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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>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony McGowanTom Percival|title=Einstein's Underpants - And How They Saved The WorldWrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A delightfully silly school cum sciWill'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-fi romp for confident readershand 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, with plenty and clings to the moments of pants-based humourjoy when he is drawing, but never that feel like a light at the expense end of a rollicking good readlong, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0440869242</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Xavier DeneuxSylvie Cathrall|title=My CircusA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=An utterly gorgeous board There are few greater joys than a book that everyone will love which lives up to pore over, from the very youngest right on upa compelling premise. And this is one of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408807009</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maureen Roffey0008517061|title=Bedtime (Slip-and-Slide Books)Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=''Bedtime'' is Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a pull-little uncertainty about the-tabs book about - unsurprisingly - bedtime. Page by page reveals child after child rubbing their eyesfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, changing into their pyjamas, kissing mummy goodnightLivia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and cuddling up relaxing life to move in with teddy. Each pulled tab changes that picture, much like a before 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 after shotputting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747599386</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Green1786482126|title=Paper TownsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=17Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich -yearthe site was going to hold seventy-old Quentin Jacobsen has been in love with Margo Roth Spiegelmen ever since he can remember. Itfive 'luxury's an unrequited love though apartments - neighbours and childhood friends when they may be, but their respective places in discovered the High School pecking order are miles apartbones of a child beneath a doorway. Margo is one of the beautiful ones There was no skull. She's cool Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, clever and a trendsetterDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Q languishes in the middle ranks with his band member mates, Radar, who It's an obsessive editor of Omnictionary (read Wikipedia)difficult as Ruth knows, and Benbut Nelson doesn't, who wants that she is pregnant with his child as a girlfriend more than anythingresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, but lacks the status not least because Ruth is prone to get onesudden bouts of sickness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408806592</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susannah Bates 0008551324|title=Under a Sapphire SkyThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Marianne Cooper is happyIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. She Neither side likes or has a thriving jewellery business with her best friend Gabby any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and is six months pregnant with Gabby's brother Jayhe's baby. Marianne enjoys her passion for stones, her unconventional attitude prepared to life tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her pregnancydeath. This person, and her unique relationship with Jay, but when her ex boyfriendhe promises, is someone big and reformed man, Paul comes back into her life with 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 fiancée Sophie sentence and a rare padparascha stone he wants Marianne to turn into get an engagement ringearly parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she soon finds herself questioning her decision 's even prepared to reject Paul do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and indeed her way of lifeanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099445441</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Holt0008405026|title=Blonde BombshellA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=The blonde bombshell in question in Tom HoltIt's latest book of that name is Lucy Pavlovsixteen 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. If you Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are reading this review dead in 2017 of course you will know who Lucy Pavlov istheir bed. She Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the beautiful, talented, wealthy, CEO positioning of PaySoft Industries - the revolutionary operating system bodies that is running on every computer in the worldmakes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Of course, if that What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is indeed the case, then we've got now a problem. A very big problemcomplex double murder. Because what Lucy doesn't know Kerrigan is convinced that she is literally a blonde bombshell - well she knows shethe explanation lies in Rosalie's blonde, just not that her body is a shell for a bomb. A very big and a very smart bomb, but nevertheless a bomb. And shedisappearance: others (such as Derwent's been sent to destroy the planetboss, Una Burt) are less convinced. It kind of makes Bill Gates seem OK for the time being.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497789</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The main storyEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, the events in Kateobsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's memory, is set in summer 1972a theatre director. Simon He's uncle has gone away for a few months also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and Simon entitled and his friend Danny are meant uses Edward to be doing some work on the garden over the holidayrun errands for him. Danny brings his girlfriend Kate along, Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and Trudie invites herself he's drunkenly confided how he feels to join them a couple of weeks laterRobert. How did a summer of lounging around and drinking with a little work on the garden end Most men in murder? And what can Kate Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell DannyEdward that a relationship had begun between them but he's mother Mrs Ivanisovic?