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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>
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}'by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you' reviews at TheBookbagll want to read here.Dig in!
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==New There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews==}}'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]]at TheBookbag.'''
'''Read Want to find out more [[FeaturesAbout Us|new featuresabout us]].'''? __NOTOC__{{newreview|author=M J Hyland|title=This Is How|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Things weren't going too badly for Patrick Oxtoby. He's intelligent and did well at school. Then his Gran died. He started getting pains in his shoulder and things rapidly went downhill from there. He drops out of university to become a mechanic. By the time we meet him as a 23-year-old, he's become a loner who cannot communicate his feelings and who cannot seem to fit himself into society. Now his fiancee has left him (and you can see her point) and he finds himself in a seaside boarding house in an unnamed English town, hoping to start a new life. Then, one night he commits an act of violence (you can see it coming) and his life goes from bad to awful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184767383X</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Lisa Jewell|title=After the Party|ratingThe Best New Books=5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=It's been eleven years since Ralph and Jem finally became an item at the end of Lisa Jewell's first novel Ralph's Party. After buying a house in South London and having two children their once exciting, romantic and crazy relationship has gradually become consumed by responsibility and domesticity. Jem has become bogged down with motherhood and running a home and just wishes Ralph would help out a bit as she struggles to start working again. Ralph, unsure of his role in the family, has gradually drifted away both physically and emotionally from Jem and his children, preferring to spend as much time as possible painting in his studio.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846055733</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|author=Lawrence Hill|title=The Book of Negroes|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Although this is a work of fiction, the whole distasteful and deeply upsetting subject of slavery is a fact, therefore, at times I felt as if I were reading a true accountnew reviews by category]]. The narrative goes back and forth, starting with Aminata (or Meena as she is usually called) as a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged). She's in London, far from home, but she's there for an extremely important reason. The powers-that-be need her to tell her story, as a slave over many years. The hope is that other Meenas will not have to suffer the same fate. On a lighter note (and they are few and far between) Meena gets to visit some London schoolchildren. They think that she eats elephant. She is able to laugh at their naivety.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775487'</amazonukbr>}}
{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:Features|author=John Buchan|title=Sick Heart River|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=This was a surprise for me. It’s rare for a book to come to my attention from the reviewing gods that’s a rerelease of a 1930s novel, and one that surfaced a couple of years ago nowlatest features]]. But when it strikes me as startlingly Conradian, updated for the times, and perfectly able to stand alongside one of literature’s greats, then it’s just a sign those reviewing gods are on the ball.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697030X</amazonuk>}}'''
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark MarshallTom Percival|title=Little Tiger's Big HolidayThe Wrong Shoes|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Little Tiger Will's life is going on holidaydifficult, in a multitude of ways. Whatever will He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he need? Wellhas the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, flying gogglesand his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, obviously. A parachute is was working a cash-in-hand job on a mustbuilding site and had an accident. Who goes anywhere without stilts? Oh Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and a helmetWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, in case he goes in still has a racing cartiny amount of hope. Item by item He is good at art, his suitcase gets more and more full. His holiday sounds clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like it's going to be an amazing adventurea light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>186233773X</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lynne Rickards and Lee WildishSylvie Cathrall|title=Jacob O'Reilly Wants A PetLetter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=Like many young children, Jacob O'Reilly Wants A Pet. He'd love There are few greater joys than a dog. A cat would be great. Ooh, what about gerbils? Or an iguana? He's desperate for an animal book which lives up to look after, but mum and dad don't fancy the idea. Then they suggest that he start a pet-sitting business, and all hell breaks loose.compelling premise.And this is one of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034098838X</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Sartof0008517061|title=River of JudgementDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Finn Jackson is an oilmanFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, an engineer and he's developed a new way of extracting oil which doesn't ravage the countryside in the way of traditional methodshas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. He's set up There’s perhaps a company to take advantage little uncertainty about the future of this along his life with his friend Aaron Philipsvet girlfriend, who's the money man. He's short Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of an operations manager – compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and has been relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for a while – after herself and her daughter? For the tragic death of Shufang Su moment they’re enjoying life in a site accident. She was a geologist but had apparently flouted safety regulations the present and you know that there are going to be repercussions from her deathputting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956415202</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay1786482126|title=Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbingluxury'apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in the 1930sThere was no skull. