132,625
edits
Changes
no edit summary
<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, & self-published books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|plus author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanTom Percival|title=Boxer, BeetleThe Wrong Shoes|rating=35|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=According to Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the blurb wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for Boxereven the most basic of things like food, Beetleand his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, 'This iswas working a cash-in-hand job on a novel for people with breeding… It is cleverbuilding site and had an accident. It is distinctive Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. Itis entertaining. We And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope you are too.' I like about half He is good at art, and clings to the moments of itjoy when he is drawing, sodoes that mean I'm on feel like a light at the way to being those things?end of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998393</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phoebe Reeves MurraySylvie Cathrall|title=Ghost: Blood and FireA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=1.5|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary=Young Jennifer Rhys has been orphaned by the evilDark Angels. They can possess people and bite off their hands, andthere's something about living tattoos There are few greater joys than a book which you can take out of boxesand paste into your skin. After growing up in an adolescentpsychiatric ward, she will grow lives up to go on and confront them andfulfil her destiny. Or something like thata compelling premise. Between the huge amount And this is one ofpoorly drawn characters, the leaden prose, and the disappointingpictures of computerized 3-D models, I got lost a few times andcouldn't summon the interest to work out what was going onthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955808863</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Lake0008517061|title=Blood NinjaDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary="It makes perfect sense that ninjas should be vampires". So Taro is told early on in this bookFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, and on the evidence here that statement is correcthas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. With There’s perhaps a gutsy, bloody opening to little uncertainty about the adventure we see Taro being attacked by ninjasfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and rescued by her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a friendly vampire among them - having doubted the existence lot of both from compromise: does Jake give up his corner of sixteenth century rural Japan. The attack nearly leaves Taro an orphan, but opens himself up off-grid and relaxing life to a whole unexpected destiny, as people seek move in with Livia or does Livia move to kidnap him - Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or worse, not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and beyond that, an entirely unforseen existence as a teenage vampire when his saviour turns himputting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873875</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Lynch1786482126|title=The C-WordJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=In Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the beginning site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the word, closely followed by the internetbones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. The two combined to form the wonder that is blogging, and when that took off and people wanted Was this a more concrete and permanent recordritual killing or murder? Inevitably, books quickly followedDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Perhaps that It's not ''exactly'' how the quote goesdifficult as Ruth knows, but itNelson doesn's close enough. Breast cancer at twenty eight t, that she is not just scary and unusual. For journalist Lisa, it's downright inconvenient. But, when pregnant with his child as a stage three tumour bulges out result of her boob, she decides to document her subsequent fight against the big C (or, as she affectionately calls it, ''The Bullshit'') online for all to seeone night they spent together some three months ago. The [http://alrighttit.blogspot.com/ blog] was a success Her condition will be obvious before long, it garnered some famous fans ([[:Category:Stephen Fry|Stephen Fry]], among others) and a book offer followed. This not least because Ruth is the resultprone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547546</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Trevor Byrne0008551324|title=Ghosts and LightningThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Denny comes home It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to Dublin from Wales after his mum dies suddenly, approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and hangs around drinking he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and taking drugs with his sisterwho was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, her girlfriend is someone big and some of their mates, while it will be worth the police doing what he wonders wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to do with himselfget an early parole date. There are some practical matters Not much to sort out tooask, such as is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the nasty older brother other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who owns their house and wants his siblings outworks with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673309</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rogers0008405026|title=The Last ResortA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the country many years agoinvestigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, but has never been able to persuadehis parents – two white farmersHelena, Lyn and Roz – to follow him out ofher father are dead in their homelandbed. Initially, despite it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the resettlement policies positioning of Robert Mugabe,the hyperbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-inflation, and -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the corruption explanation lies in the country. Instead, thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to DriftersRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss,their backpackers' lodgeUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Magrs0571379877|title=Hell's BellesThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=HumourCrime|summary=The idea behind this series of novels Edward Jevons is quite enchanting a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and amusingStanza. Frankenstein Robert's daughter is living and sleuthing in Whitby, ably aided and abetted by her sidekicka theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, the enigmatic Effiedemanding, handsome and a growing menagerie of younger accomplices, namely Michael entitled and Pennyuses Edward to run errands for him. Whilst the original idea showed huge