly falls in love with her! their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Rod Olivia is writing the novel of his questruthlessly ambitious, guided by an embittered ex-literary agent who which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is now clearing glasses in a pub for perfectionist and a livingtrauma doctor. Determined to find Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet Daisy, the book takes us through Rodthem they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's life, introduces us going to his end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, and tells us of what happens in his quest for loveit's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=0857303309
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15446419230241636604|title=Ambassadors Do It After DinnerThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Sandra AragonaGary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=ItIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's tempting re unlikely to think that of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the diplomatic life pin-stripe suit and his background is privileged the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and luxuriousinjustice. It might be privileged, There was no posh public school on his CV - but family connections tell me that it he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is far from luxuriousbright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Now you're not going He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to get many ambassadors telling you be stupid. It was his ability at what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to do sowas, you know)essentially, but the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's a card game which got him an entirely different matterinternship with Citibank. She (and it still usually is Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes ontrader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18388510111035021803|title=The SidemanAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Caro RamsayC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=No one thought that it could happen and canIt't ''quite'' believe that it s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has: Costello has resigned from Police Scotlandbeen back to the English country village where she grew up. ItShe's all down to her pursuit back now because of George Haggerty whom she believes to be responsible a request for the murder of Abigail Haggerty (his wife) and Malcolm (help from her son)beloved aunt, Carole. Haggerty has a water-tight alibi (caught speeding by Police ScotlandFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, no less) is dead and the powers that be have told Costello circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to lay offthe village: Arthur, she's decided feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to go her own way rather than be hampered by near the badgeman or pursue the profession she loved. She didn't even bother telling her long-time partnerAfter the split, DCI Colin Andersonshe worked in a cafe, that she was going. Since then there might have been met and married James (on the occasional text rebound from the love of herlife, but that's itwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08774SJYNAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Greenbecker GambitAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Ben GraffBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=''I suppose Opening up new ways of thinking about the odd fleeting sense shape of loneliness is a price all truly successful people must pay for our gifts. I tell myself that I do so willinglythings to come.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008390169Sunny Singh|title=Silent Cry (Gaby Darin Book 1)|author=Jenny O'BrienHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=Alys Grant was only The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a few days old when her father took her out for the first timeterrorist group. Her motherHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, Izzythere is Sam, was tired a wartime photographer and fell asleepAbhi, but when she woke a couple of hours later there was no sign of Charlie Dawson or Alysthe hotel manager. There was As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a hand-delivered postcard which simply said: bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what''I've got Alyss happened through her photography. Don't try Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to find us, Charlie''see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Holly Jackson1529153298|title=A Good Girl's Guide to MurderThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=5 years agoIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, the tiny town of Little Kilton was rocked when beautifulhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, popular Andie Bell disappeared without a tracethough. Women have been disappearing. Well, presumed they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Her boyfriend Salil Singh was everyone Miv's number 1 suspect – especially after Sal sent a upset because she'confession' text to his dad and died in an apparent suicide just days after s overheard that her disappearance. His guilt was sealed and the case was closed, so the town and its families tried father wants to move onthe family 'Down South'. Now Pippa When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is determined to prove that Sal was innocenta frightening, foreign place, with the help of his brother Ravibest avoided. What started out as an innocent school project quickly turns into something much more sinister For Miv, and Pippa begins to unearth the dark truth about the beautifulmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, innocent queen bee of Kilton Grammar School and what really happened all those years agoshe'll do anything to prevent that. But She's not worried about the closer she gets, the more dangerous it becomesdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1405293187
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17811293121398524085|title=Sequin and StitchHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Laura Dockrill and Sara Ogilvie (illustrator)Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyCrime|summary=Sequin loved Charlotte Salter was expected at her mum to bitshusband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, but sometimes she got very cross with Paul and Ollie and herdaughter, Etty. It wasn't that mum wouldn't go outside their flat are all worried but - Sequin coped with that strangely - it was because she never pushed to get credit for what she didher husband, Alec, is not. Mum is a seamstress Shortly afterwards, Etty and she makes Greg, find the sort body of clothes that you see on red carpets or at important weddings. SheGreg's not father, Duncan Ackerley, in the designer - they're river. It was an easy assumption for the people who police to make a lot of money from that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the clothesguilt. Mum is the person who actually ''makes'' the garments and sheThe Salter children are not convinced but there's really talented, little else they can do but when people talk get on with their lives and wonder about the dress or the suit, they talk about the designer. The seamstress is never mentionedwhat really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Akala1035906708|title=The Dark LadyDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=''For a street kid from the Devil's GapWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, London's most notorious slumNew York, life is short in December 1923 and toughonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. For Henry, a boy thief with brown skin inherited from a mother who abandoned him, life is tougher still. The Dark Lady enters his dreams at night. She seems Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to represent a past, and possibly a future...'Callas'Henry and his friends, brother and sister Matthew and Mary, have various ways of getting by. Sometimes they pickpockets. Sometimes they rob the houses of to make it more manageable in the richStates. It's crime or starve When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - but crime is dangerous she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and they risk the terrible punishments made no secret of Elizabethan England if they are caught. Impossible choices. But there are pleasures too, and her preference for Henryher elder sister, the chief pleasure is the Globe Theatre and the plays of William Shakespeare. Henry loves language and often makes up sonnets about what he sees around him and how he feelsJackie. |isbn= 1444943693
