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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=Druin BurchSylvie Cathrall|title=Taking A Letter to the MedicineLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceFiction|summary=In 1898, Burch points out that There are few greater joys than a new drug was developed and marketed for the treatment of tuberculosis by Bayer & Cobook which lives up to a compelling premise. TB is such an ancient enemy of man that there And this is apparently evidence one of an earlier strain to be found in Egyptian mummies. The German firm had discovered a chemical that seemed to work well, and patients and indeed their own staff, who were tested seemed to respond well - it was named Heroin - and its addictive effects were at first missedthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951506</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gigi Amateau0008517061|title=ChanceyDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Chancey's dam was Starry Night 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 owner loved that horse so much that she wanted daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a foal who was exactly like lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her, but when Chancey was born 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 house in Norwich - the site was bitterly disappointed for instead going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of the black Appaloosa a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with white marking Chancey was born albinoDCI Harry Nelson. It was only 's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his striped hooves which proved his breedingchild as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. The owner was Her condition will be obvious before long, not big enough least because Ruth is prone to overcome her feelings and when she fell on hard times it was Chancey who was left out in the field to suffer despite the fact that he was no longer a young horsesudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140632258X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sian Rees0008551324|title=Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave TradeDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=The Act It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the Abolition other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of the Slave Trade a missing person is buried and who was passed in Britain in March 1807responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the last legal British slave ship left Africa seven months laterpolice doing what he wants. Other countries were slow And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to follow suitget an early parole date. Everyone in Britain knew there would be resistance, and when the abolitionist Granville Sharpe purchased land in Sierra Leone Not much to 'repatriate' freed slavesask, Ottobah Cugoana, a former slave living in London, asked if is it was possible for ? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn'a fountain to send forth both sweet water t think so and bitter.she' Could s even prepared to do the slave trade, he wondered, be abolished other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from West Africa - when West Africa was its source?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951174</amazonuk>what's happening.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sapphire0008405026|title=PreciousA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Precious Jones is a It's sixteen years since nine-year -old black girl Rosalie Marshall disappeared from Harlem – well she's never actually been out of Harlem – and when we meet her she's pregnant by her own father for the second timebed one summer night. Her first child She was never found and the investigation ground to a girl and she was born with Down's Syndromehalt. With unconscious irony Precious calls Now, her ''Little Mongo'' mother, Helena, and leaves her to live with her grandmotherfather are dead in their bed. When her second pregnancy becomes obvious sheInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's expelled from school something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and joins an alternative education programmeher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Precious really wants What looked as though it was going to learn be an open-and the book -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the story of her journey from illiteracy to maturityexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548720</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dean Hale, Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale 0571379877|title=Calamity JackThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Several years ago I joined Edward Jevons is a funny little book group in Londonworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and one of the first books we read was Stanza. Robert's a Sue Grafton alphabet booktheatre director. I hadHe's also self-obsessed, up to this point, never read any crime fiction, foolishly feeling myself above such booksdemanding, handsome and entitled and so I was dubious about what I'd have uses Edward to say about itrun errands for him. That book changed my literary lifeEdward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. I devoured it. I couldnMost men in Robert't get enough! I immediately searched for all the other books in the series and read s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them quickly, one by one, swiftly followed by a delicious plunge into but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the world two of Agatha Christie which gave me them kissing in a joyously long reading listdark passageway. And so now, years later, I find myself with the latest book in the alphabet series lying in my lap, a happy smile on my face as I found I read voraciously once again!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023070932X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jethro AdlingtonJo Callaghan|title=Online Therapy: Reading Between the LinesLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=You can get most things online these days and even therapy When a man is becoming more widely available found crucified on the internet. It might seem like top of a simple step hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to take but many of the signals beyond case alongside her sidekick, the spoken word are not available to the online therapistAI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. In But when there is a face-to-face situation second body language found crucified a few days later, Kat is an added form suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of communication and even small changes in skin tone can give clues as unwanted attention to state of mindtheir AI Future Policing project. In a situation where these clues are not available it's essential Will they be able to make solve the most case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of ''all'' the clues offered by the written word.