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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from the many 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>
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<metadesc>Expert, full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review 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 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.
 
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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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!
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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==New Reviews==
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]].'''
 
  
'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
__NOTOC__
 
{{newreview
 
|author=James Fitzsimmons
 
|title=The Hudbrax Hoard (Sabrax Clyke Series)
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Meet Sabrax Clyke.  Not allowed to sit around in the hole in the dry-stone wall he and his family call home, and admire the pretty girl who's just moved in next door, he's persuaded by an urgent message from distant relatives to go to their aid regarding some unmentionable, awful predicament.  His journey there and the task itself will involve metal dragons, odd standing stones, earth-shattering movements, and unearthly nasties.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955644216</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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==The Best New Books==
|author=Jane Ray
 
|title=Snow White
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Jane Ray has taken the classic fairy tale of Snow White, the dwarves and the wicked queen, and created beautiful three-dimensional tableaux. It's a much-loved story that everyone is familiar with, and this is a great opportunity to rediscover a classic in an interesting new way.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406311839</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|author=Chris Van Dusen
 
|title=The Circus Ship
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=When a circus ship sinks off the coast of Maine, the animals escape and make their home in a nearby town. They soon enchant the locals, who in turn decide to protect the animals from the greedy circus-owner. Very loosely based on the sinking of the ''Royal Tar'' in 1836, ''The Circus Ship'' is a fun picture book that animal-lovers will enjoy.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>076363090X</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|author=Wayne J Harris
 