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at Was this a FA Cup final ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with a broken neckDCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, such that she is the lifetime pregnant with his child as a result of difference between the two referencesone night they spent together some three months ago. But that lifetime, as packed and varied as it wasHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is in the pages prone to sudden bouts of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured booksickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Hawkins0008551324|title=Hex HallThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Sophie Mercer It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has been sent to a boarding school any respect for monsters after a little love spell goes horribly wrongthe other. Hecate Hall has been set up But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to protect and instruct shapeshifter, witch tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and fae children who have risked exposure of their abilities'was responsible for her death.  As in any good school story This person, he promises, she soon makes new friends is someone big and enemiesit will be worth the police doing what he wants. Her room mate And what he wants is a 15 year old vampire with to be transferred to an obsession with everything pink, and Sophie must struggle open prison to hide her disgust at Jenna’s blood consumption, as they quickly become good friends. She faces more difficulty with a trio serve the remainder of glamorous witches. Anna, Chaston and Elodie hate Jenna and they are frequently sarcastic and nasty at Sophie’s expense. At the same time though, they approach her to join their coven, his sentence and her reluctance to get involved makes her more unpopularan early parole date.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387225</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gervase Phinn|title=Road Not much to the Dales: ask, is it? The Story of a Yorkshire Lad|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=As a teacher currently anticipating (I wonnew Deputy Police Constable doesn't say looking forward to!) an OFSTED inspection, school inspectors aren't generally my favourite people. I'll make an exception for Gervase Phinn, though, as hethink so and she's entertained me for many hours with his previous books on his time in even prepared to do the Dales doing the job. I was expecting his memoirs of his childhood to be equally entertaining – other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and feel slightly letdown, if Ianyone who works with him is kept well away from what'm honests happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718149114</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=Pattie Boyd and Penny Junor|title=Wonderful Today: The Autobiography of Pattie Boyd|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Pattie Boyd will always be remembered for one unique, extraordinary claim to fame. She became the wife of arguably the two most famous and revered rock guitarists of the era, George Harrison and Eric Clapton, and thus inspired three of their compositions which became three of the age's seminal love songs, namely 'Something', 'Layla', and 'Wonderful Tonight'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755316436</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mara Bergman and Cassia Thomas0008405026|title=Lively Elizabeth!|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Elizabeth is a lively little girl. She loves stomping around, making a racket and creating an awful kerfuffle. One day she does A Stranger in the thing that she knows she should never do: she pushes Joe Fitzhugh. Joe tumbles into Jonny, who knocks into another child, and on and on and on. Oh dear, Elizabeth! What have you done?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340988045</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Claudia Gray|title=EvernightJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=IIt'm at a complete loss how to review this books sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. I'm very tempted She was never found and the investigation ground to take a tip from my favourite movie critic Roger Ebert whohalt. Now, her mother, on occasionHelena, has been known to suggest that you should watch and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a film '''then''' read his review if itstraightforward murder/suicide but there's full something about the positioning of twists the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and hard her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to describe without spoilersbe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. I'm actually thinking Kerrigan is convinced thatthe explanation lies in Rosalie's not a bad idea here – but will try my best to provide a review with disappearance: others (such as few clues as possible to the twists and turnsDerwent's boss, just in case two sentences aren't enough to convince youUna Burt) are less convinced. This may not be easy, so bear with me!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007355319</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Dickinson0571379877|title=The Noise of StrangersKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In Edward Jevons is a dystopian Brighton where the Council working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and the Amex company are the only major employersStanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and council departments have very different purposes uses Edward to those they have run errands for him. Edward has been in our own country today love with Stanza since their university days - notably the sinister Parks - four couples share dinner parties and discuss as little as possible, due he's drunkenly confided how he feels to the problems they have trusting each otherRobert. When Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a Councillor relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is killed left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a car crash, and one of the couples witness it, it triggers a by-election which