132,625
edits
Changes
no edit summary
<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, & self-published books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|plus author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marilyn ChinTom Percival|title=Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen: A Manifesto in 41 Tales The Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=Revenge 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 Mooncake Vixen (ohcollege, how I love was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that title!) will almost certainly not be to everyonemix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's tastelife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, but I confess that I loved its originalityhe still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, boldnessand clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, sassy style and that feel like a light at the humour end of ita long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144612</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurie GrahamSylvie Cathrall|title=Life According A Letter to Lubkathe Luminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=Buzz Wexler is at the top of her game, working in music PR with all the latest There are few greater joys than a book which lives up and coming Urban music bands like Grime Beat and Evil Marsupial. She's forty-two years old but is still out every night, drinking, eating very little and seemingly surviving on a diet of chemical mood enhancers. One day, however, she is called into her manager's office and assigned a tour with a 'World Music' group, the Gorni Grannies, a group of elderly women from Bulgaria who sing together. Buzz finds her life in the fast lane is brought to a sudden halt, as she tries to control a group of elderly ladies touring England who think that lifts are powered by black magic and that Poundland is the best shop ever inventedcompelling premise. Yet And this is just the beginning one of a whole new life for Buzzthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849161828</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Debbie Elliott0008517061|title=Tesla & TwainDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=34|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=History remembers nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla as a mad scientistFormer Metropolitan Police detective, and he did indulge in some very peculiar experimentsJake Johnson, most notably has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the directed-energy weaponfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, or death-rayLivia and her daughter Diana, as the press 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 time gleefully dubbed it. But future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the truth is that his work was of groundbreaking importance: he developed moment they’re enjoying life in the electrical alternating current present and putting the AC motor, and much more. The average person probably has a better awareness of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn under his pen name Mark Twain, and who was known as one of future on the foremost satirists of his day. But perhaps they don't know that Twain was fascinated by scientific inquiry, or that these two seemingly disparate men were great friendsback burner. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906146756</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Nickels1786482126|title=Long ShadowsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=We first met Minkie and Mike Builders were demolishing an old house in [[Another Kind Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of Loving by Sylvie Nickels|Another Kind of Loving]] when Mike, a reporter in war-torn Sarajevo rescued Jasminka from an orphanage and brought her back to leafy Oxfordshirechild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. He and his wifeWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, SaraDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, fostered the girlbut Nelson doesn't, who was known that she is pregnant with his child as Minkie because few people could pronounce her real namea result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. They gave her loveHer condition will be obvious before long, security and the opportunity not least because Ruth is prone to turn into a beautiful, confident young woman, but whose heart was torn between the family who had done so much for her and her native Sarajevosudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0951867024</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lawrence Osborne0008551324|title=Bangkok DaysThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TravelCrime|summary=Laurence Osborne It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has hit upon a bizarre way to save money on dentistry – pay any respect for a monththe other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's rent in Bangkok prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and get his fillings done therewho was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, which works out cheaper than dental insurance in Americais someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. During And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the course remainder of many visits his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to Thailandask, he meanders around Bangkok, along with various is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other motley foreigners, passing through hospitals, brothels thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and mobile restaurants selling waterbugsanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535971</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=E V Thompson0008405026|title=The Dream TradersA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=35|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=In It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the nineteenth centuryinvestigation ground to a halt. Now, when European nations her mother, Helena, and her father are scrabbling to colonise as many territories as possibledead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and fortuneher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Unlike the rest of his countrymen however, Luke Trewarne refuses What looked as though it was going to get rich selling opium to the Chinesebe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. All very noble but the fact Kerrigan is convinced that Luke is a passenger on board a ship laden with the stuff and there explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are Chinese gunships on the horizonless convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Kelly0571379877|title=Death WatchThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 1992Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, 15 year old Norma Jean Judd disappeared from her homeRobert and Stanza. Eighteen years later to the day, her twin brother Bryan Robert's body is found in the hospital incinerator where he worked. There is no evidence to suggest accident or suicide, and the police quickly treat it as a murdertheatre director. They not only need to find out who did it, but to work out the link between Bryan He's murder also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and the disappearance entitled and presumed death of his twin sister. The investigation takes them into the family and a nearby hostel uses Edward to run errands for homeless menhim.