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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]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Ele FountainTom Percival|title=LostThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and her brotherWill's life is difficult, Amit. She lives with them in a nice apartment, and although they are not rich like some multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the girls at schoolwrong shoes', they he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money to be comfortable. Lola spends her time thinking about her school friendsfor even the most basic of things like food, and trying to fit in with themhis dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, until one day, suddenly, everything was working a cash-in her life changes-hand job on a building site and had an accident. After taking a work trip awayThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, Lolaand Will's father doesn't come homelife seems bleak in every direction. They have nobody else to helpAnd yet, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become he still has a tiny amount of them untilhope. He is good at art, finally, they are evicted from their flat, and she and her brother find themselves forced clings to live on the streetsmoments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=178269255X1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= N K JemisinSylvie Cathrall|title= The City We BecameA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating= 45|genre= Science Fiction|summary= New York is being born, the city has reached critical mass and has matured into There are few greater joys than a living almost-breathing entity and is ready book which lives up to make its way out into the worlda compelling premise. Before it can be established, an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and other forgotten places. The city And this is not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the values are selected to become the living embodiment one of the city, some cities have one, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the woman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eye, it's a personality clash on an epic scale and unity is both critical and not remotely guaranteedthem.|isbn=03565126650356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414467320008517061|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and Death in a Planet in CrisisLonely Place|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante ThunbergStig Abell|rating=54|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normalFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the parenting future of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her sisterdaughter Diana, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek as moving in together would mean a solution close lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to home, but eventually, it became clear 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 family that they were ''burned-out people moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radicalthe back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178730101X1786482126|title=Keep Him CloseThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Emily KochElly Griffiths|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Alice had two children: Benny (well, Benoît, actually) and Louis. LouBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 's seventeen and heluxury's just got his A level results and he and his brother are going out to celebrateapartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Someone has to find something to celebrate in the letters, D, D and EThere was no skull. Alice has always had Was this a good relationship ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with nineteen-year-old Benny DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but itNelson doesn's t, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. touch problematic with Lou and being honestHer condition will be obvious before long, he's not terribly likeable. The letters which kept coming least because Ruth is prone to my mind were ADHDsudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02413968400008551324|title=KeeperThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Jessica MoorNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Katie Straw worked 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 the womenprison and he's refuge prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and the women who lived there liked and respected was responsible for herdeath. She treated them well This person, he promises, is someone big and seemed it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to have an understanding open prison to serve the remainder of what they were going throughhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Why then did she jump from the local suicide spot into the river belowNot much to ask, is it? There had been no signs that she was unhappy The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she and her boyfriend seemed 's even prepared to have been content together do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and Noah has a decent alibi for the time when she died, but anyone who works with him is kept well away from what other explanation could there be for her death? The police are convinced that it's suicide, but the women who knew her believed otherwisehappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18388806580008405026|title=Murder at Enderley Hall A Stranger in the Family (Miss UnderhayMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It'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 Dixon, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's the summer of 1933 and Kitty Underhay is on her way to visit the family which she never knew she had, at Enderley Halla theatre director. Her grandmother He's also self-obsessed, Mrs Treadwelldemanding, handsome and entitled and Great Aunt Livvy are back at the Dolphin Hotel uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in Dartmouthlove with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Kitty gets easily bored working at the Dolphin - every day 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 much left to stumble upon the same - but her real reason for going away is that she needs two of them kissing in a break after her recent adventures, which involved three vicious murders, an arson attack and an attempt on her lifedark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1788638026Jo Callaghan|title=Where the Innocent Die (D I Ridpath)|author=M J LeeLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was easy to assume that the death of the young Chinese girl at the Immigrant Removal Centre was suicide. Her throat was cut, there was When a lot of blood and the knife was man is found crucified on the floor at the side top of the beda hill in Nuneaton, She was due DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to be deported that day. But... how did the knife get into case alongside her sidekick, the secure centre and why was the girl's room the only one which was unlocked? AI detective Lock. DI Thomas Ridpath, the coronerIt's officertheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is sent to investigate and he quickly becomes suspicious, There's a snag though: the inquest is due to open in second body found crucified a couple of few days' timelater, the girl's parents are coming over from China Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and they want a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to take their daughter's body home with themAI Future Policing project. Ridpath has just five days Will they be able to solve the case. The coroner is disinclined to delay in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the inquest: for hercase and, potentially, it's about giving closure to the parents.out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711660231399613073|title=Burnt Island (Ben Kitto)Moral Injuries|author=Kate RhodesChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first 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 cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to 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, it's their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241636604
