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Hello from The Bookbag<metadesc>Expert, a full book review site, featuring books reviews from all the many most walks of literary life ; fiction, 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, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often & self-published 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 plus author [[:Category:Interviews|interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[Features]] page.</metadesc>
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{{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning Out|ratingThe Best New Books==4|genre=Literary Fiction'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid job, and a luxurious apartment all to herselfnew reviews by category]]. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But the life she is leading is beginning to take its toll. On the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home town. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girl.|amazonuk=''<amazonukbr>1906727392</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Amanda Downum|title=The Drowning City|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=In a nutshell, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed Read [[:Category:Features|the latterlatest features]]. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelings. I started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>}}'
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tove JanssonTom Percival|title=The True DeceiverWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=Most people Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of my age will have come across Janssonways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can's t work unwittingly, via and doesn't have enough money for even the televised renditions most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the Moomin talescollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover Throw into that at last Thomas Teal had set about mix the translation into Englishfact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, first he still has a tiny amount of The Summer Book hope. He is good at art, and then clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a collection light at the end of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'a long, dark tunnel. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel Kehlmann Sylvie Cathrall|title=Me and KaminskiA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing to read such There are few greater joys than a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski and Me'. In it, Sebastian Zollner, the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt book which lives up to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art criticcompelling premise. Kaminski, the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer And this is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general publicone of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis Barfe0008517061|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=EntertainmentCrime|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down uponFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, as if it's has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a bit nafflittle uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, tepid Livia and ignorable. What's often forgotten is that it's hugely popularher daughter Diana, enjoyable as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and much of it relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is of the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the complete story of British light entertainmentback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall1786482126|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Marvin is entering Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the Great Grislygust Growsite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments -Offwhen they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but just like himNelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his tomatoes arenchild as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he't growing very s prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone bigand it will be worth the police doing what he wants. He takes And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the only sensible course remainder of action: he sings his tomatoes a songsentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The results are spectacular. Victory new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is surely within his graspkept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Delaney 0008405026|title=The Spook's Stories: WitchesA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=TeensCrime|summary=It'Warning: Not 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 be read after darka halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially,it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there' are s something about the only words on the back positioning of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us bodies that this book is 'seriously scary'makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious...  The whole thing kicks What looked as though it was going to be an open-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monsterand-hunter) who falls in love with shut case is now a witch and complex double murder. Kerrigan is forced to bear convinced that the consequences when the witchexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-childrenboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Unger0571379877|title=Die For YouThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=BestEdward Jevons is a working-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from workclass young man, she realises something is wrong. Going to obsessed with his office to try to find out what happens to himupper-class friends, she gets attacked Robert and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killedStanza. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the man she married was using Robert's a false identitytheatre director. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that she He's been living a lie for the past five yearsalso self-obsessed, demanding, Izzy takes matters into her own hands handsome and sets out to find her husband entitled and work out why he lied uses Edward to her run errands for so longhim. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which Edward has its roots been in Prague love with Stanza since their university days - and rivals anything she could have plotted he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in one Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of her novelsthem kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa McMannJo Callaghan|title=WakeLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at When a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother man is going to provide much in found crucified on the way top of resources. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame case alongside her for being so single-minded in sidekick, the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3AI detective Lock.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor It's father has just moved in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing familytheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'several cold cases. Marbie Zing But when there is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is becoming increasingly disillusioned suddenly struggling with her home life, a potential serial killer and her daughter's year two teacher is coming a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to terms with a break uptheir AI Future Policing project. The stories of these people come together Will they be able to create a tale of lifesolve the case in time, loveor will Kat find herself taken off the case and, and ultimatelypotentially, what being part out of a family means.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=F G Cottam1399613073|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is the sort of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoral Injuries|author=Jon Berkeley|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=I shall start with Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a word quarter of advicea century. When Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you're being hounded by aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a circus master, perfectionist and a magician, for trauma doctor. Anjali is the soul free spirit of the group and she becomes a tiger thatGP. When we first meet them they's contained in re at a tigerdrug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best going to make sure the other angels do not turn on you end in a big way - then youtragedy. We don're probably living t know who suffered the tragedy or the third book in a fantasy trilogyconsequences. Still Twenty- never mind, the angel's efforts five years later there will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud cities, the chase after your enemies be an eerily similar event that will take you across impact the world to desert oases and backthree friends. This time, and friends new and old will be on board to helpit's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend0241636604|title=Adrian MoleThe Trading Game: The Prostrate Years|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Confession|author=Lauren Kate|title=FallenGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=A 17 year old girl at If you were to bring up an image of a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boycity banker in your mind, who sheyou's immediately drawn re unlikely tothink of someone like Gary Stevenson. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, until where he saves her lifewas familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the two London School of them end up drawn togetherEconomics. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has striking similarities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gareth Hinds|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town in a facility with numbers which most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Learof us can only envy. For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and He also realised that most rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought people expect poor people to bestupid. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-longgot him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, over-blown blusteringthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Theroux1035021803|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She'A Dead Hand'' tells the story s back now because of a travel writer suffering request for help from writerher beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's block (also known as former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, and the mysterious Mrs Ungercircumstances seem suspicious, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected wayssay the least. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about Arthur was the mystery itself as reason why Freya had not been back to the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charmsvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. But does Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she have more has not felt able to hide than be near the man or pursue the profession she's letting loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>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.''
