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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=Lindsey LeavittSylvie Cathrall|title=Princess for HireA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Desi is not the happiest of teenagers, although when There are teenage girls ever actually happy? Anyway, her ex-best friend Celeste is doing everything possible few greater joys than a book which lives up to humiliate and alienate her from their friends, and to top it all off Celeste is also dating the boy Desi has a huge crush on, Haydencompelling premise. (He And this is perhaps a dubious prospect for Desi since he can't even get her name right). Still, she has landed herself summer job working for a pet store and although it involves being dressed in a furry groundhog costume at least no-one can tell it's her in there. Well, not until Celeste comes along and unmasks her. In front of Hayden. Desi finds herself feeling more and more like vapour every day, that she doesn't matter or almost doesn't exist. Cue the fairy-godmother style entrance of Meredith, an agent for Facade which is a magical company that offer jobs to teens with magical potential to work as substitute princesses..them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140524612X</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz0008517061|title=Commotion In The OceanDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=There's Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a commotion in little uncertainty about the ocean: the dolphins are squeakingfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, the jellyfish are jigglingLivia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the lobsters are clippetty-clapping snippety-snapping. Animal by animal, Giles Andreae (best-known future she wants for [[Giraffes Can't Dance Magnet Book by Giles Andreae herself and Guy Parker-Rees|Giraffes Can't Dance]]) takes us through her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the underwater adventures, with short, snappy poemsback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408308452</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Delphine de Vigan1786482126|title=No and MeThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Lou is Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a cleverritual killing or murder? Inevitably, clever child Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with an IQ approaching 160DCI Harry Nelson. She It's thirteendifficult as Ruth knows, but sheNelson doesn's been moved up two years at school and t, that she compares her flat chested, nervous self somewhat unfavourably is pregnant with her fifteen-year-old peer grouphis child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Funnily enough, her only real friend at school is Lucas, who's seventeen and such a rebel that he's been moved down two years. Things at home aren't great for Lou. Her baby sister died a few years ago and her mother has been severely depressed ever since. She barely talkscondition will be obvious before long, seldom gets dressed. Her father not least because Ruth is worn down prone to the bone with worry and Lou doesn't get a great deal sudden bouts of attention from him either, so distracted is hesickness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408807513</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Magrs0008551324|title=The Diary of a Dr Who AddictDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Davey, in his first term at secondary school, is horrifiedIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Not only Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is his best friend trying struggling in prison and he's prepared to grow up through tell the police where the use body of a home gymmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and standing him up on it will be worth the first morning of term, police doing what he also seems to be becoming dismissive of The Showwants. Still, And what he wants is trying to be esoteric - just like his sister, painting her face transferred to an open prison to look like Bowie album sleeves serve the remainder of all things - his sentence and Davey knows betterto get an early parole date. He knows everyone should be enthralled with Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the spectacle of Tom Baker falling off a building other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and becoming Peter Davisonanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384129</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joshua Ferris 0008405026|title=The UnnamedA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Tim Farnsworth seemed to have it allIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. He loved his wife Jane She was never found and daughter Becka and his job as the investigation ground to a partner in prestigious law firm was enjoyablehalt. Now, her mother, Helena, fulfilling and financially rewarding. The fly her father are dead in the ointment was that sometimes he was overtaken by a compulsion to walktheir bed. The time of dayInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the weather or positioning of the occasion did not matter – when the compulsion came he had to walk until he was physically exhausted and fell asleep immediately after calling his wife to come bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and collect himher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. There seemed What looked as though it was going to be no medical explanation for what was happening – an open-and Tim and Jane had tried every source they could find – but Tim was still reluctant to accept -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that this was a mental rather than a physical illnessthe explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917702</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michele Monro0571379877|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's SingerKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=In terms of British chart statistics and record salesEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled obsessed with his full potentialupper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. When measured against the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way shortRobert's a theatre director. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuitHe's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and overseas, particularly uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in Latin America love with Stanza since their university days - and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point drunkenly confided how he was the biggest selling artist in Spainfeels to Robert. His idol Frank Sinatra, to whom he was often compared, often said Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that Matt was the only British singer a relationship had begun between them but he ever really listened 's not like most men: Edward is left tostumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James A OwenJo Callaghan|title=Shadow Dragons (Imaginarium Geographica) Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=If you want When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to know where Tolkeinthe case alongside her sidekick, C S Lewis and their ilk got their ideas from, you might consider their jobsthe AI detective Lock. No - not It's their work in Oxbridge universitiesfirst live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. In this bookBut when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, at least, John, Charles Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and Jack are guardians of a very important book, the Imaginarium Geographica, within which lives high profile case that draws a lot of secret, vital information, and almost the soul of the land. They might not get a surname so we know immediately who is whomunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. They might Will they be from a different world - there is certainly enough talk of those able to solve the case in these pages. But we'll see them meet a vanishing Cheshire cattime, a certain Spanish knight we might have thought fictionalor will Kat find herself taken off the case and, and morepotentially, en route to out of a quest of Arthurian proportions.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386512</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robin Cook1399613073|title=InterventionMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Although Robin Cook has written many booksOlivia, ''Intervention'' is Laura and Anjali met on the first one that I have read - I'm day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a Robin Cook 'virgincardiothoracic surgeon.' This Laura is a big book in many respectsperfectionist and a trauma doctor. It's Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a classic, glossy GP. When we first meet them they'coffee table' edition; it's re at a big, satisfying read drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's a multi-layered book going to end in that it covers many current-day topics which have their roots in historytragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. In fact, this book is so multiTwenty-dimensional five years later there will be an eerily similar event thatwill impact the three friends. This time, you could argue, there it's their teenage children who are several books within this bookinvolved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743633</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victoria Forester0241636604|title=The Girl Who Could FlyTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Have If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you ever wondered what it would be 're unlikely to think of someone like if you could fly? Gary Stevenson. It would be such a wonderful sensationA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, soaring through the airwhere he was familiar with violence, looping poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the loop, swooping down over your house London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and gardenhe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. But have you He also stopped to think what other realised that most rich people expect poor people might think if they saw that you could fly whilst no one else could? Would children still want to be your friend? What would your family think? The little girl in this story, Piper McCloud, can flystupid. She lives on her parents farm and It was his ability at what was always a little, wellessentially, unusual, and after her mum found her floating in the air one day when she was a baby she decided to home school Piper, rather than expose her to the gossips in the villagecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. But one dayEventually, at the village picnic, Piper flies during the baseball match this turned into permanent employment as she tries to catch the ball, and suddenly her whole life is turned upside down..a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512536</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=P C Cast1035021803|title=Divine by Mistake (Goddess of Partholon)The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=Shannon Parker, broke Oklahoma It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English teachercountry village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, likes a good bargain hunt at an auctionCarole. But she gets more than her money Freya's former mentor and Carole's worth when 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 buys a vase with feels, let her likeness painted on itdown badly. Somehow transported Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the magical world of Partholonprofession she loved. After the split, Shannon finds herself she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the shoes love of Rhiannon, her mirror double. Along with Rhiannon's station as Goddess Incarnatelife, Shannon finds herself landed with her double's less than enviable reputation who was murdered) and Freya and a Centaur husbandJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303578</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
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=Jon MayhewSunny Singh|title=MortlockHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=TeensThrillers |summary=Abyssinia, 1820. Three Englishment search for the Amarant, The Hotel Arcadia is a mythical flower with the power luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over life and death, in by a strange desert oasisterrorist group. On finding Hiding from the flower surrounded by decaying facesterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, they realize that it there is cursedSam, a wartime photographer and take a blood oath never to remove it. LondonAbhi, 1854the hotel manager. 