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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, & self-published books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|plus author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
'I'm standing in a bookshop, a gun hot in my palm. The bullet that sat in my barrel thirty seconds ago has pierced flesh, blown into brain tissue, metal now fighting consciousness. The woman slumps ont 'Read [[:Category:Features|the floor. Blood begins to trickle from her head. It drips onto a pile of signed copies stacked on the floorlatest features]].'''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ebony McKennaSylvie Cathrall|title=Ondine: The Summer of ShamblesA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=35|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Ondine de Groot wants out of psychic summercamp, so together with her pet ferret Shambles, she flees from the tea leaf readings and astral projection classes, back There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to her family's restaurant. Only, as soon as she leaves summercamp, she starts hearing voices. Specifically a broad Scottish voice – one that seems to be coming from her ferretcompelling premise. Shambles, it transpires, And this is in fact a man, turned into a ferret by a witch. Ondine starts to wonder what Shambles would look like as a man, but her imaginings are soon interrupted by the arrival one of handsome Lord Vincent, son of the Duke, who sets Ondine's heart flutteringthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405249617</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Rowden0008517061|title=More Deaths Than OneDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Constable Thomas 'Thorny' Deepbriar Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a broken leg after little uncertainty about the future of his involvement in a case and so is taken by life with his wifevet girlfriend, MaryLivia and her daughter Diana, to recuperate as moving in the seaside town where he worked as together would mean a policeman during the war. He expects to be bored - the most interesting thing on the horizon is a case lot of missing gnomes. Then he bumps into an old colleague compromise: does Jake give up his off- someone who left the force grid and relaxing life to move in a haze of suspicion. Shortly afterwards, a body with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is found on the beach. Even stranger is that future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the dead man is someone that Thorny present and his colleague thought had died during putting the future on the warback burner. It seems that things are not as they seem. Can Thorny work out what is going on, even with a broken leg?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089309</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Strathern1786482126|title=The Artist, The Philosopher and The WarriorJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=The interaction between three very different, not Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to say contrasting, personalities hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of the Renaissance period sets the scene for what promises to be an intriguing titlea child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. In 1502 the paths of Cesare BorgiaWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, notorious son of the equally infamous Pope Alexander VI, Niccolò MachiavelliDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, the intellectual and diplomatbut Nelson doesn't, and Leonardo da Vinci, at the time best known that she is pregnant with his child as a military engineer though remembered today primarily as a great artistresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, were destined not least because Ruth is prone to crosssudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951212</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Heath0008551324|title=The Finest Type Of English WomanhoodDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|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's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was just after responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the end 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 Second World War other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and seventeen anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year -old Laura Trelling was at a loose end in Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her Sussex villagebed one summer night. She didn't really fit in with was never found and the other young people investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her eccentric parents were becoming more and more isolatedfather are dead in their bed. Initially, to it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the extent bodies that Laura was embarrassed by their carelessness of makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her welfareboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. A chance encounter with Paul Lovell What looked as though it was going to change everything be an open-and before long she was on her way to -shut case is now a South Africa not yet burdened with apartheidcomplex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>0099532743</amazonuk>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.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bobbie DarbyshireJo Callaghan|title=Truth GamesLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The central theme in this book When a man is sex - and lots found crucified on the top of ita hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. WeIt're introduced to a group of mainly twentysomethings and thirtysomethingss their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Men But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and women. Most a very high profile case that draws a lot of them are attractive and hold down glamorous jobs and careersunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. All Will they be able to solve the case in rude healthtime, with wonderful social lives or will Kat find herself taken off the case and trendy homes. They all appear, on the surfacepotentially, to be out of a bunch of shiny, happy people. What on earth could be missingcareer?