{{newreview|author=Toby Lester|title=The Fourth Part 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 World: The Epic Story of Historyfeeling that it's Greatest Map|rating=4all getting away from me.5|genre=History|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library Some of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display- frankly - quite frightening. No ordinary mapOf course, this is sometimes described as AmericaI 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's birth certificatere talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, I needed people I knew I could trust and was discovered by accident in some archives who could deliver information in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the resultway I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur Sunny Singh|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=HumourThrillers |summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a wet kitchen floorterrorist group.'' Surely that Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is the wackiestSam, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch a wartime photographer and all it has done for Abhi, the worldhotel manager. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the modern world, residents who are still alive in the entire banking systemhotel, all those he forms a bond with Sam who failed refuses to see it comingbe cowed by events, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all keeps on venturing out of her room to revert try to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so capture what's happened through her photography. Although they can get back on only ever talk over the expenses trainphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and back up they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the rich liststerrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton1529153298|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, It's 1979 and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seasideMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the placehonestly... ) Meat is getting thrown around like itShe's not what's worrying Miv's going out of fashionfamily, and we though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to doubt whether Polly and have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her companions can ever utilise father wants to move the power of love family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and put things she'll do anything to rightsprevent that. Especially as this book does She's not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabethworried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Loose Women1398524085|title=Here Come the GirlsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=This Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV seriesbody of Greg's father, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised on the coverDuncan Ackerley, this book is an entertaining night with in the girlsriver. It turns out was an easy assumption for the police to make that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar Duncan had murdered Charlie and even if you donthen committed suicide when he couldn't know them yet, with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of stand the celebrity facesguilt. The women Salter children are universally warm-hearted and supportive: not convinced but there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book 's little else they can do but get on with their lives and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1035906708|title=Fortune CookieDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got the idea from. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination works. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with the problems and he now has another family. It's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of money.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jenifer Roberts
|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=David Hughes
|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Well, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Dave Eggers
|title=The Wild Things
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end We tend to think of the stick about adultsMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendNew York, or gets a bit feisty in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factsshe was thirteen. He is a bit of a rascal Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to say make it more manageable in the leastStates. But all When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that might change when he finds himself travelling to she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a strange land mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of roisterous animalsher preference for her elder sister, and ends up installed as their kingJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy StrongChristopher Edge|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Trevor's troublesome dog, StreakerLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has had three puppiesthe nickname of 'The Black Hole'. They were fathered All big movie fans, according they're looking forward to local bully Charlie Smugglots of exciting films, and many, by one of his Alsatians. many snacks! Trevor would ideally like to keep themHowever, as the movie starts, at least until Christmasthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, but his parents have other ideas and put them they are swept up for saleinto an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled But as they lurch from one film genre to half of the money from the sale of the puppiesnext, but before can they can be sold figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the three puppies go missing in the park cinema, and it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Beth DurstRachel Greenlaw|title=IceCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she I can't help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left hear the song of the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very youngsea. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry|title=The Wide-Mouthed Frog|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Do you know call of the joke about deep, the wide-mouthed frog? You must have heard itanswering beat in my heart. It's a classic. It's one that you really need to tell in person, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide open, but to hopefully spark your memory, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, and the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''Ooh, you don't see many of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funny. Anyway, this is a book of that joke.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Dr Aaron Carroll Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and Dr Rachel Vreeman|title=Don't Swallow Your Gum|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary='''BANG'''plundering the wrecks. That's Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the sound of copious urban myths being shot downruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. '''BANG'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 with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. That's With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the sound watched streets of foreign islands to the old wives slamming heart of the door, as their tales get revealed as baseless. '''CLICK'''. Thatsmuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the noise lots future of ill-informed websites make as they get closed down. All noises come due to this brilliant bookher home and the ones she holds most dear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>0008664730
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Annie TaylorJames Sherwood Metts|title=VioletPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet is Things have been a very special hippobit sticky for the Earthlings. She is extremely small but that does not make her adoptive parents Albert AI and Mavis love her any the less. Howeverautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they are slightly worried 're paid to do and other tasks that Violet has a very unusual habit took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of turning pink without warning other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and for no explicable reason, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonMatthew Tree|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Arthur Transcombe is Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a middle-aged, grey-haired, drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self-effacing poetconfidence. Unremarkable really - on the outside. He hasSo Tim applied himself to his studies, however, managed to achieve some success with cultivated his abilities rather than his poems. (Being a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</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.''