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141035986</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice Taylor|title=The Village|rating=3|genre=Autobiography|summary=Two other authors, [[:Category:Miss Read|Miss Read]] Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and [[:Category:Rebecca Shaw|Rebecca Shaw]], have already purloined the village for their ownhe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. I so wish Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that the publishers a relationship had chosen a more distinctive title for this reprint. Itbegun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the Irishness two of the memoir that will attract English readersthem kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224202</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet MullanyJo Callaghan|title=Improper RelationsLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=Unlucky When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in love Charlotte Hayden has just lost Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her best friend and confidante Ann in marriage to sidekick, the Earl of BeresfordAI detective Lock. At the wedding she encounters Lord Shadderly, BeresfordIt's best friendtheir first live case together, a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike tohaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. Before she knows it Charlotte But when there is caught in a compromising situation second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with Shadderly a potential serial killer and he is forced a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to propose their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to her solve the case in time, or risk both their reputations.will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Drabble1399613073|title=The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyThrillers|summary=Imagine Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the scene: 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 major publishing house receives the latest pitch for bonus when you aim to be a bookcardiothoracic surgeon. Its basis Laura is a history perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the jigsaw, interwoven with group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a highly personal memoir of an ever so slightly irascible maiden aunt with whom the author partook drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in the delights of puzzlingtragedy. Two words save this pitch from oblivion: Margaret Drabble. Faced with We don't know who suffered the same dilemma in a bookshop, tragedy or the reader would consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be wise to follow an eerily similar event that will impact the publisherthree friends. This time, it's hunch and buy this book - it is a gentle delight from start to finishtheir teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546205</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elise Broach0241636604|title=Masterpiece|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Marvin and his family are a kindly bunch. They even get him to go down inside the bathroom sink drainpipe to retrieve a missing contact lens. This is not so difficult when you're a small kind of beetle like Marvin. But when they worry about the standard of birthday presents given to James, the boy of the human family that have unwittingly fostered them, things get very unpredictable. Marvin sees James being given a pen and ink sketching set, and when trying to deliver a special coin to James, falls into making a sketch himself of the view outside the window. The Trading Game: A sketch James could never have created - an ink masterwork that makes far too many adult human eyes bulge with surprise, delight - and possibly greed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321834</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewConfession|author=Chris Higgins|title=Tapas and TearsGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=It's tough being fourteen. YouIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're old enough unlikely to be getting to grips with who you are think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and what you likehis background is the East End, but other people – parentswhere he was familiar with violence, friends, teachers – often seem to think they know better than you do about what's bestpoverty and injustice. Jaime is There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the shy sideLondon School of Economics. She's not Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a huge fan facility with numbers which most of meeting new us can only envy. He also realised that most rich peopleexpect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, and she's never strayed far from her mum's side beforeessentially, so a fortnight alone in Spain is the last thing she wantscard game which got him an internship with Citibank. But Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a school exchange is exactly what she finds herself signing up for and before she knows it, she's bundled off for two long weeks – but will it all be fun in the sun, or, as the book's title seems to hint at, are ''Tapas and Tears'' on the horizon?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970774</amazonuk>trader.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas Jubber1035021803|title=Drinking Arak off an AyatollahThe Antique Hunter's Beard Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=TravelCrime|summary=closed doors and how people really think, challenging It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the idea that both countries are defined only by English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a religious fervour request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and fundamentalism that Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the accepted way of lifecircumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. At Arthur was the heart of Jubber's quest is reason why Freya had not been back to the epic poem of Persian culturevillage: 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 ''Shahnameh'' which he soon learns all Iranians know and love and split, she worked in doing so he unearths a vibrant culture that preceded cafe, met and married James (on the conversion rebound from the love of Persia to Islam her life, who was murdered) and Freya and with it the transformation of Persia into IranJames have now divorced. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818841</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gillian CrossAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Where I BelongAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Khadija - although this is not her real name - is a young Somali girl, sent to Britain by her father. She's supposed to get an education and earn some money and then return, equipped to help bring prosperity to both her family and her impoverished country. She's an illegal immigrant, posing as a sister to Abdi. Abdi is a second generation Somali immigrant. He was born in Opening up new ways of thinking about the Netherlands and came to Britain when he was very young. He feels a connection to the land of his parents, but struggles to make sense shape of it as he has never been things to Somalia. Freya is the daughter of a world-famous fashion designer, Sandy Dexter. She's aware of her privileged status, but she feels lonely and unlovedcome. Her mother's passion for design doesn't leave much room for a daughter, and her father's abiding love for the woman he married makes Freya feel like everyone's second choice. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192755544</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda NewberySunny Singh|title=LobHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=Lob The Hotel Arcadia is a Green Man – luxury hotel in an ancient nature spirit and garden helperunnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Can you spot him hiding Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on the front cover of the book? Lucy believes in Lobsite, there is Sam, though her Mum a wartime photographer and Dad tell her 'it's just Grandpa's story'Abhi, the hotel manager. When Lucy finally manages As Abhi continues to catch try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a fleeting glimpse of Lobbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, she is entranced and delighted keeps on venturing out of her room to share Grandpatry to capture what's secrethappened through her photography. But when Grandpa dies Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and his home is sold Lucy is heartbroken. She wonders they both wait to see if she they will ever see Lob again. What follows is a journey through be rescued before they are discovered by the seasons tracing Lucy's life after Grandpa's death and Lob's search to find a new garden hometerrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385610815</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jaclyn Moriarty1529153298|title=Dreaming The List of AmeliaSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=New scholarship students Riley It's 1979 and Amelia are so mysterious that everyone at Ashbury High School Margaret Thatcher is talking about themPrime Minister. Add to that the creepy happenings around school (A woman? I mean, and Lydia Jaackson-Obermanhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's PC actually typing its own messages to herfamily, and it seems pretty appropriate that the Higher School Certificate question these teens are answering for much of the book is on Gothic Fictionthough. Women have been disappearing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512889</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paolo Giordano|title=The Solitude of Prime Numbers|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared'doesn'The Solitude of Prime Numberst sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' follows s overheard that her father wants to move the lives of Alice and Mattia family 'Down South'. When you're from childhood to middle age. Alice Yorkshire, Down South is a wilful anorexicfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, scarred by a childhood skiing accident and an overbearing fathershe'll do anything to prevent that. Mattia is an reclusive self-harmer trying to live with the guilt of having been responsible for his disabled twin sister She's death. Their paths cross at a school friendnot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's party during a painful adolescence and their lives are destined stopped talking - to intertwine throughout the coming years, despite the chronic awkwardness of their courtshipanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775983</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy Koomson1398524085|title=The Ice Cream GirlsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Poppy Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and SerenaOllie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, labelled 'The Ice Cream Girls' by a rapacious pressEtty and Greg, have their young lives shattered by find the man they sharedbody of Greg's father, a teacher in a position of trustDuncan Ackerley, who controlled them in the worst possible waysriver. The girls are trapped as victims because neither has It was an easy assumption for the assertiveness or maturity police to handle make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the situationguilt. Chance intervenes to escalate an inevitable situation. Now twenty years The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on, the traumatic events have profoundly affected the emotional stability of each girl, though with their lives have taken almost diametrically opposed coursesand wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443648</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Juli Zeh1035906708|title=Dark MatterDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=''Dark Matter'' is translated from German We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and nothing has been 'lost in translation' hereonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. The lives of two very bright academics are interwoven throughout. Students Sebastian and Oskar are the very best of friends; Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed itto 'Callas's almost as if they share the same heartbeat. However, as they grow into adulthood real life comes along and tends to get make it more manageable in the wayStates. Sebastian settles When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for domestic bliss. Their friendship cools off, becomes her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a little tense mother who mercilessly exploited her and strainedmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552087</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren GrodsteinChristopher Edge|title=A Friend of the FamilyBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary='A Friend of the Family' is an intriguing Lucas and enjoyable read. Set his friends are all booked in for a wealthy New Jersey neighbourhoodmovie marathon at their local cinema, it tells a place that has the story nickname of two couples who have been friends for many years'The Black Hole'. Peter Dizinoff All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and Joe Stern graduated from medical school together and their wivesmany, many snacks! However, Elaine and Iris have known each other for just as long. In many ways their privileged lives have been almost perfect – the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is until a shocking event occurs 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 two couples react in such different ways that it shatters their friendship next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and threatens to their comfortable existence.real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099533359</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