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905614721</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nia Pritchard1399613073|title=More Than Just A HairdresserMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=24.5|genre=Women's FictionThrillers|summary=It's Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a brand new yearcentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and Liverpudlian hairdresser Shirley a trauma doctor. Anjali is looking forward to the months ahead following one hell free spirit of the group and she becomes a new yearGP. When we first meet them they's eve re at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party. What's more, sheand it's going to chronicle her adventures end in her brand spanking new diary which she 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 write in diligentlyimpact the three friends. This time, even when sheit's feeling a bit 'morning after the night before'their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1870206851</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Quinn0241636604|title=The Rescue ManTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=This love affair tale with the If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of Liverpool someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is mostly told through the eyes 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 architect Tom BainesEconomics. With the Second World War looming, Baines Stevenson is desperately working on bright - extremely bright - and he has a book to capture the memory facility with numbers which most of buildings us can only envy. He also realised that are most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at riskwhat was, essentially, and appears a man more in love card game which got him an internship with the past and solidCitibank. Eventually, cold structures than mankindthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531933</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Murray1035021803|title=Skippy DiesThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Life in Seabrook College is a messIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. Some She's back now because of the staff are young enough to remember their own school days therea request for help from her beloved aunt, but many are certainly too old for thatCarole. A lot of the boys are victims of ragging Freya's former mentor and bullying for being too chunkyCarole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, or too smart - but some are so chunky is dead and smart there's a certain kudos the circumstances seem suspicious, to themsay the least. The female of Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the species is a thing only spied from their own school next doorvillage: Arthur, she feels, and only met by selling them ritalin 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 weight-control pillcafe, or meeting them at met and married James (on the rebound from the very rare combined school discolove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241141826</amazonuk>
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{{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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane Yolen and Mark TeagueSunny Singh|title=How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?Hotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=[[How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by Jane Yolen|How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?]] was a witty terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and visually creative tale of Very Bad Bedtime Behaviour Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for modern children enamoured 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 dinosaursher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. 'How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?' continues Although they only ever talk over the formulaphone, this time with table mannerstheir 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007216092</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cynthia Kadohata1529153298|title=A Million Shades The List of GreySuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=At just twelve, Tin It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is the youngest elephant handler in his villagePrime Minister. Ever since he can remember (A woman? I mean, Tin has dreamed of working with elephants and he loves his own elephanthonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, Ladythey've been murdered, but to distraction, even spending most of his nights sleeping by have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her sidefather wants to move the family 'Down South'. Tin When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is much less keen on schoola frightening, foreign place, but his parents insist that he goesbest avoided. Tin really can't see For Miv, the pointmove would mean leaving her best friend, as his sole ambition is Sharon, and she'll do anything to become a fully-fledged elephant trainerprevent that. His parents may talk She's not worried about opportunities in the world outside his village but if they don't involve elephants, hedangers or that her Mum's not interestedstopped talking - to anyone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738823X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chloe Hooper1398524085|title=The Tall Man: Life and Death on Palm IslandHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=Cameron Doomadgee – Mulrunji – Charlotte Salter was just thirty six years old when he was arrested on Palm Islandexpected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Quite why he was arrested was never clearHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. He wasn't drunkShortly afterwards, although he had been drinking beer – Etty and was walking along Greg, find the road singing body of Greg''Who Let s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the Dogs Out?'' river. Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley felt that there It was reason an easy assumption for the police to arrest Mulrunji for creating as public nuisance make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he was taken to couldn't stand the police stationguilt. What 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 next was to be the subject of intense media speculation and legal proceedings over the coming years, but within forty five minutes Mulrunji was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520761</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy W Ryback1035906708|title=Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His LifeDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction|summary=As the fictional schoolboy hero Nigel Molesworth might have saidWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, 'any fule kno' that Adolf Hitler but she was notorious for burning books. Nevertheless he was also an avid collector and passionate readerborn to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, as around 1200 surviving volumes once in his possession now in the Rare Book Division of the Library of Congress, December 1923 and a smaller quantity in Brown University, Rhode Island, demonstrateonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Among them were world literature classics, such as Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and 'Gulliver's TravelsCallas'to make it more manageable in the States. He also owned an edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, When she was back in handAthens -tooled Moroccan leather with a goldsupposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -embossed eagle flanked she was raised under the Nazi occupation by his initials on the spine. The Bard, he once saida mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, was greatly superior to Goethe and SchillerJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532174</amazonuk>
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|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Chancey's dam was Starry Night Lucas and her owner loved that horse so much that she wanted his friends are all booked in for a foal who was exactly like hermovie marathon at their local cinema, but when Chancey was born she was bitterly disappointed for instead a place that has the nickname of the black Appaloosa with white marking Chancey was born albino. It was only his striped hooves which proved his breeding'The Black Hole'. The owner was not All big enough to overcome her feelings and when she fell on hard times it was Chancey who was left out in the field movie fans, they're looking forward to suffer despite the fact that he was no longer a young horse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140632258X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sian Rees|title=Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The Act for the Abolition lots of the Slave Trade was passed in Britain in March 1807exciting films, and the last legal British slave ship left Africa seven months later. many, many snacks! Other countries were slow to follow suit. Everyone in Britain knew there would be resistanceHowever, and when as the abolitionist Granville Sharpe purchased land in Sierra Leone to 'repatriate' freed slavesmovie starts, Ottobah Cugoanathey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, a former slave living in London, asked if it was possible for and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn'a fountain to send forth both sweet water and bittert even imagine.' Could But as they lurch from one film genre to the slave tradenext, he wondered, be abolished from West Africa - when West Africa was its sourcecan they figure out what on earth is going on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951174</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sapphire|title=Precious|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Precious Jones is a sixteen year old black girl from Harlem – well she's never actually been out of Harlem – and when we meet her she's pregnant by her own father for the second time. Her first child was a girl and she was born with Down's Syndrome. With unconscious irony Precious calls her ''Little Mongo'' and leaves her Will they ever get back to live with her grandmother. When her second pregnancy becomes obvious she's expelled from school the cinema, and joins an alternative education programme. Precious really wants to learn and the book is the story of her journey from illiteracy to maturity.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548720</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dean Hale, Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale Rachel Greenlaw|title=Calamity JackCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=''I was born to scheme'', declares our hero Jack. With flashbacks we see the young lad and a pixie friend, larking about for revenge or small profit. But when his mother's bakery gets more and more into the red, can hear the size song of the profit has to increasesea. And when you add in revenge against the local crime lord - a giant The call of a man - so does the size of deep, the target of the japeanswering beat in my heart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747587426</amazonuk>}}''
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|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Isabel Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and her sister Ruth are slaves. But automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they should be free - Miss Mary Finch left a will 're paid to do and other tasks that said sotook time to accomplish. But Miss Mary Finch is dead and her greedy nephew and heir denies Just as they were beginning to get used to all knowledge of the will. So Isabel this technological change and Ruth are sold starting to the Locktons and taken think of other, new ways to New Yorkspend time, along came an awful pandemic. The Revolutionary War is underway Life was pretty much shut down and New York is a dangerous place. The Locktons are loyalists, but along with it, all the patriots are in control of the citymany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747598061</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lorraine JenkinMatthew Tree|title=Chocolate Mousse and Two SpoonsWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=From the first sentence: 'With one hell Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of a crash, Lettie Howell’s dinner service hit the wall…', I knew that I was going to enjoy this tale. An opening thus full being exceptional at any of expletive his artistic passions all failed miserably and resounding Welsh Voice immediately makes it clear who’s the boss and I can relax, knowing I’m in competent handswho had endless crises of self confidence. WelcomeSo Tim applied himself to his studies, Lorraine Jenkin, to my handful of favourite chick-lit authorscultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1870206959</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WolfeA G Slatter|title=The Bonfire Briar Book of the VanitiesDead