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312748</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laurie Halse Anderson1399613073|title=ChainsMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=Isabel Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and her sister Ruth are slavestheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. But they should Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be free - Miss Mary Finch left a will that said socardiothoracic surgeon. But Miss Mary Finch Laura is dead a perfectionist and her greedy nephew and heir denies all knowledge a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the willgroup and she becomes a GP. So Isabel When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and Ruth are sold it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the Locktons and taken to New Yorkconsequences. The Revolutionary War is underway and New York is a dangerous place Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. The Locktons are loyalists This time, but the patriots it's their teenage children who are in control of the cityinvolved. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747598061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lorraine Jenkin0241636604|title=Chocolate Mousse and Two SpoonsThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionAutobiography|summary=From the first sentence: 'With one hell If you were to bring up an image of a crashcity banker in your mind, Lettie Howell’s dinner service hit the wall…you', I knew that I was going re unlikely to enjoy this talethink of someone like Gary Stevenson. An opening thus full of expletive A hoodie and resounding Welsh Voice immediately makes it clear who’s jeans replaces the boss pin-stripe suit and I can relaxhis background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, knowing I’m in competent handspoverty and injustice. Welcome, Lorraine Jenkin, There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to my handful the London School of favourite chickEconomics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright -lit authorsand 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 trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1870206959</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a 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 reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
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 my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it 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're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WolfeSunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Bonfire Hotel 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 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 see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Vanitiesterrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In his own mindIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, bond trader Sherman McCoy is a honestly...) She's not what'Master of the Universes worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. He has a pleasant wife Well, a beautiful mistressthey've been murdered, and a sweet six year old daughterbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Henry Lamb is a black student from the projects. Under normal circumstances, it Miv's upset because she's clear overheard that McCoyher father wants to move the family 'Down South's world and Lamb. When you's world would never overlapre from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. But when McCoy and his mistress Maria Ruskin end up lost in For Miv, the Bronxmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and an accident leads she'll do anything to Lamb being hit by McCoyprevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's Mercedes, a chain of events start which will lead stopped talking - to his downfallanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548798</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michelle Harrison1398524085|title=The Thirteen CursesHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Red is back, but sheCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's trapped in the fairy realmfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Having swapped places with Tanya Her children, she is bound theresons Niall, but is still desperate to get both her Paul and Ollie and her brother back into the human worlddaughter, Etty. She must seek an audience with the fairy courtare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, but the realm is full of deception not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and cruelty – it will be a challenge just to get there. And guess what happens when she gets there? She is set another challengeGreg, twisted with find the cruelty body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the Unseelie (Boo! Hiss!) courtriver. Whilst It was an easy assumption for the journey goes on, she reflects on her past: the car crash police to make that killed her parents Duncan had murdered Charlie and her time at then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the children's homeguilt. Meanwhile, Tanya has returned to Elvesden Manor for half term and letThe Salter children are not convinced but there's just say that her ability to see fairies comes back into use when the new housekeeper little else they can do but get on with their lives and her pesky parrot land her and Fabian and the whole Manor crew into trouble with the little peoplewonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384501</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Cole-Adams1035906708|title=Walking to the MoonDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=We meet the main character Jessicatend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, or Jess as but she is usually called, deep was born to Greek parents in an emotional black hole. She can see no light at the end of the tunnel. And right from the startManhattan, right from page oneNew York, we have a sense of the beautiful in December 1923 and poetic language of Cole-Adamsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Time and I have a new arrangement. We leave each other alone.Callas' And indeed time is not important to make it more manageable in this novelthe States. We have all the time When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the world would probably be the motto Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the medical staff - if they had oneher preference for her elder sister, Jackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161348</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nancy FarmerChristopher Edge|title=The Islands of the Blessed (Sea of Trolls Trilogy) Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In this third adventureLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, Jacka place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, a fourteen year old Saxon apprentice bardthey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and Thorgilmany, a bad-tempered shield maidenmany snacks! However, follow as the Bard Dragon Tongue on a quest movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to quell the draugr - the malevolent spirit of a drowned mermaid mistakenly summoned next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to Jack's village the cinema, and who seeks revenge for her earlier ill treatment at human hands.