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Danny DorlingChristopher Edge|title=SlowdownBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and SocietyConfident Readers|summary= We Lucas and his friends are living all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a time place that has the nickname of rapid change, and we're worried about itThe Black Hole'. Dorling tells us that the latter is normalAll big movie fans, natural and probably good for us. We are designed to worry and with the current state of what wethey're doing in the world, we have much looking forward to be worried about. Howeverlots of exciting films, over the next three-hundred-and-some pagesmany, if you can follow the argumentsmany snacks! However, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be as worried as we arethe movie starts, or in some cases they very quickly realise that we're worrying something about the wrong things. Mostly. Because mostlythis new film format is very different, things and they are not changing as rapidly as we think swept up into an adventure they arecouldn't even imagine. In factBut 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 rate of change in many things is slowing down cinema, and the direction of change will in some cases go into reverse.to their real lives?|isbn=03002434051839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= M R CareyRachel Greenlaw|title= The Book of KoliCompass and Blade|rating= 43.5|genre= Science FictionTeens|summary= ''I can hear the song of the sea. The Book call of Koli'' is the first deep, the answering beat in a post-apocalyptic trilogy, titled ''The Rampart Trilogymy heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, by Msurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks.R. Carey. The novel Mira, like her mother before her, is set in a world where nature has turned against humans. Trees move as fast as animals one of the seven who swim out to crush their prey survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and then soak up their bloodany treasure that lies within. Humans have eked out But when the Council Watch lays a small existence in isolated villages. They are primitive except for their reverence of trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island'old techs leader and Mira's father. This is technology Desperate to save him from the old world that seems to only work for certain chosen people. However, Kolideath, Mira makes a bargain with a young woodsmithwreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, uncovers she sets off in search of a family secret about this technology that will upend his life lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and take him on a perilous journeythe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=03164775320008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=178112938XJames Sherwood Metts|title=Survival in Space: The Apollo 13 Mission|author=David Long and Stefano Tambellini (illustrator)Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=It's fifty years since Things have been a bit sticky for the Apollo 13 mission was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in FloridaEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, but the story of often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that journey remains one took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of the greatest survival stories of all other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. ''Survival in Space: The Apollo 13 Mission'' is a brilliant retelling of what happenedLife was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Grady HendrixMatthew Tree|title= The Southern Book ClubWe's Guide to Slaying Vampiresll Never Know|rating= 4.5|genre= HorrorLiterary Fiction|summary= WomenTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, by a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and large, have always been the subjugated sexwho had endless crises of self confidence. Throughout historySo Tim applied himself to his studies, they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix's new novel ''The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires'' gives women their due. It is an ode to the strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to toe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sacset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1683691431B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008149089A G Slatter|title=The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)|author=Jane CaseyBriar 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.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.
|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529900360
|title=The Ghost Orchid
|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was Kim Weldon who found reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the first bits help of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked like psychologist only worked for a stick she realised while. Finally, it was a hand, a right handRobin, in fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh DerwentDelaware's team would later find three other body partspartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. Identification of She knew that the body involvement was not going to be easysomething that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, but eventually, it would be given though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a name - Paige Hargreaves, a twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalistremote property in Bel Air. Her friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, said that she He was working on a story which the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she reckoned would be explosive - is married to an extremely rich man and she hadnit't been willing to share any s not the Italian. But which of them was the details with Bianca.primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jenny Valentine1529395224|title=Hello NowLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary= Jude reluctantly moves to Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a small, quiet seaside town after her Mum GP 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 Rowlands didn't want to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henryfollow in his footsteps, who stays rooted in particularly when he considered the house like a ghost strain that just wonbeing on-call put on his father't leave – or can'ts life. As Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, reality, she is consumed by When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a longing for her old life in London vet and anger at another forced change – but was convinced this will be was the last timejob for him. Before long, she swearshe was at Liverpool University. This world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating for Jude It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. That is until the day Novo arrives If anything, and her entire concept of the world changes foreverhe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|isbn=0007466498