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010463</amazonuk>not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard ForteyJo Callaghan|title=The Hidden LandscapeLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceCrime|summary=The purpose When a man is found crucified on the top of this book is a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to explore the connection between case alongside her sidekick, the landscape and the geology underlying itAI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, which in one of his many vivid similes Fortey compares the surface personality having previously been very successful with the workings of the unconscious mind beneathseveral cold cases. He starts by describing But when there is a second body found crucified a journey he once made from Paddington Station to Haverford Westfew days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a market town in Pembrokeshire potential serial killer and with it a passage back into the plutonic depths very high profile case that draws a lot of geological aeons, indicated by unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the large 60cm monster trilobites that have been found case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the Cambrian rocks near St David's. Fortey describes the magnificence of the Cathedral constructed from the local purple sandstone case and mottled with moisture-loving lichens. He contrasts this with the anonymous character of a nearby brightly-coloured service station, anonymous and syntheticpotentially, an invader cheaply built and out of context.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847920713</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Glen Duncan1399613073|title=A Day and a Night and a DayMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionThrillers|summary=Augustus Rose was brought up in New YorkOlivia, but not in Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a des res, in an altogether grittier part quarter of the citya 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.. his childhood in East Harlem, darkness framing Anjali is the blistered stoop, free spirit of the blinding asphalt, the smell of garbage cans group and urineshe becomes a GP. When we first meet them they' Here at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's had an unfortunate start going to end in lifetragedy. Mother, white, father (unknown) black so that makes We don't know who suffered the young Augustus an in-between, a not-sure, a neither-one-colour-nor-tragedy or the-otherconsequences. Today, in the 21st century, no one would raise Twenty-five years later there will be an eyebrow, bat an eyelid. But this novel is set in eerily similar event that will impact the 1960s where racial tensions aboundthree friends. YesThis time, even in cosmopolitan cities such as New Yorkit's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847394175</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Garth Edwards0241636604|title=Shipwrecked (The Adventures of Titch and Mitch)Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Titch and Mitch are two little pixies who have run away from homeIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Through a series of misadventures they find themselves shipwrecked on an islandA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and the story revolves around them making new friends thereinjustice. They come There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the rescue London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a strange coloured seagullfacility 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, they save a trapped fairycard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, they play dentist for this turned into permanent employment as a little dragon mouse and they aid and abet an intelligent turkey who is trying to escape from the turkey farmtrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956231500</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Voake1035021803|title=FightbackThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet KierIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. A smartShe's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, yet lonelyCarole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, young teenArthur Crockleford, he's is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been farmed off back to a private school by his dad since mother diedthe village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Among his achievements are several successes on the karate matEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, but all this is about she has not felt able to changebe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. When his father is rammed off After the split, she worked in a motorway and murdered, Kier finds he's even more alonecafe, met and duty-bound to fight even moremarried James (on the rebound from the love of her life, when he gets clues to just who his father might was murdered) and Freya and James have been, and how to go about responding to his deathnow divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571230032</amazonuk>
}}
{{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=Louise HarwoodSunny Singh|title=Kiss Like You Mean ItHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionThrillers |summary=This book The Hotel Arcadia is a modern-day love story. It's all about trendy characters with trendy names living rather trendy lives luxury hotel in glossy location setsan unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. The title gives Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a very clear message as to its contentswartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. Romantic fiction which will appeal generally As Abhi continues to try to women. But there's also a story within a story (and care remotely for me the more interesting one) which is residents who are still alive in the Hollywood movie being filmed in Europehotel, 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. It takes us back Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to the first World War help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the heroic actions of one young man, in particularterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330442090</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Gordon1529153298|title=Fen RunnersThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Years agoIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, a boy fell through the ice under Cottlehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's Bridgefamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. He said afterwards Miv's upset because she's overheard that something pulled him, a sleek silvery creature dragging him down into her father wants to move the blacknessfamily 'Down South'. Now When you're from Yorkshire, decades laterDown South is a frightening, two boys go swimming in the very same spot and find one of his ice skatesforeign place, a so-called fen runnerbest avoided. For Miv, buried in the mud at the bottom of the channel. But when they take it homemove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, dark secrets begin and she'll do anything to resurface around them and they become aware prevent that an ancient evil is stirring out in . She's not worried about the fensdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556843</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eleanor Thom1398524085|title=The Tin-KinHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Dawn 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 a single mother who has been avoiding a lot of things for a long timenot. When her aunt Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, who raised Dawn as a daughterfind the body of Greg's father, diesDuncan Ackerley, Dawn finds in the