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184738630X</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sophie McKenzieRachel Greenlaw|title=The Hostage (Medusa Project)Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Teenagers Nico, Kitty, Ed and Dylan were implanted with the Medusa gene when they were babies. Now they're adolescents, 'I can hear the intended psychic abilities are coming to song of the foresea. Nico has The call of the deep, the power of telekinesis - he can move objects with his mindanswering beat in my heart. Ed can read other people's thoughts. Dylan has an invisible protective shield and no weapon can harm her. Kitty has visions that predict the future. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385265</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Don FelderJames Sherwood Metts|title=Heaven And Hell: My Life in the Eagles, 1974 - 2001Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=EntertainmentConfident Readers|summary=In terms of record sales Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and income from live toursautomation have been proceeding apace, hardly anyone matched the Eaglesoften replacing jobs they' rate of success during the 1970sre paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Yet the constant search Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to better themselves with each recordthink of other, the in-fightingnew ways to spend time, the drugs along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and egos, soon got the better of them. They say along with it is tough at the top, and nobody is better equipped to tell all the often painful story than their former guitarist Don Feldermany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0753826771</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John GrimsonMatthew Tree|title=The Isle of Man: Portrait of a NationWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryLiterary Fiction|summary=To many of us, the Isle of Man is probably best known for the Tynwald, the annual TT motorcycle racesTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and as a holiday resort. I must admit that my knowledge chronic underachiever whose dreams of it extended little further than that, and therefore found this book invaluable. In these 550 pages, profusely illustrated with photographs and maps, I imagine that few if being exceptional at any questions on the subject are left unanswered. John Grimson has lived there for nearly forty years, of his artistic passions all failed miserably and as well as working with several who had endless crises of the island's local authoritiesself confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, was active as a long-distance runner cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and cyclist until his early seventiesset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709081030</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ru FreemanA G Slatter|title=A Disobedient GirlThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=''A Disobedient GirlThere'' follows two women struggling s a part of me that wants to retain control of their lives in the face of servitude. Latha is a servant girl keep this just to the affluent Vithanage family, whose daughter, Thara, is Latha's agemyself for however long I can. As children, the girls are the best This secret magic of friendsmy own, but they are destined to be separated by classall mine, which is made painfully obvious when boys come into the pictureat last. Meanwhile, Biso serves I just want to enjoy it for a cruel and drunken husband who beats her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another man's love childwhile. Biso's husband murdered her lover in a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair and she realises that she must escape his house if she and her children are to live. Latha too seeks escape, but she finds it in the arms of Thara's boyfriend and this sets off a chain of events that will echo far into her future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dana Fowley1529900360|title=How Could She?The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of the same. She was raped by her motherIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's partner fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and taken to the homes of her grandparents where she even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was abused by them and others. At other times she was forced reluctant to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abusedask for his help on difficult cases. Did her mother not know what was going on? Did she turn a blind eye? It was neither of those. Her mother was a willing participant in the abuse His assertions that there were only open-and organised much of it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon Robson|title=Catch|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Catharine-shut cases which didn's husband Tom is away on business in Birmingham, and so Catharine awakes alone for the first time in their little cottage at t need the end help of their lanea psychologist only worked for a while. They moved there a few months previouslyFinally, it was Robin, and since then Catharine has spent her days quietly awaiting her husbandDelaware's return from workpartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She is sure knew that the involvement was something that the man she will figure out, some day, what her purpose in life is. She thought it might be to have a baby, but they have been trying for some time and it hasn't happened as yetloved needed. Meanwhile she waitsThe next case did look simple, and thinks, and waitsthough. In Two lovers were murdered in the lounge stands her piano, swimming pool of a stark reminder of the life she didn't manage to realise because although she studied music she found, quite quickly, that remote property in spite of being passionate she lacked any kind of talent for it whatsoeverBel Air. So, on this day, alone at home, Catharine finds herself tormented by He was the piano's presence heir to an Italian shoe empire and over-thinking every second of the day. She worries away at who she is, and what her life is, as her loneliness and the day itself unravel around her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090232</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Wadley|title=Man + Dog|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Throughout my life I've lived with dogs or deeply regretted the fact that I lacked a canine companion. Watching a dog – or better still, the interaction between dogs – is infinitely better than anything on television and it's sheer joy married to see how an extremely rich man and dog interacts and how, so often, they hold a mirror up to each other.