promise, I felt that the author Edward has rather overdone it been in terms of output, in his desire love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to capitalise on his original successRobert. Book two Most men in the series was quite disappointing, relying on sensationalism rather than adequate plot and character development. Book three was an improvement-and IRobert'm delighted to report s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that this, the fourth book in the series, shows him returning a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to form with stumble upon the promise we saw two of them kissing in the first of the seriesa dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755346467</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Craig SilveyJo Callaghan|title=Jasper JonesLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The title and central character When a man is found crucified on the top of this book, Jasper Jones is a no-userhill in Nuneaton, a trouble-maker and hasDCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, for some reason in his hour of need, sought help from an unlikely sourcethe AI detective Lock. Charlie BucktinIt's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Charlie But when there is a rather bookishsecond body found crucified a few days later, quiet, unassuming teenagerKat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. And although both boys live Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the town of Corrigancase and, until nowpotentially, they haven't spoken out of a word to each other. They live in different worlds. Until now, that is.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099537540</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Mullen1399613073|title=The Many Deaths of the Firefly BrothersMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=The country is in deep recession. The economy has collapsed. The banks are hated Olivia, Laura and there's 'Anjali met on the next round first day of politicians, assuring us they were not afflicted by the same lack medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of vision as their predecessors'a century. Does this sound at all familiar? But just Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you think you have strayed into the non-fiction aisle, it all becomes clearaim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. This Laura is 1930s America - full of gangsters, speakeasies, tommy guns, fedoras, beautiful heiresses, bumbling cops a perfectionist and the newly formed FBI, daring bank robberies and kidnapsa trauma doctor. Yes, Anjali is the gang is all here, but 'The Many Deaths free spirit of the Firefly Brothersgroup and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they' is re at a lot more than your average gangster book drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's a hugely fun storygoing to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007340826</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith0241636604|title=The Dog Who Came In From The Cold (Corduroy Mansions)Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=AhIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, bliss! To sit down once more you're unlikely to an Alexander McCall Smith story and wish only for think of someone thoughtful to come like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and serve me tea jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and biscuits whilst I read! We are backhis background is the East End, once againwhere he was familiar with violence, with poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the residents London School of Corduroy Mansions to earwig on their conversations, their private thoughts Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and, he has a facility with numbers which most of course, us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to catch up with be stupid. It was his ability at what every one's favourite dogwas, Freddie de la Hayessentially, has been getting up toa card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Written once again in serial format for The Daily Telegraph each short chapter is Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a gem, and all the characters we met previously in Corduroy Mansions are back again to entertain ustrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971616</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gladys Mitchell1035021803|title=Death at the OperaThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Miss Ferris would not normally have It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been entertained for a major part in Hillmaston Schoolback to the English country village where she grew up. She's production back now because of The Mikadoa request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. She was self-effacingFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, meek is dead and not very talentedthe circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. But – she Arthur was the reason why Freya had offered not been back to finance the cost of the production and this swung matters in village: Arthur, she feels, let her favourdown badly. It did mean that Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she couldn't afford has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the holiday profession she had planned for loved. After the summer and had to spend it split, she worked in her aunt's boarding housea cafe, but she'd been pleased to make met and married James (on the gesture as she'd been happy at rebound from the schoollove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546841</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen DunmoreAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The BetrayalAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=Andrei is a perceptive and deeply conscientious doctor, a young rheumatologist and paediatrician working in a Leningrad hospital just after the terrible siege, during the last days of Stalin’s dictatorship. He is as quick to notice symptoms in his colleagues as in his young patients. When he is approached by Russov, a fellow physician, he registers his confrere’s pervading smell of fear. This is all part ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the pathology shape of the times; life as it is lived under a tyrannical dictatorship. A dictatorship determined things to pursue a purge – a vendetta directed against doctors, particularly Jewish doctorscome. The sweating Russov manages to inveigle Andrei Aleksayev into treating a very sick child, Gorya, the son of Volkhov, who is a tyrannical and high ranking secret police officer. Therapeutic failure, in all probability, could result in vengeance, arrest and devastating effects on Andrei’s loving wife Anna and her young adolescent brother, Kolya.