13 year old knife thrower Josie performs with her guardian As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the Great Cardamomhotel, an especially gifted magician he forms a bond with Sam who we quickly learn is Chrimesrefuses to be cowed by events, the coward and keeps on venturing out of the original three Englishmenher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Their relatively peaceful existence is shattered when three macabre Aunts (note Although they only ever talk over the capital letter, never a good sign…) descend on them, and Cardamom instructs Josie, with his dying breathphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to find the twin brother he'd never told help her about keep safe and destroy they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Amarantterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408803925</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carole White and Sian Williams1529153298|title=Struggle or StarveThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Struggle or Starve It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a collection of autobiographical writings about girlsPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv' and womens upset because she's lives in overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South Wales between the wars'. This When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honnofrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, an independent publisher set up and she'll do anything to encourage Welsh women writersprevent that. Most of She's not worried about the contributors in this book came from minersdangers or that her Mum' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecuritys stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Green1398524085|title=Drawing with LightHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Emily doesnCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband't remember her biological mothers fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. She ran away with another man when Emily was just two. Now Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her older sister Katdaughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her fatherhusband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and her stepmother Cassy make up Greg, find the family unit and Emily thinks itbody of Greg's just fine father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that way. She doesnDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't need a mother who didn't want her and has never even tried to get in touchstand the guilt. But then Kat goes off to university, her father buys a rundown house in the middle of nowhere and moves them into a caravan while it The Salter children are not convinced but there's being renovated, little else they can do but get on with their lives and Cassy gets pregnantwonder about what really happened. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802732</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Dessen1035906708|title=Along for the RideDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Auden has always felt like the odd one out amongst her peers. Her We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents - now divorced - are both academics and high achieversin Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and they, especially only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her mother, want father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the same for AudenStates. Auden's older brother is the rebel and When she was back in Athens - supposedly so Auden feels as though that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she needs to be was raised under the one Nazi occupation by a mother who satisfies mercilessly exploited her mother's ambition. So she works hard and never lets made no secret of her diligence or conscientiousness slip preference for even a moment. But she's socially awkward and lacking in experience. She's never had a boyfriendher elder sister, hates the colour pink and can't even ride a bikeJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327480</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caroline Moorehead Christopher Edge|title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Two hundred years agoLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, with a place that has the fall nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of the monarchy exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the Napoleonic warsmovie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotherand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. There were many who witnessed and experienced But as they lurch from one film genre to the volatile age at first handnext, but few left a more detailed record than can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the subject of this biographycinema, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rook HastingsRachel Greenlaw|title=Nearly DepartedCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=At first sight, you'd think Weirdsville was Anytown - it has a slightly rundown feel; everything's just a little bit shabbyI can hear the song of the sea. But it's pretty much like any other town. Parents go to work. Kids go to school and clump together in little peer groups The call of geeks and swots and jocks and bullies. But Weirdsville isn't like any other town. There's a strangely abundant wood right in the middle of itdeep, and at night, everythings turns, well, a little bit weird. The darkness is so dark it almost sucks you the answering beat inmy heart. And there are odd noises too...''
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks.Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within.But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and Emily thinks with only coordinates to guide her, shesets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's seen a ghostterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007258100</amazonuk>0008664730
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=The Monday Night Cooking School is Things have been a bit sticky for the first novel written by American writer Erica Bauermeister Earthlings. AI and it really is a delicious read in every sense. The novel tells of eight very diverse people who attend a cooking class once a month at Lillianautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's restaurant. Each has a different reason for being there re paid to do and each has his or her own story other tasks that took time to tellaccomplish. However, over the months that the course is run, Just as they start were beginning to get used to bond through the learning experience all this technological change and their love starting to think of foodother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. It's not the sort of novel where Life was pretty much happens but if you are interested in people shut down and you love food, I am sure you will enjoy this book. Having said that thoughalong with it, I don't think it is a book that should be read if you are trying to diet because you can virtually smell all the food as you turn the pages!many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141038837</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcus SedgwickMatthew Tree|title=Lunatics and Luck (Raven Mysteries)We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=It's obvious really. When an earthquake hits Castle Otherhand, Valevine, the head of the householdTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, decides what the place needs is a machine to predict the future, drunk and a new tutor for chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his