|title=Sins of the Angel
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Dr Gideon Matthews, a shouty hellfire and damnation preacher, has just delivered a sermon all about the evils of women being allowed into the church hierarchy and, on his way home afterwards, he is murdered.  The following day however he wakes up in hospital or, actually, an angel called Gabriel finds himself inside Dr Matthews' body, able to recall Dr Matthews' memories and thoughts and feelings but acting now as himself.  Gabriel goes a little bit wild, finding himself overwhelmed by the new feelings and desires he experiences in this body, sinning left, right and centre and causing scandal at his every move.  He is also wondering for what purpose he has been brought into this body and finds that he is dreaming about a demon, someone who is persuading an unknown monk to commit murders in God's name and who seems to be getting closer and closer to Dr Matthews in order to kill him too...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1438994699</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
|author=Andrew Marr
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria to V.E. Day
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|author=Tom Percival
|rating=4.5
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|genre=History
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|rating=5
|summary=This book, and the BBC TV series which complements it, must confirm Andrew Marr's status as one of the most entertaining and compulsive historian-cum-presenters working todayHis previous project, on postwar Britain, was hard to fault, and anyone who enjoyed that will certainly relish this.
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|genre=Confident Readers
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230709427</amazonuk>
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident.  Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every directionAnd yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope.  He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
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|isbn=1398527122
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|author=Children's Trust
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|title=The Walrus and the Carpenter and Other Favourite Poems
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|rating=5
|rating=3.5
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|genre=Science Fiction
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
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|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|summary=Celebrities, including [[:Category:Richard Hammond|Richard Hammond]], Paul O'Grady, Sienna Miller, McFly and Lorraine Kelly, have chosen their favourite poems for this anthology. All proceeds from the book go to [http://www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk/ The Children's Trust]. It's a fantastic charity, who help disabled children, and I urge you all to buy a copy of ''The Walrus and the Carpenter'' to support them.
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|isbn= 0356522776
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140632650X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008517061
|author=Roger Scruton
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|title=Death in a Lonely Place
|title=I Drink Therefore I Am
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|author=Stig Abell
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
|genre=Popular Science
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Roger Scruton is a conservative philosopher and composer, best known for his work on philosophy and music, but who shares Plato's belief that 'nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man' and in this book seeks to combine his two interests of philosophy and the fruits of the vine.
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|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky.  There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter?  For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847065082</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1786482126
|author=Stephen M Irwin
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|title=The Darkening
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|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Crime
|summary=This book has the 'S' word written all over itNo, not sex - supernaturalSo, it's got all things a bit spooky, not-quite-right, strange coincidences.  They are sprinkled throughout like rock salt. I must admit that when I read the blurb on the back cover with its supernatural theme, I gave an inward groan.  Not really my cup of teaBut I'm open-minded and I'll read anything once.  I'm glad I did.  Irwin is Australian.  For some reason I haven't read too many books by Australian authors, so I was keen to get reading.
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|summary=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 doorwayThere was no skull.  Was this a ritual killing or murder?  Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry NelsonIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months agoHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751543969</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008551324
|author=Tanya Landman
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|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|title=The Head is Dead (Poppy Fields Murder Mystery)  
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|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet, once again, Poppy FieldsWhen tasked to create a murder mystery experience for a school fete she is only surprised to find the headmistress - a newly employed battleaxe that no-one seems to like - a real-life victim of an assassin.  And there is only a school field full of suspectsCan she and her best friend, brainbox George, solve the day and make the staff room a safer place to be?  And where does the invisible sheepdog come in?!
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|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the policeNeither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her deathThis person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants.  And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date.  Not much to ask, is itThe new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406314633</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008405026
|author=Jonathan Buckley, Mark Ellingham and Tim Jepson
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|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|title=The Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria
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|author=Jane Casey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
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|genre=Crime
|summary=There's a general Rough Guide to Italy, but revisiting again this regional guide in the process of writing up our trip to Tuscany two years ago, I was reminded of how good indeed this particular Rough Guide is. I bought it because I wanted to supplement the general Rough Guide to Italy I had with more detailed coverage of the region in which we were going to spend the whole trip - and I was extremely happy with the result.
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|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, 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843530554</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0571379877
|author=Frank Furedi
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|title=The Kellerby Code
|title=Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating
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|author=Jonny Sweet
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Crime
|summary=It seems the more problems the school-aged generation pose to society, the more responsibility schools have to take, teaching not simply English and Maths, but Personal Thinking and Learning Skills, Happiness Classes, and Emotional Education. The duty to raise a child well is taken out of the apparently 'incompetent' hands of parents, and given over to the education system, where values can be regulated and controlled.
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|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza.  Robert's a theatre director.  He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert.  Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847064167</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jo Callaghan
|author=Susan Ostler
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|title=Leave No Trace
|title=Flirt Diva - For Women Who Want to be Bold and Sassy and have a Fabulous Life!
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
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|genre=Crime
|summary=There are lots of timetabled books on the market, that promise to transform everything from your employability to the size of your thighs in a certain number of weeks, if you commit to their programme, and this book is really just another one to add to the 'scheduled self-improvement' pile. Except we're not talking here about dropping a dress size in time for Christmas, or sailing through that oh-so-important interview to land the job of your dreams...for this book is a 6 week guide to ''Getting Loved Up'' that promises to put its participants (and as you'll learn, you're more than a mere reader with this title) on the fast track to romance. Gosh.
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|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock.  It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases.  But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project.  Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312799</amazonuk>
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|isbn=139851120X
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1399613073
|author=Michael Morpurgo
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|title=Moral Injuries
|title=The Kites are Flying
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|author=Christie Watson
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Said lives on the West Bank. He herds his family's sheep, spends a lot of time talking in his head to his absent brother Mahmoud, and he makes a great many kites, which he sends across the wall to the girl in the blue headscarf who lives in the occupiers' settlements. What Said doesn't do, is talk out loud, even to his new friend Mister Max. Max is a Western journalist who wants to make a documentary about how the Palestinian/Israeli conflict affects ordinary people on both sides of the wall. Max is entranced by Said, and his dozens of kites, all bearing the message salaam or peace. He can see that Said has a dream, but he's not sure what it is. Will the dream come true before Max has to leave?
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406317985</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0241636604
|author=Tanya Landman
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|title=Dying to be Famous (Poppy Fields Murder Mystery)
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|author=Gary Stevenson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Meet Poppy Fields - an inquisitive young lass, keen on exploring her world - in a slightly different way to her geeky, walking-encyclopaedia of a best friend, GrahamSo keen is she to explore the phenomenon that is the latest seen-everywhere, snapped-at-all-hours celebrity, she makes the pair of them go to audition for bit parts in the Christmas production of The Wizard of Oz the star is starting to rehearseUnfortunately for her, she apparently hasn't noticed she's in the third book in a series of young reader murder mysteries, and deaths more unexpected than having a house land on you might just be on the playbill...
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|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 StevensonA 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406314625</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1035021803
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|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
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|author=C L Miller
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew upShe's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole.  Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least.  Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly.  Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved.  After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
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|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
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|rating=5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
  