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490593</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily PurdySunny Singh|title=The Tudor WifeHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical FictionThrillers |summary=From The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the moment she sets eyes terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on handsome George Boleynsite, there is Sam, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly in love a wartime photographer and prays that George will be hersAbhi, the hotel manager. As Jane Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and Georgekeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's families negotiate happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn and quickly realises that George only has eyes for Annephone, but remains determined that she can make George love their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help herkeep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mari Strachan1529153298|title=The Earth Hums in B FlatList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Choosing a child as the viewpoint character of a novel requires confidence It's 1979 and imaginationMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. To succeed is to convince the reader of events at two levels – the child(A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's world within the adult world surrounding herfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. The very best novels about childhoodWell, like say Harper Leethey's classicve been murdered, but to have 'To Kill a Mockingbirddisappeared' doesn', also reflect a wider cultural trutht sound quite so frightening. In Miv'The Earth Hums in B Flats upset because she', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as s overheard that her father wants to move the characters struggle to cope with their family secrets'Down South'. If that sounds When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a bit tackyfrightening, fear notforeign place, because the viewpoint characterbest avoided. For Miv, Gwenni, is all whippet and sharp corners.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anne Perry|title=The Sheen on the Silk|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Anna Zarides arrives in Constantinople, determined to find out why move would mean leaving her twin brother Justinian has been convicted of murder. But it is 1273best friend, and a woman cannot move about freely to ask questions. Anna is a skilled doctorSharon, who uses Arab and Jewish medicine in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: in her quest for information she disguises herself as a eunuch and successfully treats a wide range of people from the very poorest right up 'll do anything to the emperor himselfprevent that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mavis Cheek|title=Truth to Tell|rating=4.5|genre=Women She's Fiction|summary=Robert Porter was angry. The politician filling not worried about the television screen was lying. He knew it. He railed against it and said politician would have thought himself lucky not to be there in person. Nina only managed to calm her husband by enquiring whether he would like red dangers or white wine with the meal and had that been the end of the matter then that would have been the end of the matter – if you see what I mean. But the telephone rang and it was Roberther Mum's boss with details of the teamstopped talking -bonding office trip to Floridaanyone. Robert assured him that he was really keen to go (he wasn't) and Nina was looking forward to it too (she wasn't). And then Nina started wondering about the difference between the politician's lies and Robert's, er, evasions. Surely it must be possible to tell the truth?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091931673</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ally Carter1398524085|title=I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls)|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=If ever there were a new series chock full of characters to make Harry, Ron, Hermione et al look like wimps, then this is it. Virginia might not be the most exciting of States, and sleepy Roseville may not be the most thrilling of towns, but for our purposes that's good. Boring and ordinary is good. Flying under the radar is good. To the town's residents, the Gallagher Academy is just your typical all girls private school. They don't know much about it, but then who would want to when it's clearly housing a group of snooty, snobby rich kidsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? Except...it's not. The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is not the place it makes out it is – this is an elite institution with a difference, for all its boarders are spies in training, with a curriculum in lethal weapons and covert operations as well as exquisite twists on the usual subjects: foreign languages here mean dedicated days where the whole school converses in any one of the FOURTEEN languages the girls have to master.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408309513</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=The Economist|title=Style GuideNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=After replying to an article written by the worldCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's first consultingdetectivefiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, Sherlock Holmessons Niall, young Teddy RooseveltPaul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, about to study lawat ColumbiaAlec, strikes up a correspondence with himis not. They're pleased tofinally meet when Holmes is acting in America – Shortly afterwards, Etty and naturallyGreg,Roosevelt introduces him to another friendfind the body of Greg's father, NYPD Detective WillHargreaves. Of courseDuncan Ackerley, foul play is in the air – river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the three men guilt. The Salter children areled into an investigation which starts off as not convinced but there'just' a dead body, s little else they can do butleads them to discover a plot against the President himself,Rutherford Hayesget on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565097</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brady Udall1035906708|title=The Lonely PolygamistDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Golden Richards bursts onto the printed page. He is the central character and let's be honest, without him there would be no wives, no children, no complicated domestic life - make that, domestic lives. Immediately I pictured Golden in my mind's eye, as a Homer Simpson type - but with lots more children. He's a bumbling, blustering, bear We tend to think of a man. It's Maria Callas as if he's just 'turned up' for the conception of his childrenGreek, just idly ambled along when they were but she was born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224078062</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cass Titcombeto Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, Patrick Clayton-Malone and Dominic Lake|title=Canteen: Great British Food|rating=4.5|genre=Cookery|summary=I love food in December 1923 and I can happily read a recipe book for fun and for inspiration. It's always good only moved to see what cookery books spawned by restaurants offerAthens when she was thirteen. Just occasionally you spot a combination of foods which you would never have thought of, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but which works brilliantly, but more often Iher father changed it to 'Callas've found myself wondering two things. Who, in their own home, would go to the trouble of creating these dishes and, make it more importantly, who would want to eat them? At manageable in the other end of the scale you find 'Canteen: Great British Food' and you heave a sigh of reliefStates.