leads to political manouevring which they're all caught up indark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095625151X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor)Jo Callaghan|title=Rugby Football during the Nineteenth Century: A Collection of Contemporary Essays about the Game by Bertram Fletcher RobinsonLeave No Trace|rating=3.54|genre=SportCrime|summary=The mid-nineteenth century represented When a man is found crucified on the sporting equivalent top of the 'big bang' a hill in terms of winter sports in EnglandNuneaton, giving rise DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the development of what today we call rugby union, football and rugby league, all from the same origin. Perhaps due to its popularity amongst the public schools of the day, rugby union for many years claimed the moral high groundcase alongside her sidekick, advocating amateurism and an emphasis on playing the game rather than providing a public spectacleAI detective Lock. Indeed, the arguments over the dangers of professionalism, which initially led to the split into rugby league from the Northern clubs, continued in union for well over a hundred years right up to the former England captain Will Carling It's description of the powers that be of the RFU as 'old farts'. In 1896 Bertrand Fletcher Robinsontheir first live case together, together having previously been very successful with contributions from several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few leading players of the daydays later, wrote Rugby Football which was the first volume in Kat is suddenly struggling with a successful nine-part series on Sports potential serial killer and Pastimes a very high profile case that was written for the Isthmian Library. This edition is effectively draws a facsimile lot of that bookunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, with or will Kat find herself taken off the addition case and, potentially, out of an introduction, penned by Patrick Casey and Hugh Cooke and compiled by Paul Spring.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190431287X</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Crace1399613073|title=All That FollowsMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionThrillers|summary=Leonard Lessing is a sofa socialist. He avoids corporate brands both in food Olivia, Laura and in clothes. He abides by all the right-Anjali met on boycotts. He signs petitions. He does free gigs at benefit concerts. He gives donations - you know the kind first day of thingmedical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Once Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, eighteen long years ago in Texas in 2006, he came very close which is a bonus when you aim to some real direct actionbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. But he bottled it Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. And now, Anjali is the frozen-shouldered jazzman-on-sabbatical finds his less-than-glorious radical past catching up with him right there in his living room, on free spirit of the TVgroup and she becomes a GP. Maxie Lermon, he of Austin 2006 When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and no stranger it's going to violent agitprop, is end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the UK, just up consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the road from Leonardthree friends. This time, and heit's taken a family hostage as a protest against the upcoming Reconciliation Summittheir teenage children who are involved. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330445642</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil Rickman0241636604|title=The Bones of AvalonTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionAutobiography|summary=When Elizabeth IIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's most trusted men fear for her safety re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and think there's a possibly supernatural plot against her, jeans replaces the obvious man to investigate it pin-stripe suit and his background is Dr John Deethe East End, her astrologer where he was familiar with violence, poverty and consultant in the hidden artsinjustice. Aided by There was no posh public school on his former pupil – and Elizabeth's reputed lover – Robert Dudley, CV - but he travels had been to Glastonbury to try and find the bones London School of King ArthurEconomics. Glastonbury, however, Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has never recovered from the Dissolution a facility with numbers which most of the Monasteries and the execution of its beloved Abbot Richard Whitingus can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, and many residents view the pair a card game which got him an internship with suspicionCitibank. The exception to Eventually, this is Nel Borrow, who treats Dudley when he's ill and becomes the first woman Dee has ever been interested in romanticallyturned into permanent employment as a trader. Can the three stop the villainous plot? I'll leave you to find out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872704</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tess Daly1035021803|title=The Baby Diaries: Memories, Milestones and MisadventuresAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=One It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the many side effects of pregnancy seems circumstances seem suspicious, to be say the need to read everything you can get your hands on about pregnancy and babiesleast. I know that when pregnant with my daughter I trawled Arthur was the library for any baby books they reason why Freya hadnot been back to the village: Arthur, scoured the internet nightly for due date calendarsshe feels, week by week guides and baby name dictionarieslet her down badly. I also became an obsessive baby-watcherEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, interested in any celebrity baby news and willing she has not felt able to speak to anyone 'normal' that I met who was pregnant too be near the man or who already had childrenpursue the profession she loved. This book is aiming to be After the split, she worked in a sort cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of catch-all for pregnancy obsessives I thinkher life, as it's a mix of pregnancy who was murdered) and birth advice Freya and information alongside of Tess Daly's memories from her pregnancies with her two daughtersJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091935164</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.''