{{newreview
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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 lifetimeI'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 frighteningOf 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.
|author=Stuart Brown
 
|title=Mma Ramotswe's Cookbook
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Cookery
 
|summary=I expect there will be a few people who spot this book on the shelves and wonder who Mma Ramotswe is, but [[:Category:Alexander McCall Smith|Alexander McCall Smith's]] legion of fans certainly won't be amongst themThis cookbook is a nice tie-in to the books, written with a foreword from AMS himself, and full of flavoursome recipes that are spoken of in his series of books about Mma Ramotswe and her Number One Ladies Detective AgencyIllustrated with beautiful photography, lots of quotes from the books, and lots of information about Botswana's rich variety of food it's a wonderful mix of being both a cookery book, a reference book and a companion work to the Mma Ramostwe books.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697139X</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sunny Singh
|author=Adam Williams
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|title=Hotel Arcadia
|title=The Book of the Alchemist
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary= ''The Book of the Alchemist'' is a story within a story.  It opens in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War.  Pinzon, a Spanish politician who resigns for moral reasons, is taken hostage by a group of Republican soldiers, along with his young GrandsonA group of villagers are also taken captive and locked in a cathedral as part of the soldiers' desperate plan to protect themselves from the Fascist forces that are hunting them.  A cavernous mosque built inside the mountain under the cathedral's crypt is discovered, and in it, a book.  As Pinzon reads the book, another story unfolds, set in the eleventh centuryThis is the story of Samuel the Jew.
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|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 try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photographyAlthough 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340899131</amazonuk>
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|isbn=086154742X
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529153298
|author=Robert Kaplow
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|title=The List of Suspicious Things
|title=Me and Orson Welles
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|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Samuels sees everything in terms of a performance, through the rose-tinted lens of the theatrical celebrities he listens to on the radio. So when he stumbles onto the Broadway stage through a chance encounter with Orson Welles, it seems as if all his dreams may be about to come true. He goes from being the guy that all the girls see as a friend, one of the bookish kids at school, to the glamour of mingling with stars of the stage. We follow Richard's struggle to balance this newly discovered wonderland and his school life, not to mention his disapproving mother.
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|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime 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's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the 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 she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540193</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1398524085
|author=Michael Palin
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|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?
|title=Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years
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|author=Nicci French
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Crime
|summary=''Never meet your heroes,'' goes the old adage. ''Never read their diaries'' might be equally sage advice. That's probably why I didn't tackle Michael Palin's collected daily journals until now. Along with the rest of the Monty Python team, he was without doubt a hero of my teenage years.
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|summary=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 body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river.  It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt.  The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1035906708
|author=Robert Crumb
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|title=Diva
|title=Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis: All 50 Chapters
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|author=Daisy Goodwin
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the beginning was the picture.  Just think of all the countless religious images, both inside and outside religious establishments, designed to convey the message to those who could not readArt and religion have always been linked, which is probably one of the main reasons I stayed an atheist - I hated art at school, and drawing a man on a donkey, something way beyond my skills, was not a task I appreciated, hence my dislike of both subjects.
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|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen.  Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the StatesWhen she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224078097</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|author=Keith Laidler
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|title=Animals
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=''Animals'' is described as a visual guide to the animal kingdom, but please don't think of it as a picture book as it's far more than that.  Don't think of it as a coffee table book either – despite the fact that its size – midway between A2 and A3 – might tempt you to think that way.  It's a journey through the complex diversity of the animal kingdom based on sound scientific principles.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916004X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Rosen
 