key to a cupboard which she river. It was forbidden to look into as a child. Inside she finds clues to her family history, links an easy assumption for the police to a Traveller Community, unearthing a journey make that sees her finding her rootsDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. We also witness her struggle to renew her complicated relationship The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with her family their lives and her efforts to escape the ever-present memory of her abusive husbandwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715639013</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leslie Kenton1035906708|title=Love Affair: The Memoir of a Forbidden Father-daughter RelationshipDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=For some yearsWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, I had been aware of Leslie Kenton's books on healthy livingNew York, in December 1923 and also of Stan Kentononly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's work as a jazz bandleader, though I had never made to make it more manageable in the connection until nowStates. This family memoir reveals all about When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the famous father Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and later-to-be-famous daughtermade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, and it is a disturbing taleJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091910536</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah McConnell and Lucy Courtenay Christopher Edge|title=Swashbuckle School (Scarlet Silver)Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young Scarlet Silver had always wanted to be a pirate Lucas and eventually her wish came true when she and her family took to the high seas his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their pirate shiplocal cinema, 55 Ocean Drive. The problem was though a place that neither Scarlet nor anyone else in has the family knew how nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to be a pirate lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they soon discovered very quickly realise that it was quite a tricky businesssomething about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Scarlet became But as they lurch from one film genre to the self appointed captain and did her best but her parentsnext, brother Cedriccan they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, grandfather and his mate One Eyed Jake formed a pretty inept crew. This resulted in them all soon falling foul to hostile pirate ships and narrowly escaping death and disaster!their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340959673</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard FlanaganRachel Greenlaw|title=WantingCompass and Blade|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Read the blurb on the back of Flanagan's ''Wanting,'' and you'll think it's the usual post colonial tale of Britain as enemy number one, ''wanting'' to impose its rule on everyone else. In a way it is such a tale, but what makes it more interesting is the story of a little girl caught up in the wider historical events3.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870779</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simone Elkeles|title=Perfect Chemistry|rating=45
|genre=Teens
|summary=On ''I can hear the outside, Brittany is the flawless high-school girl. She has the perfect hair, the perfect outfit, and song of the perfect boyfriend. Any girl should be jealous of her, right? Wrongsea. Underneath the immaculately applied mascara lies a multitude The call of family problems, her despair at the thought of her severely disabled sister being bundled off to a nursing home never leaving her mind. She has to keep her hurt hidden to save her imagedeep, but surely enough this mask starts to crack as more and more of her life refuses to live up to the expectations she has forced upon herselfanswering beat in my heart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847388051</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Liz KesslerJames Sherwood Metts|title=Philippa Fisher and the Dream Maker's Daughter Planet Storyland|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Since her fairy godsister Daisy went back Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to ATC - fairy high command - do and moved on 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 missions, Philippa Fisher has felt rather lonelynew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Her parents are as oddball as everLife was pretty much shut down and, wandering through life along with it, all the kind of benign muddleheadedness that makes them loveable, but more than a tad inattentive. They haven't really picked up many daily social interactions on the fact that Philippa's human best friend has moved away and lost touch, or that she hasn't yet found a group of friends at secondary school. She misses Daisy like madwhich they depend so heavily. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842557831</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marina HydeMatthew Tree|title=Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy'll Never Know|rating=34.5|genre=EntertainmentLiterary Fiction|summary=I have what is perhaps Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a regular-sized interest in A drunk and B-list celebrities. I can name the off-spring chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of many an actress, tell you his artistic passions all failed miserably and who the spokespeople for certain brands are, write a list had endless crises of celebs with publicly declared devotions self confidence. So Tim applied himself to certain religionshis studies, even win the odd pub quiz thanks to knowing the birth names of various performers. I know all sorts of things about this cultivated his abilities rather small subset of society, but I know the ''what'' more than the ''why'', his daydreams and that's exactly the problem, according to this book. After all, if more of us sat down to wonder about what it actually ''is'' that the likes of Geri Halliwell and Nicole Kidman bring to the UN, we might seriously question how and why they ever got involved in the first placeset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532050</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marilyn ChinA G Slatter|title=Revenge The Briar Book of the Mooncake Vixen: A Manifesto in 41 Tales Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionFantasy|summary=Revenge '' There's a part of the Mooncake Vixen (oh, how I love me that title!) will almost certainly not be wants to keep this just to everyone's taste, but myself for however long I confess that I loved its originalitycan. This secret magic of my own, boldnessall mine, sassy style and the humour of at last. I just want to enjoy itfor a while.