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0867X8NW70861541774|title=Access PointA Nye of Pheasants|author=T R GabbaySteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When we first meet Ula Mishkin sheDCI Domenic Jejeune's having something of close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a professional success: using a device of her own invention she's helped a man who has been blind for decades short holiday in Singapore to see meet up with an image of a hummingbirdold ally, Guy Trueman. She's thirty-six years old and her life is about to change radically as, cycling home, she's Maik was involved in an accident a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a busknife - and he killed a Ghurka. It's two years before we meet her again and in the meantimeInitially, she's spent 392 days in he faced a coma and now walks with a stickcharge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a spare bedroom to bring in some incomediplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Ben OliverAlexander McCall Smith|title= The LoopPerfect Passion Company|rating= 34.5|genre= TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= Set during the aftermath of The Perfect Passion Company is a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a horrific level by machinesmore personal, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kanetailored service. In a world of Have Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regularslook after the business, he as Ness is trapped inside planning to take a living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him trip to Canada to get away for a trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeezewhile. Luka Katie is taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained coming out of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritualbreak up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Doomed And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed Edinburgh we already love, thanks to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside 44 Scotland Street and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard WrenIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, can Luka ever be free? Why but Ness has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop?full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=19126265511846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Kirsty Applebaum0811771741|title= TroofriendInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersCrafts|summary= Are you tired of your childMelissa Leapman's classmates constantly being horrible ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-'long, cosy afternoons in front of-the-art machines fire' variety. The projects are capable of emulating divided by the full range of human emotions without lyingtime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, stealing or bullyingten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. They're All the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids projects are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours attractive, modern and have absolutely no basis in reality…right?|isbn=1788003470useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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{{Frontpage |isbnauthor=1529123941 Dean Koontz|title=The Silent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5 |genre=General Fiction Paranormal|summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his wifejob, Maggiehe loses his fiancee, Frank is playing chess against and his computer, although not very successfullyhouse gets trashed. MaggieOh, on the other handand someone has delivered a really weird, has just taken some pills disturbing coffin- eight of themsized object to his home, in fact - and before long she will collapseit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. When Frank rings So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the emergency services in Oxford he has delivery to his house is a bit of new friend, a problem. He bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a whilegood person. How long? WellSpike is going to take care of Benny, itand will certainly take care of Benny's about six months since enemies, if he spoke to Maggie , Benny, and he can't really say if itHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own lifewild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rob HarrellAdam Stower|title=WinkMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=When Ross Murray is diagnosed with supposed to be a rare form of cancerhumble, aged 12tidy and friendly cat, his desperate attempts at school one who is able to just be 'normal' become impossible. Suddenly he is the cancer kid, sleep and eat and eat and sleep and everything he does, how he lookswell, and how he behaves falls under the scrutiny whatever takes his fancy next of the other kids in schooltwo. Ross isBut he's a bad magician's cat, understandablyso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, angry. He is facing potential blindnessand the catflap they both use can chuck them out, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a permanent wink. He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with not into the painregular back garden, plus the need to wear but into a hat at all times to protect his face due to the ongoing treatmentworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. With the sudden ghosting by one of his best friendsThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, and where a series of horrible memes that someone at school creates about Rosstroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, nothing about his life is normal any moreto be honest, but he's turned up and he has 'll have to find new ways to deal with his feelings, and survive.do…|isbn=14714091470008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1786485575B0C47LV1PC|title=Magpie LaneFragility|author=Lucy AtkinsMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Dee sheCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''s talking to Nick Lawjoke? 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 new college masteranswer for both could well be. Law... no. ''s lately of the BBC and he doesnFragility't come with an entirely good reputation: he's a bit of a bully and Dee can sense something of that in their first conversation. She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new job is set as a nanny, but somehow she finds herself going to see Mariah, the Danish wife city of the master. She's pregnant and looking for helpPortland, Oregon, not with cautiously begins to emerge from the new baby but with restrictions imposed during the master's daughter by his first wife, Ana. Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk to her father, but to no one else. The eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother and struggling at school.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sally Magnusson1529431735|title=The Sealwoman's GiftWinter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= There 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 legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Gardenwanted drug smuggler for a decade. Eve The return has come about because he's had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them a letter from the eyes of Godhis ex-wife, denying saying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him's ill and hasn't long to live. God was not It's hard to be deceived, howeverfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and decreed that what was sought sent to be hidden from a watery grave in the eyes boot of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, and so the Elves were born: the hidden folka stolen Ford Sierra. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose.|isbn=1473638984Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Wendy Cheyne Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard PlaceThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= After Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the Jacobite defeat wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the Battle of Cullodendessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, many Scottish estates Eli's parents were given both lost to English lordsthe titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. They were not kind This has made the race anathema to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on pair – but when a bad incident at the islands such as Shetlandeatery leads to a confession from gran, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders Eli knows his only hope is to leave - dare to port cities on enter what he most hates, with the mainland, to North America and even sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to Australia and New Zealandpossibly save his gran. |isbn= 18385917530571382231
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