|title=A To Z - The Best Children's Poetry From Agard To Zephaniah
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
 
|summary=Michael Rosen has picked the best modern children's poetry, from John Agard through to Benjamin Zephaniah. It stemmed from Rosen performing in schools and libraries with many of the poets, and as children's poetry anthologies go, it's amongst the very best.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141324503</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Van der Kiste
 
|title=The Man on the Moor
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In the summer of 1913 relations with Germany were deteriorating steadily, but there didn't seem to be any connection with the international situation when a London clerk, George Stephens, was found dead in a country lane on the edge of Dartmoor. The moor had been his passion and he'd always been keen to escape London and return to Devon. It was an odd death but in all probability it would have been put down as an accident if George's mother had not announced that George was the son of the KaiserDespite her fondness for gin the story she told was oddly compelling and when it was linked up with the fact that two German officers had been staying at a nearby farm George's death seemed less and less like an accident.
+
|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has 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 imagineBut 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904744230</amazonuk>
+
|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.''
  
{{newreview
+
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 with only coordinates to guide her, she sets 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 territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|author=Ursula K Le Guin
+
|isbn=0008664730
|title=The Left Hand of Darkness
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=It's hard to believe that ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' dates back to 1969: forty years on, it reads as well, or even better, then when it was originally written, and - deservedly - enjoys a classic status in the science-fiction canon, as well as being perhaps the best known sci-fi novel by Ursula LeGuin.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496065</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Lewis
 
|title=The Blind Side
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|summary=I think my husband was a little taken aback to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in a book about American Football. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it was going to be about American Football.  Well, I knew it was about a boy who ''played'' American Football, but I'd thought that was just going to be the background story, you know, like in ''Jerry Maguire''. So the first chapter seemed to go on and on forever, and I thought my head might pop from reading about quarterbacks and blind sides and plays and offence and defence and running statistics...but then somehow I stumbled to the real heart of the story; the story of Michael Oher, a young African-American from the slums of Memphis whose father was never around, and whose mother was a drug addict and lost him to social services at a young age.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Philippa Pearce and Helen Craig
+
|title=Planet Storyland
|title=A Finder's Magic
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Till (that's short for Tillawn) has lost his dog Bess and he has no idea how he's going to find her until a mysterious stranger appears.  Mr Finder interviews various witnesses, including a cat, a mole, a heron and Miss Mousey. It's not what Miss Mousey says that gives Mr Finder the vital clue as to what has happened to Bess, but the sketch she made of the riverbank at the time that Bess went missing.  There's a lot of magic in the quest to find Bess, but it's all very confusing for Till and at one point he even doubts the motives of Mr Finder.
+
|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406319821</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1736128426
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rachel Isadora and Clement Clarke Moore
 
|title=The Night Before Christmas
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Everyone knows and loves Clement Clarke Moore's poem ''A Visit From St Nicholas''. Even if you don't go the whole hog, gathering the family round by the log fire, and reading it together, its opening line of '''Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...'' fills you with a warm glow. You can practically smell the mulled wine and hear the snores of Auntie Gertrude during the Queen's Speech. It's an absolute classic.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0399254080</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jack Ludlow
 