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564785521</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jules Stanbridge|title=A Date in Your Diary|rating=4.5|genre=Womenit's Fiction|summary=Harry knows that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but she also knows there's a difference between what we need and what we want – and she wants a blokenot the Italian. More specifically, she wants a date for the latest in a string But which of friend-and-family weddings, a wedding where, thanks to a 'tricky' seating plan, she will be sitting on them was the same table as her most recent ex...and his new girlfriend. With no prospects in sight, Harry comes to the conclusion that internet dating might be the way to go. At best, she'll find a guy who ticks all her boxes and will joyfully accompany her to the wedding before they live happily ever after, and at worst, well, she might get a story out of it, never a bad thing for a magazine journo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347137</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Harker1529395224|title=House Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of Secretsa Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Jane has had to grow up fastSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Constantly moving from place His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to placefollow in his footsteps, never staying in particularly when he considered the same school for long, and always reminded of her motherstrain that being on-call put on his father's money worries, Jane longs for life. When he was seventeen he took the kind opportunity of life where she can just be doing work experience with a family friend who was a kid, vet and not have to deal with adult problemswas convinced this was the job for him. When she's sent to stay Before long, he was at her sisterLiverpool University. It hadn's student digst - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, the Laurels, things go from bad he'd wanted to worse. The Laurels is be a decrepit Victorian Townhouse, freezing cold, with no food, and to make matters worse, Jane's sister, Billa, doesn't even want her thereprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846243572</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Black0861541774|title=DishonourA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Modern lives. Lily Valentine is heavily pregnant DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and trying former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to get her own law firm meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and running (having been sacked from her previous job for he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a tendency charge 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. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a trifle too diplomatic incident and wouldn''independent'' – or maybe just disorganised)t help Danny at all.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4. 5|genre=General FictionRyan |summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a boy from dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the sink estatesonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. ThinNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, angry, rebellious, but with an ability as Ness is planning to charm and take a serious talent trip to Canada to get away for art that gets lost in his gansta-speak a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and tendency so jumps at the chance to skive off school. Lailla and Aasha are good Muslim girlscome home to Edinburgh. Hard-workingAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, soberbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, appropriately dressedthanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, dutiful but with some new characters who quickly begin to their familiescharm. They're also English teenagers, with Katie has no experience in running a fair dose of what that normally implies. Jack is a copperbusiness, overlooked for the interesting cases (like murder), good at child protectionor in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in love with Lily, addicted to the job, always trying to do the right thingher abilities, and not there's always succeeding. His current clean-living her very helpful (and caring attitude is driving Lily rather handsome) neighbour, William, to distraction.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847560725</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Panos Karnezis0811771741|title=The ConventInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary=Our Lady of Mercy is Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a small convent on the Spanish sierra made up collection of a handful knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of devoted nuns who live their lives simplythe 'long, carrying out their daily duties like clockwork. However things change when a suitcase containing a newborn baby is left mysteriously outside cosy afternoons in front of the convent doorsfire' variety. The Mother Superiorprojects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, Sister Maria Inesfive to ten hours, believes the baby ten to be a miracle twenty hours and plans to keep him in the convent, but the other sisters do not agreemore than twenty hours. During All the events that follow the true characters of the nuns inside the convent projects are revealed attractive, modern and the peace that the sisters enjoy is stripped away to useable. I perhaps show the tension my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that has been bubbling away under the surface's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079344</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe MenoDean Koontz|title=The Great PerhapsBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=Jonathan Casper faints when Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he sees cloudsloses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. His wife Madeline worries about everything Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, not