|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and 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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The 5th of November was D I Ben KittoIt's thirty-fifth birthday and twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the occasion for the usual bonfire celebrations, but it would be marred this year by the discovery of Professor Alex RoganEnglish country village where she grew up. She's body on back now because of a bonfirerequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. HeFreya'd obviously been alive when he was put on s former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the fire and can only have died a terrible deathleast. The body Arthur was first discovered by Jimmy Curwenthe reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, better known on St Agnes 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 Bird Man because he speaks little man or nothing and his only concern is pursue the welfare of the birds he looks afterprofession she loved. His instinct is to cover Rogan's body After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and he uses his sheepskin coat to do this, with married James (on the result that he's rebound from the prime suspectlove 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.}}{{Frontpage|author=Elliot ReedSunny Singh|title=A Key Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to Treehouse Livingtry 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 terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is the story of a young boyPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his fatherhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's abandonmentfamily, though. HoweverWomen have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, it isnbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't told in sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the usual narrative wayfamily 'Down South'. InsteadWhen you're from Yorkshire, the book Down South is made up of glossary entries, written by Williama frightening, as a way of describing certain eventsforeign place, situations and emotionsbest avoided. It runs alphabeticallyFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, starting with ABSENCESharon, then moving and she'll do anything to ALPHABETICAL ORDERprevent that. As I began to read I did find myself thinking She'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to s not worried about the style, and was instead caught up in Williamdangers or that her Mum's storystopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1911545418
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Will Dean 1398524085|title=Black River Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Tuva Moodyson returns - Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal lifedaughter, returning Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her to husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the isolated town body of Gavrik and into a desperate search Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for her missing best friend. With the Midsommar sun blocked out by police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the dark pines of the forest, Tuva fights to save her friendguilt. But who’ll be The Salter children are not convinced but there to save Tuva?|isbn=1786077116's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17824074801035906708|title=Bird Love: The Family Life of BirdsDiva|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike WebsterDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Animals and WildlifeGeneral Fiction|summary=I was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a couple We tend to think of on-line booksellers: ''exploring the sex life of birds'' it said. I very nearly passed over the bookMaria Callas as Greek, but a closer examination suggested that the book is about the ''family life'' of birdsshe was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, which is rather differentin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. If the book Her original surname was confined Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to the sex life of birds, you would be missing an opportunity 'Callas' to understand how birds live day-to-day, bring up their families and cope make it more manageable in the wildStates. Not only When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that, you have missed she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about Nazi occupation by a wide variety mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of birds which run through this book from the first page to the lasther preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Camilla BruceChristopher Edge|title=You Let Me InBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= EccentricLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp a place that has been missing for the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the 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 the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a year remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and has been pronounced legally dead by plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her lawyers, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. Her will instructs her niece But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and nephew Mira's father. Desperate to enter her home save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and find the key with only coordinates to their inheritance guide her, she sets off in an old manuscript left 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 territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her office: home and the last story ones she'll ever tellholds most dear.|isbn=17876331790008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Pear AffairPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Set in Things have been a bit sticky for the 1960Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's, re paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this is a mystery adventure storytechnological change and starting to think of other, all about a little girl called Nell and her quest new ways to find her nannyspend time, Perrine (Pear) who left her very suddenly along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and then, after keeping in touch regularly by postalong with it, disappeared completely from her life, leaving Nell bereftall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. There|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We's everything in this storyll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, with underground tunnels as the playground a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of gangs being exceptional at any of children, his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to travel and detective work, a mystery mould infecting Parisian bakeries, mysterious figures following Nell aroundhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and a set of truly dreadful parents!himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=0571346855B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{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.'' 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=B083NMCSZX1803364548}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529900360|title=Little Doubt (D I Kelly Porter)The Ghost Orchid|author=Rachel LynchJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ella Watson was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was out running in the park when she 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 randomly attacked and stabbed reluctant to deathask for his help on difficult cases. Her husband, Thomas, and children, Jordan and Millie His assertions that there were devastated only open-and Detective Superintendent Neil Ormond was outraged that a decent, middle-class woman should be shut cases which didn't need the victim help of knife crimea psychologist only worked for a while. Despite being a golfing Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner of Thomas Jordan he declined to distance himself from , who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the case and told DI Kelly Porter involvement was something that he would be taking a great deal of interest in how the case was handledman she loved needed. He wasn't anywhere near as interested when a second woman was stabbed to death a few hours laterThe next case did look simple, though. Keira Bradley lived on Two lovers were murdered in the Beacon estate and Ormond's view seemed to be that anyone living there should expect this sort swimming pool of thing to happena remote property in Bel Air. He could hardly bring himself was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to mention Keiraan extremely rich man and it's namenot the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713423531529395224|title=Rules for Perfect MurdersLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Peter SwansonSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Malcolm Kershaw was the co-owner and manager of the Old Devils Bookstore on Beacon Hill in Boston. The store specialises in crime novels, but Mal has given up reading crimeSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His lifefather was a GP and Rowlands didn's been pretty chaotic of late: It's five years since t want to follow in his wifefootsteps, Claire Mallory, died and particularly when heconsidered the strain that being on-call put on his father's never really got over