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionFantasy|summary=In his own mind, bond trader Sherman McCoy is '' There's a 'Master part of the Universe'me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. He has a pleasant wifeThis secret magic of my own, a beautiful mistressall mine, and a sweet six year old daughterat last. Henry Lamb is I just want to enjoy it for a black student from the projectswhile. Under normal circumstances, it's clear that McCoy's world and Lamb's world would never overlap. But when McCoy and his mistress Maria Ruskin end up lost in the Bronx, and an accident leads to Lamb being hit by McCoy's Mercedes, a chain of events start which will lead to his downfall.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548798</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Cole-Adams1529900360|title=Walking to the MoonThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=We meet 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 main character Jessicahelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, or Jess as she is usually calledDelaware's partner, deep in an emotional black holewho nudged Milo into asking for help again. She can see no light at knew that the end of involvement was something that the tunnelman she loved needed. And right from the startThe next case did look simple, right from page one, we have a sense of though. Two lovers were murdered in the beautiful and poetic language swimming pool of Cole-Adamsa remote property in Bel Air. 'Time He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and I have a new arrangement. We leave each other alone.it' And indeed time is s not important in this novelthe Italian. We have all the time in the world would probably be the motto But which of them was the medical staff - if they had one. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161348</amazonuk>primary target?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nancy Farmer1529395224|title=The Islands of Letting the Blessed (Sea Cat Out of Trolls Trilogy) |rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=In this third adventure, Jack, a fourteen year old Saxon apprentice bard, and Thorgil, a bad-tempered shield maiden, follow the Bard Dragon Tongue on a quest to quell the draugr - the malevolent spirit Bag: The Secret Life of a drowned mermaid mistakenly summoned to Jack's village and who seeks revenge for her earlier ill treatment at human hands.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738630X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewVet|author=Sophie McKenzie|title=The Hostage (Medusa Project)Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Teenagers Nico, Kitty, Ed Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Dylan were implanted with the Medusa gene when they were babies. Now theyRowlands didn're adolescentst want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the intended psychic abilities are coming to the forestrain that being on-call put on his father's life. Nico has When he was seventeen he took the power opportunity of telekinesis 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 - he can move objects as with so many students - been his minddream since he was a child. Ed can read other people If anything, he's thoughts. Dylan has an invisible protective shield and no weapon can harm herd wanted to be a professional footballer. Kitty has visions that predict the future. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385265</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Garth Nix0861541774|title=Into Battle (The Seventh Tower)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=3.54|genre=TeensCrime|summary=We've made it to book five in Garth NixDCI Domenic Jejeune's Seventh Tower seriesclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, so has taken a quick recap: The Dark World is blocked from the Sun by short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an enchanted Veil created by Tal's forebears to protect it from the creatures who inhabit Aenir old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a spirit land full of magic knife - and magical beastshe killed a Ghurka.Aenir is lit and warmed by the Sun Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the Dark World uses sunstones - crystals grown and charged with light and heat in Aenirman. Some inhabitants of Now he could be facing the Dark World - the Chosen - also bind some of Aenir's creatures death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to themselves help as spiritshadows or spiritguardsany interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007261233</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Don FelderAlexander McCall Smith|title=Heaven And Hell: My Life in the Eagles, 1974 - 2001The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A Disobedient Girl'' follows two women struggling to retain control of their lives in the face of servitude. Latha The Perfect Passion Company is a servant girl dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the affluent Vithanage familyonline apps in providing a more personal, whose daughter, Tharatailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is Latha's ageplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. As children Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the girls are the best of friendschance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, but they are destined bringing us to be separated by classan Edinburgh we already love, which is made painfully obvious when boys come into thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the picture. MeanwhileIsabel Dalhousie novels, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband but with some new characters who beats her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another man's love childquickly begin to charm. Biso's husband murdered her lover Katie has no experience in running a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair and she realises that she must escape his house if she and her children are to live. Latha too seeks escapebusiness, or in match-making, but she finds it Ness has full confidence in the arms of Tharaher abilities, and there's boyfriend always her very helpful (and this sets off rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a chain of events that will echo far into her future.