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091936322</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Adriana Trigiani|title=Viola When she was back in Reel Life|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=It definitely wasn't Viola's choice to go to boarding school and Athens - supposedly so that she really would have preferred not to have to share a room with three other girls she'd never met before, but could get appropriate training for her parents – both film makers voice - were going to be abroad for she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a year mother who mercilessly exploited her and single rooms were in short supply. And that was how, at the beginning made no secret of the school year, Viola came to be at the Prefect Academy in South Bend, Indiana rather than in her native New York. She'd left behind her best friend, Andrew (no – he's not preference for her boyfriend, he's a best friend who happens to be a boy) and is sharing a room with Marisol Carreraselder sister, Romy Dixon and Suzanne SantryJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389260</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eleanor UpdaleChristopher Edge|title=Johnny SwansonBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'AhThe Black Hole'. All big movie fans, you just have they're looking forward to love lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that coversomething about this new film format is very different, donand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't youeven imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? All dolled up Will they ever get back to show a mop-headed hero starring in a newspaper article surrounded by some dodgy-looking classified ads promising the moon on a stick. Such ads have an important part cinema, and to play in Eleanor Updale's latest novel.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385616422</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy KidderRachel Greenlaw|title=Strength in What Remains|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary='Strength in What Remains' is the inspirational account of Deogratias, a man who has fled from the genocide Compass and civil war in Burundi (just south of the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear and want of a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promised.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Celia Rees|title=The Fool's GirlBlade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=When Illyria is sacked, ''I can hear the fool Feste spirits song of theDuke's daughtersea. The call of the deep, Violetta, to London, to chase the evil Malvolio andreclaim an ancient relic. There they meet William Shakespeare, whothey persuade to help them in an exciting quest which builds to aclimax answering beat in the Forest of Ardenmy heart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747597324</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jojo MoyesJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Last Letter From Your LoverPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=I do love Things have been a story that wraps me up completely within its little worldbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, making me want to ignore my long list of things often replacing jobs they're paid to do and just curl up reading all dayother tasks that took time to accomplish. Jojo Moyes' new novel certainly managed it. I felt transported back Just as they were beginning to get used to the 1960's, entirely caught up in the characters' lives, riding their highs all this technological change and lows alongside starting to think of themother, and I ended up desperately foisting my just-woken-up toddler onto my husband so that I could just read the last four pages without her hanging off my arm!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340961627</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Penny Ingham|title=The King's Daughter|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The central female character - 'The King's Daughter' is Elflaede. She's youngnew ways to spend time, feisty and very prettyalong came an awful pandemic. She also has this unforgettable reddish hair. At this point in the story I Life was reminded a little of Queen Elizabeth Ipretty much shut down and, I have to say. In Elflaede's own words she 'had never known a time without war .' The hordes of Pagan Norsemen are to blame. They've come to England along with their own set of superstitions. And it, all the many daily social interactions on which they've come with one aim. To conquer great swathes of Englanddepend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095559975X</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip SingtonMatthew Tree|title=The Einstein GirlWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The two central characters are (and we've come across it many times before) Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a psychiatrist (in this case Kirsch) drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his patient (known as the Einstein Girl) artistic passions all failed miserably and hence the novel's titlewho had endless crises of self confidence. The case of this girl is intriguing, not least because both doctor and patient had accidentally met prior So Tim applied himself to her admission to hospital. Kirsch appears immediately smitten - which may be a problem. He's already spoken for. In a nutshellhis studies, the Einstein Girl has lost her memory. Kirsch finds more and more of cultivated his abilities rather than his professional time given over to her recovery, back to mental well-being. It becomes a long daydreams and complicated journey, for both of themset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535793</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.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Juliet Nicolson1529900360|title=The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=As the author says in her introduction, the It hadn'great silencet been Lt Milo Sturgis' of the title s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which followed didn't need the 'incessant thunder' help of the Great Wara psychologist only worked for a while. There are three crucial dates in her narrativeFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, all specific days in three successive Novemberswho nudged Milo into asking for help again. The first She knew that the involvement was when something that the guns fell silent man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in 1918, the second was that swimming pool of the first two-minute silence a remote property in memory of Bel Air. He was the fallen one year later, heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the third was when the Unknown Soldier was lowered into silence beneath the floor in Westminster Abbey, another year onItalian. These act as a framework around But which she tells the story of them was the silence of grief which affected everyone in various ways during the first two years of peace.