|title=Warriors
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Arduin of Fassano is paid by Michael Doukeianos, a young Byzantine general, to keep the peace in Apulia.  Arduin is a Lombard, however, and secretly plans to revolt and take Apulia for himself, hiring a group of Norman mercenaries to help him do the job.  These Normans are William de Hauteville and his brothers, famed warriors with their own conflicts and a desire to gain titles and wealth for their sons.  Even if Arduin and the Normans could take Apulia, there are no guarantees that they could hold it in a land full of treachery and bribes.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007559</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Matthew Tree
|author=Jo Berry
+
|title=We'll Never Know
|title=The Ultimate DVD Easter Egg Guide: How to Access the Hidden Extras on Your DVD
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Entertainment
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Consider the Easter Egg - at least in the way DVD collectors mean.  Sometimes a pointless hidden add-on, that is there for no reason.  Sometimes they can be a priceless bonus, seemingly gifted by the disc producers to those in the know, costing - at least in the case of some animated instances - many thousands of pounds. Some oik on set with a camcorder, they are not.  I've been guilty several times of clicking away in directions the menus don't seem to encourage on the off-chance I find something (or, on a PC, just sweeping the PC mouse over any and every title card in case it highlights something previously invisible).  Forcing several titles and chapters by going straight to them in case they're something secret is not a hobby I like to admit to.
+
|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a 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 confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752875205</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= 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
+
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.
|author=Frances Day
+
|isbn=1803364548
|title=Dead Cat With Firelighter
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=We're in the world of modern art.  A couple who met at art college are on the verge of breaking up, as her success at fine arts is only bettered by his sudden rise to fame in the world of his conceptual, pompous bits of (almost literally) rubbish and nothing.  We're also in the world of the wannabe stars and starlets, trying to make the jump from well-thought of provincial comedy theatre to Hollywood. And in the background in both instances, are guru-type Svengalis, pulling strings, and aiming to do as much as is morally justifiable - and a lot more - to get their charges to fame.  And a bit of contract killing and murder on the side.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529900360
|author=Frances Fyfield
+
|title=The Ghost Orchid
|title=Cold to the Touch
+
|author=Jonathan Kellerman
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=There's something obsessive about Jessica Hurly.  When Sarah Fortune encounters her on a cold, dark London morning, she's distraught because the man who fills all her thoughts has rejected her and it seems that her mother wants nothing to do with herJess is a talented chef but she's short of work – the occasion when she emptied a tureen of soup over the host at a dinner party did not enhance her reputation even if all the other guests were secretly delightedSarah senses her vulnerability, but it's Jess who organises the let of one of her mother's cottages in the sea-side town where she grew up so that Sarah can have a long break from the flat where she still smells a recent fire.
+
|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult casesHis assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a whileFinally, it was 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 swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air.  He 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 primary target?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847441092</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529395224
|author=Shirley Williams
+
|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet
|title=Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams
+
|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
+
|genre=Animals and Wildlife
|summary=Who could resist a title like that?  And is this some lesser-known Shirley Williams, recalling a life spent in libraries?  The answer to the latter is no.
+
|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.
 
 
Shirley Catlin, as she was born, tells us in the early pages of this memoir that during her childhood her father encouraged her to climb the bookshelves in their Chelsea house, right up to the ceiling.  It was a secret between the two of them, as her mother, Testament of Youth Author Vera Brittain, would have immediately anticipated cracked skulls and broken arms.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084760</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0861541774
|author=Vyvyen Brendon
+
|title=A Nye of Pheasants
|title=Prep School Children: A Class Apart Over Two Centuries
+
|author=Steve Burrows
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Home and Family
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Prep School Children'' is Vyvyen Brendon's second collection (''Children of the Raj'' was the first). It explores the pupil experience, using primary sources like weekly letters home, memoirs and interviews, and less immediate material such as fiction, school magazines and headmasters' biographies. I came to the book with some questions: what was it like to be a boarder at a prep school? What difference did a prep school education make to life as an adult?  Why parents might send their children to such schools when the horrors were well-known, many of the dads presumably having survived the experience themselves.
+
|summary=DCI 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 - he 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 evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man.  Now he could be facing the death penalty.  Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847062873</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|author=Bill Butterworth
+
|title=The Perfect Passion Company
|title=Reversing Global Warming For Profit
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Politics and Society
+
|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a 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.  Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…
|summary=There aren't many climate change deniers left, are there? We all know it's there. We all know, too, that the world's population growth is on a collision course with the dwindling of its resources. The world's going to get hotter, its weather more extreme. Fossil fuels are going to run out. More and more people will compete for fewer and fewer of civilisation's luxuries. We're all worried.
+
|isbn=1846976596
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312810</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0811771741
|author=Margaret Thornton
+
|title=InstaKnits for Baby
|title=Until We Meet Again
+
|author=Melissa Leapman
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
+
|genre=Crafts
|summary=In the fateful summer of 1914 Tilly Moon is settled in the midst of the Moon family in ScarboroughIt's an extensive clan with the usual close relationships, unusual situations and slight distances between people for no apparent reason.  Tilly's an accomplished pianist and she longs to take her music studies further, but there's someone who's coming to mean more to her than her musicHer twin's best friend, Dominic Fraser is the apple of her eye and he feels the same way about herThere are war clouds on the horizon though and when Britain declares war on Germany Tommy and Dominic are quick to enlist as were many of the men in and around the Moon family.
+
|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets.  Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' varietyThe projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hoursAll the projects are attractive, modern and useableI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007486</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Dean Koontz
|author=Helen Fitzgerald
+
|title=The Bad Weather Friend
|title=Bloody Women
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Paranormal
|summary=Before reading ''Bloody Women'', I hadn't heard of the author Helen Fitzgerald and by the title and blurb, I expected a standard crime-thriller novel. But early on, I realised this wasn't the case. The novel was a kind of black comedy and written with wit and humour, despite the theme of murder and violence.
+
|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day.  He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed.  Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house!  The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck.  He is a nice person.  A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person.  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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971330</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1662500491
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Adam Stower
|author=Patrick Casey and Richard I Hale
+
|title=Murray and Bun
|title=For College, Club & Country - A History of Clifton Rugby Football Club
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Clifton Rugby Football Club can proudly trace its history back to the very emergence of the sport of rugby union. Founded in September 1872, the same year that William Webb Ellis, who is reputed to have been the rebellious Rugby schoolboy who first ran with the ball, died. In reality, it is highly likely that the Webb Ellis story is something of a spin job on behalf of Rugby School, although it did mean that Rugby School was able to impose its rules on the game at a time when most public schools had their own rules for playing versions of the game.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312756</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jeffery Deaver
 