Rosevear, a 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.|isbn=0008664730}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma ThompsonJames Sherwood Metts|title=Nanny McPhee and the Big BangPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mr and Mrs Green are Things have been a happily married couple, living on a farm with their three children, but with bit sticky for the start of the warEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, Mr Green goes off often replacing jobs they're paid to fight leaving his wife, Isabel, do and the children other tasks that took time to fend for themselvesaccomplish. They are struggling Just as they were beginning to get used to manage the upkeep of the farm all this technological change and it looks as if Isabel may have starting to sell. To make matters worsethink of other, her estranged sister sends her two very rich, very spoilt children new ways to live on the farm to escape the bombs in Londonspend time, but they are immediately at loggerheads with their rather wild country cousinsalong came an awful pandemic. They are fighting wildly, wreaking havoc Life was pretty much shut down and destruction and ignoring Isabel's pleas to stop when there is a sudden knock at the door from, of coursealong with it, all the terrifyingly ugly, magical Nanny McPheemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408805014</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rob ChapmanMatthew Tree|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head |rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker We'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) was born in Cambridge in 1946. The fourth of five children, he was the only one to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist and watercolour painter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall|title=Hold On Tight, Stripy Horse!ll Never Know|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Stripy Horse and his friends live in a bric-a-brac shop. One day, they discover that it's raining ''inside''. Ella, the pink flamingo umbrella, keeps them dry for a bit, but then she's caught by a gust of wind and Stripy Horse is pulled up into the air. Will they discover the source of the rain? Will the shop ever get dry again? And what's the deal with that weathervane parrot that keeps spouting proverbs?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248262</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Forster|title=Isa and May|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Isamay is a would-Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be academic and she's writing different from his father, a thesis about grandmothers in history, inspired, one suspects, by her own grandmothers, Isa drunk and May. Her efforts are constantly diverted by the present needs chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of her grandmothers his artistic passions all failed miserably and the secrets about their pasts which rise who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to the surface when she least expects them. There's another complication too. Isamay is in her thirties his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and has never wanted a child, set himself high but reconsiders, despite the fact that her partner, Ian, is adamant that he doesn't want children. The more Isamay delves, the more she realises that there are secrets in Ian's past tooachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701184663</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clare Clark1529900360|title=Savage LandsThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=The novel begins with one of the central characters - Elisabeth - preparing to leave her home in FranceIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, and embark upon a ship Sturgis was reluctant to take her to America ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open- to meet and marry -shut cases which didn't need the help of a complete stranger. At this time there were literally psychologist only worked for a few hundred settlerswhile. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, so potential wives were shipped in along with other necessities! who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She is very much in two minds about knew that the entire venture - apprehensive, yet more than a little excited at involvement was something that the prospect of her new lifeman she loved needed. The voyage doesn't begin particularly well for hernext case did look simple, as she feels isolated from though. Two lovers were murdered in the other girlsswimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. A voracious reader, He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she has packed her trunk with books as opposed is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the more conventional linens and this immediately sets her apartItalian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553512</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gillian Shields and Liz Pichon1529395224|title=Don't Let Aliens Get My Marvellous Mum!|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=A young girl imagines how awful life would be if aliens got her marvellous mum. She pictures all manner Letting the Cat Out of ooky space monsters tucking her up in bed, giving her green eggs for breakfast, and scaring all the other parents at school. She (and the readers too) realise just how lucky she is to have such Bag: The Secret Life of a lovely mum. Aww, bless!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862337780</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewVet|author=Kate Long|title=A Mother's Guide to CheatingSion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=When Jaz discovers Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a random text message on her husband IanGP and Rowlands didn's phonet want to follow in his footsteps, it does not take a genius to work out particularly when he considered the meaning of a message as personal as 'what did you dream last night?', followed by kisses and a strange womanstrain that being on-call put on his father's namelife. Nor does it take a genius to figure out When he was seventeen he took the precise nature opportunity of what Ian has been up to doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the senderjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. A subsequent confession and proclamation from Ian that It hadn'it meant nothing; she is nothing' does not diminish Jaz's rage and t - as with so many students - been his dream since he is dispatched, forthwith, from the family homewas a child. As is the norm in these kind of situationsIf anything, you turn he'd wanted to the people you most trust to help you through and reinforcements in the shape of Jaz's mother, Carol, swiftly arrivebe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377505</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Nesbo and Don Bartlett (translator)0861541774|title=The SnowmanA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItDCI Domenic Jejeune's Norwayclose friend and former colleague, and it's Danny Maik, has taken a snowy and dark Novembershort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Women are disappearing, Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and/or being found horrifically he killeda Ghurka. The police have little to go onInitially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but with the help of flashbacks across cases the police could never hope evidence came to connect, we can see hints of a clever, but misogynistic man who seems light that suggested that he might have planned to be murder the culprit, and on a mission against marital infidelityman. But what Now he could be facing the connection with all those crimes and the American presidential elections? death penalty. And why - and how - might the Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police, the victims, force could provoke a diplomatic incident and the reader, wouldn't help Danny at all come to be so terrified of a good old Scandinavian snowman?