{{newreview|author=A J Healy|title=Tommy Storm and Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Galactic Knights|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. HeBriar's one , a family of five teenagers snapped up witches who protect the town and the wider world from around the universe 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 gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destructionsteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. Not just the planetWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, or Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the solar systemBriar Witch, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHING. Nobody seems to know whattown's going to cause this destructionleader, or whenand Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, but he right and his friends and their ship seem centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to be communicate with the only people proactively going about saving dead, putting her at the dayheart of a maelstrom of chaos. So itReeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches's a pity that legacy, everything they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about have sacrificed to kill themsurvive, is under threat.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>1803364548
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1529900360|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=When I 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 in my early teensreluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the stars swimming pool of almost every other five-star British comedy film arounda remote property in Bel Air. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and inimitable it'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best s not the Italian. But which of all, them was the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jay Parker1529395224|title=Stop MeLetting 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. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to 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 doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and 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'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0861541774
|title=A Nye of Pheasants
|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Spam EDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl -Mails can be incredibly annoyinghe would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but most of us will evidence came to light that suggested that he might have had planned to deal with themmurder the man. Fortunately, we can hit Now he could be facing the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they camedeath penalty. I certainly prefer not Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck is supposed to become if I donhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'thelp Danny at all. But I wonder how many of us would react if a spam E-Mail actually was a matter of life and death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Battle of the Sun|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>}}  {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Love and KissesPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Tamsin The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boringoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. They'd been best friends since forever Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and were look after the good girls. Neither missed schoolbusiness, skipped her homework nor had boyfriendsas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Well, that Katie iscoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, not and so far. Up until then Tamsin had been jumps at the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward chance to going on come home to universityEdinburgh. All that seemed And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to change when she met Alex. Wellan Edinburgh we already love, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify thanks to 44 Scotland Street and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into herthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, from the building site where he workedbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Henry Mintzberg|title=Managing|rating=5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=''Study after study Katie has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as no experience in running a resultbusiness, there's such a market for bulky management and leadership and general business books like this one. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find the time to do so? This title actually in match-making, but Ness has an answer to this, by providing two books full confidence in oneher abilities, and it is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book in one of two ways. Option one is to read every word's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, chapter by chapterWilliam, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provoking.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox0811771741|title=Blood BornInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=To give support Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to a vulnerable gangblankets. Some will be quick knits -rape victimothers are of the 'long, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to cosy afternoons in front of the courthouse on the day she is due to testify against the notorious Harbourn brothersfire' variety. But when Anya arrives at The projects are divided by the house she finds Giverny close to death and faces a battle against time they'll take to save her. In the paniccomplete - less than five hours, Anya fails five to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse stillten hours, in trying ten to save twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the girl's lifeprojects are attractive, Anya has interfered with a crime scene modern and the case falls apartuseable. She blames herself for the Harbourn brothers I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being allowed to walk free and only hours later there is news of another attackpicky. A pair of sisters have been stabbed and raped resulting in the death of one, while the other clings to life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leah FlemingDean Koontz|title=Remembrance DayThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady in Benny is having a wheelchair watches the unveiling of the new war memorial in the village squareterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. ThereOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's pride in what possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has been achievedtrashed his house! The thing is, in Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the family delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who are gathered around her and there are memories toohas been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Some are good but many Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal LaytonAdam Stower|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Murray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumesMurray is supposed to be a humble, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar tidy and Arabella have nothing much else friendly cat, one who is able to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of Difficult Sumsthe two. They But he're supposed to be making presentations about what s a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they did during both use can chuck them out, not into the holidays tooregular back garden, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation into a world of frightening adventure andwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, franklywhere a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he can't really remember what s turned up and he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sums. 'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbB0C47LV1PC|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in Can you make a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very polite, friendly, and kind-hearted, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesn't have a kingdom of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but thereYo birthing person's always a feeling that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the princess of anywhere.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mij Kelly and Louise Nisbet|title=question if you did, would it land? The Happiest Man in catch is that the World or the Mouse Who Made Christmas|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone and keeps herself to herself. Her things are her things and she is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One day, an old man moves in to Mouse's house. He used to answer for both could well be the happiest man in the world, but now he's sad. He's fed up of having given, given, given all his life and never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserable, so one day she decides to cheer him up by giving him a clementine..no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Nick Bland|title=The Very Cranky Bear|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Moose, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head into a cave to get out of ''Fragility'' is set as the rain, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep in there. When they wake him up, he roars at them, chasing them outside, so they decide to cheer him up somehow. Zebra paints stripes on him, Moose fashions antlers for him and Lion sticks a mane city of straw on him. UnsurprisinglyPortland, this makes Bear even crankierOregon, so it's down cautiously begins to Sheep to save emerge from the restrictions imposed during the day...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>covid pandemic
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish1529431735|title=Mum and Dad GlueThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=A young boyIt's parents are splitting up. HeFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins's going through return all the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, anger, denial, and then trying to get them to stay togethermore surprising. His method for this isn He't d been exiled on the usual response though: he looks Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for glue to stick his mum and dad togethera decade. Thankfully, The return has come about because he finds some wise and kindly advice in the process.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Clara Vulliamy|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To Bed|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=It's Pearl's bedtimehad a letter from his ex-wife, but she says saying that she's really busy ill and isnhasn't going long to sleeplive. She just wants It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to play his underwear and play and playsent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. When the bear with sticky paws rings the doorbell, he whisks her away on an amazing adventure - although as you might expect, the bear has Is it a warning from a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she does get Spanish gang or a little sleepy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>}}problem closer to home?