least and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the way thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the pigeons that she very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is studying are murdering each othera nice person. A really nice person. Their seventeen year old daughter Amelia wants So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to overthrow the evil empire of capitalism and his house is making her own bomba new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, while fourteen year old Thisbe who has been sent to help him since Benny is looking clearly under attack from nefarious forces for God being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and praying to him. Jonathanwill certainly take care of Benny's fatherenemies, if he, seventy six year old HenryBenny, is planning his disappearance. Jonathan and Madeline may be on the verge of splitting up, to the dismay of both daughtersHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330512471</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bruno VincentAdam Stower|title=Grisly Tales from Tumblewater Murray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=Daniel Dorey comes Murray is supposed to the vast be a humble, tidy and decaying city of Tumblewater with high hopes. He wants friendly cat, one who is able to studysleep and eat and eat and sleep and, become a surgeonwell, work hard and make a better life for himselfwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. But when the school he enrolled in turns out to be 's a deserted buildingbad magician's cat, so his money is swindled from himfavourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and he's framed for breaking the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a shop, he's ready to turn round world of frightening adventure and go back to the countrywhiffs. His last hope is to collect This time round it drops them into a volume of local stories for Viking land, where a back-alley publisher. One by troll hunter is expected – well, onemuch bigger than Murray was, he hunts down the tellers of these grisly tales and records their wordsto be honest, but it soon becomes evident that he's hiding a dark secret of his own...turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330479512</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dervla MurphyB0C47LV1PC|title=The Island That Dared: Journeys in CubaFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=1999 – A renowned painter, Robert Oliver, goes mad, attacking Can you make a painting with a knife. He's arrested'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, and sent to a psychiatrist who would it land? The catch is also an artistthat the answer for both could well be... The psychiatrist, Andrew Marlowe, can't get his patient to talk to him, but tries to investigate what drove him to this by talking to his wife and his girlfriend, and reading some letters Oliver seems obsessed with. no.
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|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=Pamela FreemanIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins''Castings'' trilogy is written in an unusual way for a fantasy novel. It tells return all the story from the characters' points of view, in a style more common to the chick-lit novels of Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Reessurprising. This interrupted the flow of the story quite noticeably in He''Blood Ties'', d been exiled on the first of the trilogy, but didn't seem quite so much of Costa del Sol as a distraction in the second part, ''Deep Water''. Unfortunately, this time around it works against the story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497037</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Dickinson|title=WE|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected from the World Ear in readiness wanted drug smuggler for a mission that will last a lifetimedecade. Sent to man a tiny station built at enormous effort and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar system, he will never be able to The return. Gravity is one-tenth that of Earth and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without the strength of calcium. come about because he''If he stood on the Earth now... s had a letter from his skeleton would splinter under his weight.ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn' It took eight years t long to get there and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfullylive. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Lahey |title=My Bread: the Revolutionary No-work, No-knead Method|rating=4.5|genre=Cookery|summary= It's a long time since I did Home Economics at schoolhard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, but stripped to his underwear and sent to a major part of it was learning methods, which, I was assured would stand me watery grave in good stead for the rest boot of my lifea stolen Ford Sierra. A Victoria sponge was Is it a careful progression of creaming and gently adding flour and eggs. A white sauce had warning from a couple of these methods, but essentially it meant working through Spanish gang or a series of instructions until they became second nature. Bread was the worst requiring fermenting, kneading, proving and then more kneading and rising.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066304</amazonuk>problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amy V Fetzer Alex Bell and Shari AaronTim McDonagh|title=Climb the Green Ladder: Make Your Company and Career More SustainableThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Business and FinanceConfident Readers|summary=With Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the abject failure of evening a helper at the Denmark Climate Change Conference fresh in our mindsdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, it too – for there is perhaps time to turn away from a generation missing in the politicians and look back toward what we can dofamily. The Conference may have finally got A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the likes of the USAtitular race, India and China to acknowledge that they a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to join navigate the world in if we are going the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to save the planet as pair – but when a benevolent place for our species bad incident at the eatery leads to livea confession from gran, but there Eli knows his only hope is still too much posturing and not enough commitment. Clearly our governments and 'leaders' are not going to do this for us; we have dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to do it for ourselvespossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>047074801X</amazonuk>0571382231
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