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553482</amazonuk>.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fridrik ErlingsAlexander McCall Smith|title=Fish in the SkyThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary='I've got The Perfect Passion Company is a dad dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a shoe box 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 mum who's struggling trip to Canada to get away for her life against a famished cannibalistic sewing machinewhile.' Oh dear! Josh Stephenson Katie is just thirteencoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. His father is separated And so begins this new story from his mother Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and works away on the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a ship and so he's a muchbusiness, or in match-missed presence making, but Ness has full confidence in Joshher abilities, and there's life always her very helpful (the shoe boxand rather handsome). Money is tight with only one parent at homeneighbour, so his mother works multiple jobsWilliam, some of them at home (the sewing machine). Josh occupies a middle position at school: neither clever nor stupid; neither jock nor geek. He and his best friend Peter are natural history fanatics and they spend to lend a great deal of time watching documentaries on television, or planning their own. hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845393422</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melissa de la Cruz0811771741|title=Blue BloodsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's 'Blue Bloods'InstaKnits for Baby' is the first book in a series aimed at teenagers and it's about vampires, currently gives us a popular theme in young adult novelscollection of knits from toys to blankets. However Melissa De La Cruz offers an original twist on this topic: Some will be quick knits - others are of the Vampires are known as 'Blue Bloods' and they're part long, cosy afternoons in front of the New York elitefire' variety. TheyThe projects are divided by the time they're richll take to complete - less than five hours, youngfive to ten hours, beautiful and popular. Thought ten to be immortal, their world is shattered as one of them is found murdered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190565474X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alexandra Horowitz|title=Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell twenty hours and Know|rating=5|genre=Pets|summary=I've long been aware that our two dogs have methods of communication which are far more subtle than anything a mere human can mustertwenty hours. They sense exactly how we All the projects are feeling – a slight change in the atmosphere and they will be alert. The reactions to a frown or a smileattractive, laughter or tears are all different modern and they're capable of communicating with us in ways which have no need of wordsuseable. For a while I thought it was our dogs who were special (well, perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'obviously'' they are…) but I've noticed other dogs communicating with each other and with humans and the more that I see the more that I wonder why they are referred to as 'dumb animals's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737347X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eva MontanariDean Koontz|title=The Alphabet Family|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Mummy A wants to write a story, but she can't think what to write. She sees what her children (b, c, d and so on) are up to. Some are playing musical instruments, some are running races, and some are playing in the garden. With plenty of ideas to hand, Mummy A writes her story, and then tells it to all her children and Daddy Z.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845394054</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Louise Douglas|title=Missing YouBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=Sean seemed to have the perfect lifeBenny 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 successful careerreally weird, a beautiful wife disturbing coffin-sized object to whom he is devotedhis home, a daughter whom he adores and he lives in a dream home. But then one day it all falls apart when Belle announces 's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that she has met someone else and wants Sean trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to move outdeserve all this bad luck. Fen, on the other hand, doesn't have He is a perfect lifenice person. A really nice person. She works in So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bookshop and is devoted to her young sonbad weather friend called Spike, Connor who has cerebral palsybeen sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. That's not the least Spike is going to take care of her problems though as she hides a dreadful secret Benny, and fearful that it will be brought out into the open she lives a life drawn in on itselfcertainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, far from her home and family and reluctant to become close to anyoneHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330454412</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances Stonor SaundersAdam Stower|title=The Woman Who Shot MussoliniMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers |summary=Most British titled families 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 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebelstwo. Yet few came as close to changing But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the course of European history as catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Honourable Violet Gibsonregular back garden, one but into a world of eight children of Baron Ashbournefrightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and MP in Disraelihe's government during the 1870s.ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott WesterfeldB0C47LV1PC|title=SpecialsFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=In the un-named city of the futureCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, all is the adults are living in the delusion that their city question should you make it? Or is right. After a teenage life as an ugly, they all undergo a welter of medical procedures, to make their minds and bodies conform to the blandquestion if you did, but gorgeous, society norm. But one young woman would it land? The catch is not like thatthe answer for both could well be.. She is going to a party, looking ugly, and she knows it is not what we look like, but how special we feel inside, that is of most importance. The good news is that this woman is our returning heroine, Tally. The bad news is that her ugliness is a temporary disguise, and worse than that - she knows how to feel special inside, because she IS A Specialno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389082</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{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?