two oldest children. And why not? There are only those children, the suicidal baby twins, Valevine's dreadful artistic passions all failed inventions miserably and experiments, Edgar the raven that narrates this series who had endless crises of booksself confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and a monkey. With bells on. Clearly there is not enough weirdness there already to go aroundset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842556959</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken Bruen1529900360|title=The Killing of the TinkersGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jack Taylor returns to his native Ireland with his tail between his legs. HeIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been lying low 'over the water' in Londonbadly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, licking Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his woundshelp on difficult cases. Jack (I'm slightly surprised His assertions that Bruen there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't give him need the help of a more Irish name) is psychologist only worked for a middle-agedwhile. Finally, it was Robin, washed-upDelaware's partner, disgraced ex-copwho nudged Milo into asking for help again. As if She knew that wasn't bad enoughthe involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, he also has though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a lot of very bad habitsremote property in Bel Air. He acknowledges however that was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the new world is designed for non-smokersprimary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally.' He also admits quite freely His father was a GP and openly that Rowlands didn'An alcoholic has dreams t want to rival follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of any Vietnam doing work experience with a family friend who was a vetand was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224113</amazonuk>d wanted to be a professional footballer.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Zeltserman0861541774|title=KillerA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Here at the BookbagDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, we've been very impressed has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with Dave Zeltserman's work thus faran old ally, Guy Trueman. He uses Maik was involved in a wonderful noirish narrative street brawl - he would later maintain that takes you straight to the heart of the storyhe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. His story telling is very straightforward, not weighing down the story with too much styleInitially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but sticking evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the substance and delivering a hard-hitting work every timeman. With ''Killer'', Now he has done could be facing the same againdeath penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668644X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger HargreavesAlexander McCall Smith|title=Mr Nobody (Mr Men and Little Misses)The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Mr Nobody The Perfect Passion Company isa dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while.. well Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, he's somebody who sort of is and sort of isn'tso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Mr Happy comes across him one day And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and does his best the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to cheer him upcharm. Who could possibly help Katie has no experience in running a person whobusiness, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's sort of there always her very helpful (and sort of isn't? Ahrather handsome) neighbour, William, the Wizard!to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405251425</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Mitton and Guy Parker-Rees0811771741|title=Jolly Olly Octopus|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Jolly Olly Octopus is giggling underneath the sea. He's soon joined by two tickly turtles, three smiley seahorses, and so on through the numbers. The large cast of underwater animals are having a jolly ol' time, until a shark appears...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846166861</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mo Smith|title=The Lazy Cook's Family Favourites|rating=4.5|genre=Cookery|summary=These days I get very nervous when I hear about books for 'lazy' cooks, or how to cheat when preparing meals. There's a very simple reason InstaKnits for this: good food, prepared using seasonal ingredients which don't break the budget needs skill and knowledge and neither are the prerogative of the lazy. Mo Smith might like us to think that she's lazy, but take my word for it – she isn't. She might have learned a few tricks for making good food quickly, but she's a woman who knows her onions and all sorts of other food.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007826</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBaby|author=Adam Blade|title=Creta the Winged Terror (Beast Quest)Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Our hero, Tom, is finding his fishing trip with his father bugged - literally - by Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a plague collection of sickening cockroach thingsknits from toys to blankets. WhatSome will be quick knits - others are of the 's morelong, cosy afternoons in front of the whole land of Avantia is suffering some form of horrid heatwavefire' variety. Can TomThe projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, recognising yet another threat ten to his country from twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the evil Malvelprojects are attractive, defeat his nemesis yet again modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social- especially as said baddie has as a new weapon of darkness a massive host of the roaches, swarming as one giant monster?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408307359</amazonuk>media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karan MahajanDean Koontz|title=Family Planning|rating=2|genre=General Fiction|summary=Mr Rakesh Ahuja is Delhi's Mister of Urban Development and so far, has managed to do well in his career. However, his family life is beginning to take over - he already has thirteen children and a fourteenth is on the way. The eldest, Arjun, now a teenager was born to Mr Ahuja's first wife, but up til now, Arjun is unaware of this fact. Sangita Ahuja, the long-suffering wife, is aware that her relationship with Arjun may never be the same again. Meanwhile, Arjun is only interested in one thing - how to attract the attention of the gorgeous girl on his school bus. What will happen to the family when Mr Ahuja finally tells the truth?