{{newreview|author=Ed Hillyer|title=The Clay Dreaming|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Hillyer has taken several historical facts and seamlessly blended in a big dollop of fiction to create a complex and riveting storyI've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. The title is suitably enigmaticWell, as is King Cole (or Brippoki). He and his fellow cricketers (who also I must confess that there have been given rather unkind nicknames) have sailed from the bottom more than a few decades of the world, technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the bustling metropolis feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of Londonit is - frankly - quite frightening. Talk about extremes. And although Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they have all been diligently 'schooled' in all things English, nevertheless, they are the talk of re talking about or the townlatest conspiracy theorist. The novel has barely started I needed people I knew I could trust and already the mind boggleswho could deliver information in a way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251501</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patricia BriggsSunny Singh|title=Silver BorneHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=FantasyThrillers |summary=Mercy's life The Hotel Arcadia is just not getting any easiera luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. The werewolf she lives with Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is looking like going rogue – not snapping out of wolf formSam, which might have dangerous repercussions – for himself a wartime photographer and those around himAbhi, the hotel manager. Someone within As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the pack she's joined residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with seems Sam who refuses to be playing psychic warfare cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her, and leading room to try to capture what's happened through her astray with errant mental suggestionsphotography. Worse stillAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, she's opened the door of their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her (ill-fated) trailer keep safe and found death threats on the step they both wait to see if they will be rescued before, but not a fae assassin looking over things from they are discovered by the middle distanceterrorists. Could any of this have anything to do with a mysterious fae book of fairy lore she's been asked to look after?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497991</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Baggott1529153298|title=The Girl on the Wall: One Life's Rich TapestryList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Jean Baggott It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is now seventy two and in the final year of her history degree at Warwick UniversityPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. After almost a lifetime of bending Miv's upset because she's overheard that her life father wants to move the needs of other people she has decided that now family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the time move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to look after herself – the eleven year old girl whose picture hangs on her wallprevent that. She plans to achieve what 's not worried about the dangers or that girl would want her to achieve and from this sheMum's found great fulfilmentstopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311265</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Eggers1398524085|title=ZeitounHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=Flicking through the channels on the TV the other night I stumbled across an interview with George BushCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's former Deputy Chief of Stafffiftieth 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, Karl Roveis not. After witnessing an especially cringe making hip hop turn at Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the Washington Correspondentsbody of Greg' Dinner (if you haven't seen it take a look at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln5RD9BhcCo here]s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It really is jaw droppingly awful) attention turned was an easy assumption for the police to weightier matters, most notably Guantanamo Bay make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the war guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on terror with their lives and the Bush administrations response to Hurricane Katrinawonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144841</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Carrington1035906708|title=Inside My HeadDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Zoe has moved from London We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to rural Norfolk - her Greek parents are expecting a late baby and they want to downsizein Manhattan, get out of the cityNew York, in December 1923 and live in a more sustainable wayonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Unsurprisingly, Zoe isn Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas't big on this planto make it more manageable in the States. Wrenched from When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her school and friends, and the vibrancy made no secret of the capital, she's convinced that her life has just taken a socking great turn preference for the worseher elder sister, Jackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802716</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian RuckleyChristopher Edge|title=Fall of ThanesBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=The Godless world is descending into a kind of insanity. All order is breaking down Lucas and members of both the True Bloods and the Black Road his friends are fighting amongst themselves. There is rioting all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the streets and the armies nickname of both sides have taken to mindless slaughter rather than organised conquest. Under Aeglyss' command, the The Black Road armies are strengthening and his power is increasing as his body weakensHole'. His control of the Shadow Chancellor is a step towards ending the rule of the Thanes by murdering the greatest among them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841494410</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Wendy Law-Yone|title=The Road to Wanting|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We first meet Na Ga in her hotel room in WantingAll big movie fans, on the Chinese side of the border with Na Gathey's native Burma (or Myanmar for the more geographically pedantic, although Burma is used throughout this book). She is attempting re looking forward to commit suicidelots of exciting films, but is interrupted by news from the hotel receptionist who tells her that her guide across the borderand many, Mr Jiangmany snacks! However, has just committed suicide himself. You might by now have as the impression movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is not a cheery kind of bookvery different, and you'd be right they are swept up to a point, although itinto an adventure they couldn's certainly not without its light touchest even imagine. In fact it's often quite beautiful But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, which makes can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the exposure of the seedier side so much more shocking.cinema, and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701184086</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.''