itlife. She When he was driving whilst inebriated, having just been to see seventeen he took the man opportunity of doing work experience with whom Kershaw suspected she a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was having an affairthe job for him. His interest in crime fiction comes back when Before long, he's approached by Special Agent Gwen Mulveywas at Liverpool University. SheIt hadn's interested in t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a blog post child. If anything, he wrote 'd wanted to be a few years ago: '' My Eight Perfect Murders''professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17868971480861541774|title=Bobby March Will Live Forever (Harry McCoy)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Alan ParksSteve Burrows|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In February 1964 Bobby March was on his way to London with fellow band members TomDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, ScottDanny Maik, Barry and Jamie. He'd had has taken a short holiday in Singapore to get his father to sign the contract for The Beatkickersmeet up with an old ally, as Bobby wasn't old enoughGuy Trueman. And his father had been reluctant Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he'd have preferred Bobby to get an apprenticeship, for the regular money. By July 1973 Bobby is back in Glasgowkilled a Ghurka. The Beatkickers didn't survive and March is on his ownInitially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but hardly thrivingevidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. There's an obvious drug habitNow he could be facing the death penalty. Meanwhile, the Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police are consumed by the search for force could provoke a missing girl, Alice Kellydiplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)Alexander McCall Smith|title=Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy TalesThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and other fantastical folk – people being cursed operating as an alternative to do thisall the online apps in providing a more personal, or not to be able to do thattailored service. Children can be cursed Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as can princesses on the verge of marrying, and older people too. It seems in Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a way there's no escaping itwhile. Which Katie is why the theme coming out of this book of short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to know about Edinburgh. And so begins this accursed characternew story from Alexander McCall Smith, that demonised placebringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and that other bewitched personthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. We Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there'd be s always her very wrong.helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=17890915001846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sara Holland0811771741|title=HavenfallInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrafts|summary= Maddie Morrow is supposed Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to spending blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the summer with her Grandma Ellen'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. But after a visit The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to her mother in prisonten hours, Maddie wants nothing ten to twenty hours and more than to go to Havenfall to see her uncle, Marcustwenty hours. It's All the only place she feels truly at homeprojects are attractive, modern and useable. Maddie I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's father, understandably, is not keen on Maddie spending time with her mother's family social-media- because the crime Maddieworthy projects's mum is languishing on death row for committing is the murder of Maddiebut that's brother..me being picky.|isbn=1547603798
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|author=Baye HartshorneDean Koontz|title=Ghosted: The Treason House TrilogyBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyParanormal|summary='Julia Crawley has lost her Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job on ''Celebrity'' magazine , he loses his fiancee, and so she decides to cut her losses his house gets trashed. Oh, and return home to the village of Monmouth Cove on the Jersey Shoresomeone has delivered a really weird, hoping to return to her harder hitting journalistic roots via local news. She'll be staying with her grandmother disturbing coffin- a woman always ready sized object to help younger relatives in need of a hand. Therehis home, and it's only one problem with possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that: creepy Uncle Dexhas trashed his house! The thing is, who doesn't always keep his hands Benny is the very last person to himselfdeserve all this bad luck.|isbn= B0829CP5BM}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA He is a nice person. A really nice person. At So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed delivery to sail with her parents and three brothers. Insteadhis house is a new friend, she remained with her grandparentsa bad weather friend called Spike, who doted on her and saw that she received has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good education, both in and out of schoolperson. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west Spike is going to take care of the United States and life was hardBenny, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen yearswill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, had ten pregnanciesif he, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girlBenny, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was Harper (a rude awakeningwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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|author=Kathleen Boucher and Sara ChadwickAdam Stower|title=Nine Ways to Empower TweensMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''9 Ways Murray is supposed to Empower Tweens'' is be a self-help book for tweenshumble, setting out tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to show them vital #lifeskillssleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. Don But he't groan! I know there is s a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a market glut of such books for we grown-ups hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and for young adults toothe catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but there is into a needful space in an increasingly technological world accessible of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to younger be honest, but he's turned up and younger children for material for tweens too. he'll have to do…|isbn= 02288188260008561249
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|authorisbn= Katie FfordeB0C47LV1PC|title= A Springtime AffairFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 4|genre= Women's Literary Fiction|summary= ICan you make a ''Yo birthing person've wanted to read author Katie Fforde for ages and this was pretty much exactly what I was expecting - a warm' joke? And if you could, cosy read focused on romanceis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, family and friendshipswould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be. This provided two romances for ... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the price city of onePortland, Oregon, but it was actually cautiously begins to emerge from the family element as opposed to restrictions imposed during the romance that I really enjoyed. |isbn=1780897561covid pandemic
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|isbn=18385931871529431735|title=Guess What I Found in the Playground!The Winter Visitor|author=Victoria ThompsonJames Henry|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Tilly It's February 1991 and Essex is excitedbitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. SheHe's just come dashing out of d been exiled on the classroom, pigtails flapping behind her and Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a big grin on her facedecade. Dad's The return has come to collect her and her brother and about because he ''has'' to try to guess what she found in the playground todays had a letter from his ex-wife, although saying that she concedes that he will never guess. Dad wants to know how school was, but ''obviously'' that's not important. Could Tilly have found more collectable things for her scrap box? (Isnill and hasn't that so much more sensible than a scrap ''book''?) Well, actually, Tilly did find exciting stufflong to live. There are sequinsIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, glittered paper stripped to his underwear and all sorts sent to a watery grave in the boot of other things in her pocket, but that's not what she wants Dad a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to guess.}}home?