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523299</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Fraser's Autographs|title=Collect Autographs: An Illustrated Guide to Collecting and Investing in AutographsBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and FinanceParanormal|summary=There must be many of us who have at one time had an autograph book or something of the kind as children Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and asked friendssomeone has delivered a really weird, relations or even celebrities disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it'do something's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, written Benny is the very last person to celebrities in deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the hope of obtaining delivery to his house is a personally signed picturenew friend, or even waited patiently at a stage door after bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a play or concert eagerly clutching a theatre programmegood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, record or CD sleeve and pen in handHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0852597525</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Derrick NiedermanAdam Stower|title=Number Freak: A Mathematical Compendium from 1 to 200Murray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceConfident Readers |summary=This Murray is supposed to be a book that definitely does what it says on humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the tintwo. Our author But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has the capacity to grab each number between one and two hundredbeen turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and wring it for all its worth - all the special status it might have in our culture (more easy with seven thancatflap they both use can chuck them out, saynot into the regular back garden, 187), all the special properties but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it might possess (perfectdrops them into a Viking land, triangularwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, prime)one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and as many other things mathematicians and so on would find of interest. Luckily there is enough here he'll have to make the book well worth a browse for us who would not deem themselves number buffs.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>071563710X</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Hunter1529431735|title=I, SniperThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=You donIt't often find novels or films based on the art of s February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the snipermore surprising. Hiding out for hours motionless and then killing someone unseen from hundreds of yards away doesnHe't make for d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as interesting a story as wanted drug smuggler for a face to face shoot outdecade. But with The return has come about because he'Is had a letter from his ex-wife, Snipersaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, Stephen Hunter has managed stripped to his underwear and sent to combine a watery grave in the art boot of the sniper with the art of the crime thriller in a decent readstolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377777</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy Coats Alex Bell and Anthony LewisTim McDonagh|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts in the Jar (Greek Beasts and Heroes)|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Atticus the sandalmaker Eli is heading to the great storytelling competition in Troy. On his way, he meets a number of people and, always eager for busy lad – by day an opportunity to hone his skills, relates to them tales from Ancient Greek myths and legends. The beasts apprentice in the jar of the title? Pandora released them from what wondrous library we mistakenly call her box.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000659</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jed Mercurio|title=American Adulterer|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I've often wondered how history would have viewed Jack Kennedy if he'd died a natural death rather than start by an assassin's bullet. As an extension of that I've also thought that he might not have lived that much longer had nature been allowed to take its course. He's one of visiting with him, and in the most-written-about Presidents of all time and finding a new angle – even evening a fictional one – is not easy, but Jed Mercurio has looked helper at Kennedy's adult life through the prism of dessert cafe his sexual peccadilloes gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515873</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joe Treasure|title=Besotted|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It is late August 1982lovely gran, the day when O level results come out. Michael Cartwright already knows he has failed his exams and too – for there is dreading his parents finding out. He, his twin brother Kieran (who has done very well) and their younger sisters are on a generation missing in the family holiday. A few short years ago, staying with their motherEli's parents in Kilross, County Cork. To escape boredom and his parents' anger, he wanders round were both lost to the villagetitular race, a globe-trotting adventure where he meets Fergal Noonan, training to be a priest, and lively Peggy O'Connor. He has his first kiss and a bit more with Peggy. The family soon goes home to Cheltenham, but their brief visit to Ireland will all entrants have far reaching significance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330511726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Pears|title=Landed|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I have hesitated to write this review because, truthfully, I am not ''entirely'' sure that I know what happened at navigate the world in the endcompany of a magical beast. I read it all. I actually read This has made the end several times. And then I skipped back race anathema to the middle, just to check something, before trying pair – but when a bad incident at the end again. I have decided eatery leads to just believe in what I ''think'' happeneda confession from gran, and since I don't want Eli knows his only hope is to spoil it for other readers then I don't have dare to make a complete fool of myself writing down enter what it is I think! And actuallyhe most hates, that mysteriousness is part with the sole aim the prize of magic at the charm of end – the story. So, slight confusion aside, I still gave this book four stars, and this is why..only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020079</amazonuk>0571382231
}}