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719562562</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Naomi Alderman1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The LessonsSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=James has been used Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to being very clever at schoolfollow in his footsteps, and it is a shock for him particularly when he goes to Oxford University to find there are lots considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of people doing work experience with a family friend who are more able than he iswas a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. He is already struggling when he falls and seriously hurts his knee Before long, and he is also very lonelywas at Liverpool University. Then It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he meets Jess, who invites him to was a party at Mark’s housechild. Mark soon invites Jess If anything, James and other friends he'd wanted to move in to his run down mansionbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916293</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ngugi wa Thiong'o0861541774|title=Dreams in a Time A Nye of WarPheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=The interest DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in the lives of unfortunate children has created the publishing phenomenon nicknamed 'misery memoirs'Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Happily for readers of Ngugi wa Thiong'o’s Dreams Maik was involved in a Time of War memories street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the author’s often difficult childhood are presented death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a tale of triumph diplomatic incident and empowerment rather than anger and self-pitywouldn't help Danny at all. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553776</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christy LefteriAlexander McCall Smith|title=A Watermelon, a Fish and a BibleThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It The Perfect Passion Company is 20 July 1974 a dating agency in the small coastal town of KyreniaEdinburgh, Cyprus. The radio continues run by Ness and operating as an alternative to report that all the Turkish forces did not manage to invadeonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and that they were thrown back into look after the seabusiness, even as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the Greek Cypriot population realises that they have been invadedchance to come home to Edinburgh. The And so begins this new story of this novel is set over just eight daysfrom Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and is told from the alternating viewpoints of three Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characterswho quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849161275</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Trevor Bloom0811771741|title=The Half-SlaveInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary=At Samarobriva in Roman Gaul, Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a raiding Saxon tribe meets its match in the form collection of a division knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the Franks'long, who have suborned cosy afternoons in front of the Roman authorities and fire' variety. The projects are establishing their control throughout divided by the regiontime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. A mysterious meeting with All the Frankish Overlord persuades the leader of the Saxons to sign projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a treaty that will forever alter the fate of terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his peoplehouse gets trashed. In return for Frankish silver Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, he hands over disturbing coffin-sized object to them his youngest sonhome, Ascha and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the half-slavething that has trashed his house! The thing is, as Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a perpetual hostage to guarantee the peacenice person. A really nice person. But in So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the frozen north delivery to his house is a new powers are risingfriend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and Ascha will soon be drawn into a web certainly take care of lies Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and ambition as two very different worlds come Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into conflictBenny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955563062</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles LambertAdam Stower|title=Any Human FaceMurray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=1983: Alex enjoys the attention of his latest lover. Bruno Murray is generous with his money supposed to be a humble, tidy and his time; he lends Alex the flash carfriendly cat, dines him extravagantlyone who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, treats him well, whatever takes him seriouslyhis fancy next of the two. "It was not that But he was not fond of the older man… or that he didn't appreciate s a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the longer term view of a leg-up catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into journalism…"the regular back garden, it's just that he doesn't realise he is lying to himselfbut into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. What he feels for Bruno This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is a bit more expected – well, one much bigger than affectionMurray was, to be honest, as but he's turned up and he is about 'll have to discover.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330512994</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aravind Adiga1529431735|title=Between the AssassinationsThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=It''Between the Assassinations'' s February 1991 and Essex is a collection of short stories set in the fictional South Indian town of Kitturbitingly cold, which is almost certainly Mangalore (where made Bruce Hopkins' return all the Adiga grew up)more surprising. But He'd been exiled on the plight of the residents can be found in any Indian city Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex- which I imagine is Adigawife, saying that she's point of setting it in a fictional locationill and hasn't long to live. The twelve stories are vaguely interlinked (there are some recurring characters) but for the most part the stories stand alone. The time period It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is set between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi in 1984 abducted, stripped to his underwear and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi sent to a watery grave in 1991, although like the location, the time period and the assassinations boot of the title have little bearing on the events themselvesa stolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871236</amazonuk>}} Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?