|title=The Bodies Left Behind
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When lawyer Emma Feldman and her husband Steven decided to buy a holiday home to give them the opportunity for much needed breaks from their hectic professional lives, they brought an old colonial house in the woods by Lake Mondac in Wisconsin, on foreclosure – it seemed like the deal of a lifetime. But on their first evening in the place, a series of strange snapping noises outside begin to freak the couple out. They know they are in real trouble when a man with shotgun and stocking mask appears at their window. Another enters the building and the only hope they have is that someone will take notice of Steven's phone call to the police, cut off by the intruders after he is able to get out only one word – This.
+
|summary=Murray is supposed to be a 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 two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world 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 be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994037</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|author=Zadie Smith
+
|title=Fragility
|title=Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays
+
|author=Mosby Woods
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Anthologies
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Zadie Smith is best known as the author of three novels: White Teeth, The Autograph Man and On Beauty. She now teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York. This collection is a mixture of literary criticism and journalism, including travel writing, reviews and other writing on film and several pieces about Zadie Smith's family, and especially her father. It is divided into five sections under the headings Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling and Remembering.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142954</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
|author=Emily Bearn
 
|title=Tumtum and Nutmeg's Christmas Adventure
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=I do look forward to a good children's story, and having read Tumtum and Nutmeg's [[The Pirates' Treasure (Tumtum and Nutmeg) by Emily Bearn|previous adventure on a pirate ship]] I was particularly looking forward to this one.  It's Christmas, and our two friendly little mice have been working hard, preparing delicious treats and temptations ready for Christmas Day.  One evening they go upstairs to check on the children who live in their house, Arthur and Lucy, and find their letters to Father Christmas.  Last year the children didn't get any presents because their chimney was blocked up and Father Christmas couldn't get in.  They've asked for the same presents again this year, hopeful that this year Father Christmas will manage to find a way through even though their father refuses to unblock the chimney for fear of drafts.  Tumtum and Nutmeg are worried anyway that the letter won't reach Father Christmas in time, and that the children will be disappointed once again.  They decide to take matters into their own hands and set off to visit the terrifying Baron Toymouse in Toy Kingdom to see if he can help.  However, with clockwork cats to contend with, and the capture of Tumtum by the evil Baron, Christmas could turn out to be an even bigger disaster than they'd thought...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405250267</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529431735
|author=M C Beaton
+
|title=The Winter Visitor
|title=Agatha Raisin: There Goes The Bride
+
|author=James Henry
|rating=3
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Private investigator Agatha Raisin is not a happy woman. She is concerned with the rate at which her body is ageing; even worse, her ex-husband, James, is getting married to a much younger woman and Agatha has been invited to the wedding. She goes, with plenty of friends in tow and looks forward to the whole thing being over as soon as possible. She sees James just before the wedding, when he makes it clear that he has changed his mind and wants to pull out of the wedding. Then the bride is killed, by a bullet through the window, and James and Agatha are the primary suspects. Can they prove their innocence while finding out who the real perpetrator is?
+
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845299531</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Janice Galloway
 