{{newreview|author=Sue Eckstein|title=The Cloths 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 Heaven|rating=4the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within.5|genre=WomenBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's Fiction|summary=Weleader and Mira're 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 West Africa search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the early nineteen ninetiessea. There's With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the usual mix watched streets of expatriates and diplomatic staff doing their best foreign islands to do their best whilst still making the most heart of the freedoms such a life gives. Isabel is married smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to iconoclastic photographer Patrick Redmond save the future of her home and copes better than the ones she holds most wives would with her husband's fixation with pendulous black breasts. There is gossip though. The High Commissioner and his wife Fenella are both involved in illicit affairs, with more or less discretiondear. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954930983</amazonuk>0008664730
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily BearnJames Sherwood Metts|title=A Seaside Adventure (Tumtum and Nutmeg)Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ThereThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's something very comforting about returning re paid to a story with familiar friends do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this latest in the Tumtum technological change and Nutmeg series does not disappoint. Our brave little mousey friends are heading off for some starting to think of other, new excitementways to spend time, this time travelling by train to the seaside to keep along came an eye on Arthur awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and Lucy who have been sent to stay , along with their Uncle. Nutmeg is sure it won't be any bother, but Tumtum suspects all the many daily social interactions on which they may well end up on another adventure!depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248203</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Assaf GavronMatthew Tree|title=Croc-AttackWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Eitan Enoch is known as Croc Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his friends. There's father, a good reason but it's about to become rather more famous than Croc would like. It's begins on the morning that he takes drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his regular bus to work – the Little Number 5 – artistic passions all failed miserably and a fellow passenger worries about the dark-skinned man with a suit bag who's sitting at the fronthad endless crises of self confidence. Just before Croc gets off at So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his stop he asks why people are so paranoid daydreams and wonders whether it's impossible for dark-skinned guys with suit bags to get on buses any moreset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007327463</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
{{newreview|author=Roddy Doyle|title=The Dead Republic|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Henry left in 1922Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, after lies Silverton; a town under the Irish Civil War. It is now 1951. After his long exileprotection of the Briar's, nothing is as he expected. He revisits an old home to find no trace that a house ever stood therefamily of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. The project that Though she has brought him back always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is not the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as he expecteda steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. The Quiet Man will be a hugely successful film for John FordWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, but the life portrayed in it is not Henry Smarttown's lifeleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the portrait rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of Irish politics a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and everyday life in determine what to do as the film is not one he recognises. In his late 40sBriar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, he feels he is an old man already, alone with his memories of the wife and family he lostunder threat.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090097</amazonuk>1803364548
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Craig Robertson1529900360|title=RandomThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=A man is planning his first murder and heIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's doing it with some care. We'll gradually realise fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he's been making preparations felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for some time but the oddest thing is that this murder must be completely randomhis help on difficult cases. He mustnHis assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't be diverted from his chosen system even if need the person who is selected is someone he would rather not killhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. ItFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's not a whodunit – partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the killer tells us involvement was something that the story as it progresses – or even a 'why man she loved needed. The next case did he do it' as even that will become obviouslook simple, but though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the suspense heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is in whether or married to an extremely rich man and it's not he will get caughtthe Italian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377297</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joe Friedman1529395224|title=Boobela and Worm Ride Letting the Cat Out of the WavesBag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Boobela is Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a girl who is just like any other little girlGP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, except for particularly when he considered the fact strain that she isnbeing on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't little - sheas with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0861541774|title=A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a giantshort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Worm is her best friend (Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he actually is was facing a man armed with a worm) knife - and he rides around in killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a box she straps charge of manslaughter but evidence came to her shoulderlight that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. This outing sees them visiting some underground caves Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and learning to surf, amongst other adventureswouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556819</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather GudenkaufAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Weight of SilencePerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On The Perfect Passion Company is a hot August morning dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the small town business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of Willow Creek, Iowaa break up with a bad boyfriend, Calli Clark and Petra Gregory are reported missingso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. They are both seven years oldAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, live in the same streetbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and are the very best of friendsIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Calli Katie has suffered from selective mutism from the age of four when she witnessed no experience in running a traumatic event business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her home. As a result Petra has become Calli’s voiceabilities, speaking for and there's always her very helpful (and is even able rather handsome) neighbour, William, to tell others what Calli is thinking.