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Debby Holt0811771741|title=Recipe For ScandalInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrafts|summary=ThereMelissa Leapman's evidently a market ''InstaKnits for scandalous tales, or else many Baby'' gives us a womencollection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 's weekly would have gone out of business by nowlong, but this book, though full cosy afternoons in front of scandal, is slightly differentthe fire' variety. This isn The projects are divided by the time they't council estate scandal or even trashy celebrity scandalll take to complete - less than five hours, it's juicyfive to ten hours, firmly middle class scandal of ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the type [[:Category:Zoe Heller|Zoë Heller]] might write aboutprojects are attractive, modern and ituseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's wickedly captivatingme being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847396542</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourParanormal|summary=Throughout my life IBenny 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've lived with dogs s possible that whoever or deeply regretted whatever was inside is the fact thing that I lacked has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a canine companionnice person. A really nice person. Watching So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a dog – or better stillnew friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, the interaction between dogs – who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is infinitely better than anything on television going to take care of Benny, and itwill certainly take care of Benny's sheer joy to see how man and dog interacts and howenemies, if he, so oftenBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they hold a mirror up to each otherare.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1564785521</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jules StanbridgeAdam Stower|title=A Date in Your DiaryMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers |summary=Harry knows that Murray is supposed to be a woman needs 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 man like a fish needs a bicycle, but she also knows therebad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a difference between what we need hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and what we want – and she wants a bloke. More specificallythe catflap they both use can chuck them out, she wants a date for not into the latest in regular back garden, but into a string world of friend-frightening adventure and-family weddingswhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, a wedding where, thanks to a 'tricky' seating plantroll hunter is expected – well, she will be sitting on the same table as her most recent ex...and his new girlfriend. With no prospects in sightone much bigger than Murray was, Harry comes to the conclusion that internet dating might be the way to go. At besthonest, shebut he's turned up and he'll find a guy who ticks all her boxes and will joyfully accompany her have to the wedding before they live happily ever after, and at worst, well, she might get a story out of it, never a bad thing for a magazine journo.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755347137</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Black1529431735|title=DishonourThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Modern lives. Lily Valentine is heavily pregnant It's February 1991 and trying to get her own law firm up and running (having been sacked from her previous job for a tendency to be a trifle too ''independent'' – or maybe just disorganised). Ryan Essex is a boy from the sink estates. Thinbitingly cold, angry, rebellious, but with an ability to charm and a serious talent for art that gets lost in his gansta-speak and tendency to skive off school. Lailla and Aasha are good Muslim girls. Hard-working, sober, appropriately dressed, dutiful to their families. Theywhich made Bruce Hopkins're also English teenagers, with a fair dose of what that normally implies. Jack is a copper, overlooked for return all the interesting cases (like murder), good at child protection, in love with Lily, addicted to the job, always trying to do the right thing, and not always succeedingmore surprising. His current clean-living and caring attitude is driving Lily to distraction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847560725</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Panos Karnezis|title=The Convent|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Our Lady of Mercy is a small convent He'd been exiled on the Spanish sierra made up of Costa del Sol as a handful of devoted nuns who live their lives simply, carrying out their daily duties like clockwork. However things change when wanted drug smuggler for a suitcase containing a newborn baby is left mysteriously outside the convent doorsdecade. The Mother Superior, Sister Maria Ines, believes the baby to be a miracle and plans to keep him in the convent, but the other sisters do not agree. During the events that follow the true characters of the nuns inside the convent are revealed and the peace that the sisters enjoy is stripped away to show the tension that return has been bubbling away under the surface.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079344</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joe Meno|title=The Great Perhaps|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jonathan Casper faints when come about because he sees clouds. His 's had a letter from his ex-wife Madeline worries about everything, not least the way the pigeons saying that she is studying are murdering each other. Their seventeen year old daughter Amelia wants to overthrow the evil empire of capitalism 's ill and is making her own bomb, while fourteen year old Thisbe is looking for God and praying hasn't long to himlive. Jonathan It's fatherhard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, seventy six year old Henry, is planning stripped to his disappearance. Jonathan underwear and Madeline may be on the verge of splitting up, sent to a watery grave in the dismay boot of both daughtersa stolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512471</amazonuk>}} Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?