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144612</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Debbie Elliott1529900360|title=Tesla & TwainThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=34|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=History remembers nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla as a mad scientist, It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and he did indulge in some very peculiar experimentseven after Alex recovered, most notably the directedSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-energy weapon, or deathand-ray, as shut cases which didn't need the press help of the time gleefully dubbed a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, itwas Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. But She knew that the truth is involvement was something that his work was of groundbreaking importance: he developed the electrical alternating current and the AC motorman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, and much morethough. The average person probably has Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a better awareness of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and Huckleberry Finn under his pen name Mark Twain, she is married to an extremely rich man and who was known as one of it's not the foremost satirists of his dayItalian. But perhaps they don't know that Twain which of them was fascinated by scientific inquiry, or that these two seemingly disparate men were great friends. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906146756</amazonuk>the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Nickels1529395224|title=Long ShadowsLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=We first met Minkie Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Mike Rowlands didn't want to follow in [[Another Kind 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 Loving by Sylvie Nickels|Another Kind of Loving]] when Mike, doing work experience with a family friend who was a reporter in war-torn Sarajevo rescued Jasminka from an orphanage vet and brought her back to leafy Oxfordshirewas convinced this was the job for him. He and his wife, Sara, fostered the girlBefore long, who he was known at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as Minkie because few people could pronounce her real namewith so many students - been his dream since he was a child. They gave her loveIf anything, security and the opportunity he'd wanted to turn into be a beautiful, confident young woman, but whose heart was torn between the family who had done so much for her and her native Sarajevoprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0951867024</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lawrence Osborne0861541774|title=Bangkok Days|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Laurence Osborne has hit upon a bizarre way to save money on dentistry – pay for a month's rent in Bangkok and get his fillings done there, which works out cheaper than dental insurance in America. During the course A Nye of many visits to Thailand, he meanders around Bangkok, along with various other motley foreigners, passing through hospitals, brothels and mobile restaurants selling waterbugs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535971</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPheasants|author=E V Thompson|title=The Dream Traders|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=In the nineteenth century, when European nations are scrabbling to colonise as many territories as possible, a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortune. Unlike the rest of his countrymen however, Luke Trewarne refuses to get rich selling opium to the Chinese. All very noble but the fact is that Luke is a passenger on board a ship laden with the stuff and there are Chinese gunships on the horizon.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Kelly|title=Death WatchSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 1992, 15 year old Norma Jean Judd disappeared from her home. Eighteen years later to the day, her twin brother BryanDCI Domenic Jejeune's body is found in the hospital incinerator where he worked. There is no evidence to suggest accident or suicideclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, and the police quickly treat it as has taken a murder. They not only need short holiday in Singapore to find out who did itmeet up with an old ally, but to work out the link between Bryan's murder and the disappearance and presumed death of his twin sisterGuy Trueman. The investigation takes them into the family 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 nearby hostel for homeless menGhurka.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141035986</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice Taylor|title=The Village|rating=3|genre=Autobiography|summary=Two other authors Initially, [[:Category:Miss Read|Miss Read]] and [[:Category:Rebecca Shaw|Rebecca Shaw]], have already purloined the village for their own. I so wish that the publishers had chosen he faced a more distinctive title for this reprint. It's the Irishness charge of the memoir manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that will attract English readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224202</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Janet Mullany|title=Improper Relations|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Unlucky in love Charlotte Hayden has just lost her best friend and confidante Ann in marriage he might have planned to murder the Earl of Beresfordman. At Now he could be facing the wedding she encounters Lord Shadderly, Beresford's best friend, a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike todeath penalty. Before she knows it Charlotte is caught in Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a compromising situation with Shadderly diplomatic incident and he is forced to propose to her or risk both their reputationswouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret DrabbleAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Imagine The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the scene: online apps in providing a major publishing house receives more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the latest pitch business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a bookwhile. Its basis Katie is coming out of a history of the jigsaw, interwoven break up with a highly personal memoir of an ever bad boyfriend, and so slightly irascible maiden aunt with whom jumps at the author partook in the delights of puzzlingchance to come home to Edinburgh. Two words save And so begins this pitch new story from oblivion: Margaret DrabbleAlexander 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. Faced with the same dilemma Katie has no experience in running a bookshopbusiness, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, the reader would be wise to follow the publisherand there's hunch always her very helpful (and buy this book - it is rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a gentle delight from start to finish.