|title=Collected Stories
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=In this collection, stories are taken from two previous volumes, Blood and Where You Find It. The forty-two snap shots of life are mainly of women and young girls, struggling with emotions, sometimes realized and sometimes not. In all, there seems to be an underlying link of isolation and truth. The settings are varied, from a visit to the dentist to the place known as home, to a walk in the evening. We have a peek into the deepest darkest corners of everyday relationships, with lovers, partners and most of all ourselves.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540398</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Janice Galloway
 
|title=Collected Stories
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=In this collection, stories are taken from two previous volumes, Blood and Where You Find It. The forty-two snap shots of life are mainly of women and young girls, struggling with emotions, sometimes realized and sometimes not. In all, there seems to be an underlying link of isolation and truth. The settings are varied, from a visit to the dentist to the place known as home, to a walk in the evening. We have a peek into the deepest darkest corners of everyday relationships, with lovers, partners and most of all ourselves.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540398</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Revision as of 07:59, 8 May 2024

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

0356522776.jpg

Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

0008517061.jpg

Review of

Death in a Lonely Place by Stig Abell

4star.jpg Crime

Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner. Full Review

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Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

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 ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child 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. Full Review

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Review of

The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. Full Review

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Review of

A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

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, 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. Full Review

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Review of

The Kellerby Code by Jonny Sweet

3.5star.jpg Crime

Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway. Full Review

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Review of

Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

4star.jpg Crime

When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career? Full Review

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Review of

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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. Full Review

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Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

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. Full Review

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Review of

The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C L Miller

3.5star.jpg Crime

It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. Full Review

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Review of

All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

Hotel Arcadia by Sunny Singh

3.5star.jpg Thrillers

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 try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. Full Review

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Review of

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

5star.jpg General Fiction

It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime 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's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the 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 she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. Full Review

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Review of

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French

5star.jpg Crime

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 body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. Full Review

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Review of

Diva by Daisy Goodwin

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Full Review

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has 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? Full Review

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Review of

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

3.5star.jpg Teens

I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.

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 with only coordinates to guide her, she sets 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 territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear. Full Review

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Full Review

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Review of

We'll Never Know by Matthew Tree

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a 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 confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. Full Review

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Review of

The Briar Book of the Dead by A G Slatter

5star.jpg Fantasy

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. Full Review

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Review of

The Ghost Orchid by Jonathan Kellerman

4star.jpg Crime

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 reluctant 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 was 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 swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He 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 primary target? Full Review

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Review of

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet by Sion Rowlands

3.5star.jpg Animals and Wildlife

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. Full Review

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Review of

A Nye of Pheasants by Steve Burrows

4star.jpg Crime

DCI 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 - he 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 evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. Full Review

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Review of

The Perfect Passion Company by Alexander McCall Smith

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

The Perfect Passion Company is a 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. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand… Full Review

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Review of

InstaKnits for Baby by Melissa Leapman

4star.jpg Crafts

Melissa Leapman's InstaKnits for Baby gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky. Full Review

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Review of

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

4.5star.jpg Paranormal

Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. 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. Full Review

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Murray is supposed to be a 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 two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world 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 be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do… Full Review

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Review of

Fragility by Mosby Woods

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

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.

Fragility is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic Full Review

{{Frontpage |isbn=1529431735 |title=The Winter Visitor |author=James Henry |rating=4 |genre=Crime |summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?