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303691</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Nicholson0811771741|title=Rich and MadInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=When Maddy Fisher goes Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for somethingBaby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, she goes all out. She has decided to fall cosy afternoons in love, but not just any kind front of love – it has to be the canfire't-eat-canvariety. The projects are divided by the time they'tll take to complete -sleepless than five hours, crazy kind. But then once you get five to know Maddyten hours, you'd expect nothing lessten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, for this is a girl who lives with a camel modern and thinks nothing of choosing her parentsuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that' shop over her own well equipped room when she wants to find a bed to curl up in for a thinks me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405247398</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela ThirlwellDean Koontz|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyParanormal|summary=Ford Madox BrownBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, born in 1821 in Calais of and someone has delivered a Scottish familyreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, raised in France and Belgium before settling in Englandit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, was one of Benny is the foremost Victorian artistsvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Throughout So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his career he was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaeliteshouse is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, and shared many who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of their same idealsBenny, style and subject matterwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, though if he never officially became , Benny, and Harper (a member of the groupwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris SkidmoreAdam Stower|title=Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley Murray and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyConfident Readers |summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558Murray is supposed to be a humble, everyone's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband tidy and securing the succession. The man most likely friendly cat, one who is able to become her husband was Robert Dudleysleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whom she made her Master whatever takes his fancy next of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivitiestwo. The fact that But he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation's a bad magician's cat, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ann Kelley|title=Koh Tabu|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Bonnie MacDonald is thrilled to be going to so his favourite bun has been turned into a beautiful tropical island with the rest of the Amelia Earhart Cadetshyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, especially as and the only adult present will be the incredibly glamorous Layla Campbellcatflap they both use can chuck them out, nicknamed not into the Duchessregular back garden, who treats but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them all like adults. But the dream holiday becomes into a nightmare - after landing on the wrong island despite dire warnings from the boatman who took them thereViking land, where a storm kills him and troll hunter is expected – well, one of Bonnie's friends and wrecks the boatmuch bigger than Murray was, leaving them trapped with no-one knowing where they are. With the Duchess shining rather less brightly as she’s revealed to be practically useless in the face of dangerhonest, itbut he's left to Bonnie turned up and her friend Jas to try and keep the remaining girls alive and find a way to be rescued.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192756044</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sally Gardner|title=The Red Necklace|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Parishe's streets are already humming with talk of revolution, when the young gypsy Yann Margoza is summoned ll have to perform his magic at the chateau of a selfish, debt-ridden marquise. He is to tell the assembled aristocracy their future. But what he hoped would be the ticket to a better life turns into a nightmare when he has a vision of the richly-dressed crowd drowning in a sea of blood.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842556347</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.
{{newreview|author=Alex Bellos|title=Alex's Adventures In Numberland|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Maths is a wonderful thing. ...Wait, don't run away. It really Fragility'' is. The way numbers interact with each otherset as the city of Portland, the way counting systems developedOregon, how mathematical breakthroughs are coming cautiously begins to emerge from the world of crochet, and how people can mentally calculate restrictions imposed during the 13th root of a 200 digit number in almost less time than it takes to read it out loud. There's all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff going on in Numberland.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747597162</amazonuk>covid pandemic
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Hall Page1529431735|title=The Body in the BasementWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The central character with the unforgettable name of Pix is one of those It'apple pie' moms. The family s February 1991 and Essex is her life. Every summerbitingly cold, most members de-camp to the coast, to get away from it which made Bruce Hopkins' return all, recharge the batteriesmore surprising. But this particular year, Pix notes, is going to be He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a ''summer of womendecade. The return has come about because he'' Pix is s had a middleletter from his ex-agedwife, middle-of-the-road, ordinary person ... until saying that she makes some gruesome discoveries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090390</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kaye Umansky|title=Clover Twig and the Perilous Path|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=There's non-stop fun ill and action in this story. Granny Dismal comes hasn't long to warn Mrs Eckles that the Perilous Path has been spotted in the forest, and this kicks off a funny story involving witches (both good and bad), trolls, missing little boys, clowns, imps and magic sweetieslive. It's the sequel hard to Clover Twig and the Incredible Flying Cottage, but I don't think I lost out too much for not having read that first. Everyone feel any sympathy when Hopkins is generally so well describedabducted, stripped to his underwear and previous story arcs are quickly filled sent to a watery grave in if required. This is the sort boot of book I would have stayed up late reading under the covers with a torch when I was a little girl myself, and is now the sort of book I would steal from my daughter's room late at night so I can keep reading it without waiting for a chapter a night!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408801876</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=R A Scotti|title=The Lost Mona Lisa|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=One of the few things I remember from those writers' courses and advice books – and I can hear from here you wished I remembered more of them – was the merit in being aware of anniversaries, especially in your area of expertise, and having the ability to sell articles concerning historical events linked into centenaries, modern comparisons, and so onstolen Ford Sierra. Well, here is the book equivalent, and although Is it's early – it's looking back on the summer of 1911 – this stands as quality enough to deny any latecomers shelf room.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0553818309</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Greg Grandin|title=Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In 1927, the Ford Motor company bought a huge tract of land in Brazil, for the purpose of the company growing its own rubber for use in making its cars. They planted rubber trees and built warning from a factory and houses, and Spanish gang or a number of top managers from the company were posted to Fordlandia problem closer to run the operation. Huge amounts of money were pumped into Fordlandia, and Ford made great claims for their plans. However, the project was a spectacular failure, and it lasted less than twenty years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311478</amazonuk>}}home?