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843546205</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elise Broach0811771741|title=MasterpieceInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Marvin and his family are Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a kindly bunchcollection of knits from toys to blankets. They even get him to go down inside Some will be quick knits - others are of the bathroom sink drainpipe to retrieve a missing contact lens. This is not so difficult when you're a small kind long, cosy afternoons in front of beetle like Marvinthe fire' variety. But when The projects are divided by the time they worry about the standard of birthday presents given 'll take to Jamescomplete - less than five hours, the boy of the human family that have unwittingly fostered themfive to ten hours, things get very unpredictableten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. Marvin sees James being given a pen and ink sketching setAll the projects are attractive, modern and when trying to deliver a special coin to James, falls into making a sketch himself of the view outside the windowuseable. A sketch James could never have created I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media- an ink masterwork worthy projects' but that makes far too many adult human eyes bulge with surprise, delight - and possibly greed's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321834</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris HigginsDean Koontz|title=Tapas and TearsThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensParanormal|summary=It's tough being fourteenBenny is having a terrifically bad day. You're old enough to be getting to grips with who you are He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and what you likehis house gets trashed. Oh, but other people – parentsand someone has delivered a really weird, friendsdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, teachers – often seem to think they know better than you do about whatand it's best. Jaime possible that whoever or whatever was inside is on the shy side. She's not a huge fan of meeting new peoplething that has trashed his house! The thing is, and she's never strayed far from her mum's side before, so a fortnight alone in Spain Benny is the very last thing she wantsperson to deserve all this bad luck. But, He is a school exchange is exactly what she finds herself signing up nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for and before she knows Benny it, she's bundled off for two long weeks – but will it all be fun in turns out that the sundelivery to his house is a new friend, ora bad weather friend called Spike, as the book's title seems who has been sent to hint at, are ''Tapas and Tears'' on the horizon?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970774</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicholas Jubber|title=Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah's Beard |rating=3help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person.5|genre=Travel|summary=closed doors and how people really think Spike is going to take care of Benny, challenging the idea that both countries are defined only by a religious fervour and fundamentalism that is the accepted way will certainly take care of life. At the heart of JubberBenny's quest is the epic poem of Persian cultureenemies, the ''Shahnameh'' which if he soon learns all Iranians know , Benny, and love and in doing so he unearths Harper (a vibrant culture that preceded the conversion of Persia to Islam and with it the transformation of Persia waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into IranBenny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0306818841</amazonuk>1662500491
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Lob Murray is supposed to be a Green Man – an ancient nature spirit humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and garden helper. Can you spot him hiding on the front cover , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the book? two. Lucy believes in Lob, though her Mum and Dad tell her 'itBut he's just Grandpaa bad magician's story'. When Lucy finally manages to catch cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a fleeting glimpse of Lobhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, she is entranced and delighted to share Grandpa's secret. But when Grandpa dies the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and his home is sold Lucy is heartbrokenwhiffs. She wonders if she will ever see Lob again. What follows This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is a journey through the seasons tracing Lucy's life after Grandpaexpected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's death turned up and Lobhe's search ll have to find a new garden home.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385610815</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jaclyn MoriartyB0C47LV1PC|title=Dreaming of Amelia|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=New scholarship students Riley and Amelia are so mysterious that everyone at Ashbury High School is talking about them. Add to that the creepy happenings around school, and Lydia Jaackson-Oberman's PC actually typing its own messages to her, and it seems pretty appropriate that the Higher School Certificate question these teens are answering for much of the book is on Gothic Fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512889</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFragility|author=Paolo Giordano|title=The Solitude of Prime NumbersMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Can you make a ''The Solitude of Prime NumbersYo birthing person'' follows joke? And if you could, is the lives of Alice and Mattia from childhood to middle age. Alice question should you make it? Or is a wilful anorexicthe question if you did, scarred by a childhood skiing accident and an overbearing father. Mattia would it land? The catch is an reclusive self-harmer trying to live with that the guilt of having been responsible answer for his disabled twin sister's deathboth could well be.... Their paths cross at a school friend's party during a painful adolescence and their lives are destined to intertwine throughout the coming years, despite the chronic awkwardness of their courtshipno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775983</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Grodstein1529431735|title=A Friend of the FamilyThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=It'A Friend of the Family' s February 1991 and Essex is an intriguing and enjoyable read. Set in a wealthy New Jersey neighbourhoodbitingly cold, it tells which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the story of two couples who have more surprising. He'd been friends exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for many yearsa decade. Peter Dizinoff and Joe Stern graduated The return has come about because he's had a letter from medical school together and their wiveshis ex-wife, Elaine saying that she's ill and Iris have known each other for just as hasn't longto live. In many ways their privileged lives have been almost perfect – that It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is until abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a shocking event occurs and watery grave in the two couples react in such different ways that boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it shatters their friendship and threatens their comfortable existence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099533359</amazonuk>}}a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?