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>
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__ ==The Best New Books== '''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br> '''Read [[:Category:Features|new the latest features]].'''__NOTOC__'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark Millar and John Romita JrTom Percival|title=Kick-AssThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsConfident Readers|summary=Meet DaveWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. The average Joe personifiedHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he sits at home with has the wrong shoes because his internet connectiondad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his comics collectionjob at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dadare separated, and very little contact with anyone elseWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is a typical loner teenager, nearly friendless, wears glasses good at school - especially around the hotart, mature biology teacher who for some reason seems to have maths sums on her blackboard... Until one day he decides and clings to emulate the comics in his collection. The only superheroes in his world are those whose colourful adventures moments of joy when he follows on is drawing, that feel like a light at the page - why not get his own costume mucked upend of a long, and go and fight crime?dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848565356</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David AaronovitchSylvie Cathrall|title=Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped The WorldA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyScience Fiction|summary=What shape is There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a conspiracy theory? Unusual question, I know, but I think on compelling premise. And this evidence it is round. A conspiracy theory is lumpen, ragged, full one of holes, and has a huge circular gap where the obvious and sensible has dropped through, leaving the believer or theorist with the implausible skeleton of what they choose to think instead. They certainly have a habit of coming round in circles - if I mentioned a heinous crime caused by a western leader that killed hundreds or more people, purely to get their way and get a war started, I could be referring to Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor, Maggie Thatcher and the General Belgrano, or Bush etc and 9/11them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009947896X</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gillian Galbraith0008517061|title=No Sorrow to Die: An Alice Rice MysteryDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Straight awayFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, DS Rice has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a gruesome murder on little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her hands. The victimdaughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a Mr Brodie (a suitably Scottish name) has had to lot of compromise: does Jake give up a lucrative his off-grid and interesting career due relaxing life to ill-health. He's now merely existing. He's waiting move in with Livia or does Livia move to die, basically. He Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants to die. So straight away, the plot starts to thicken nicely. We're introduced to a clutch of characters, or, more appropriately, suspects. for herself and her daughter? Apart from For the immediate family, moment they’re enjoying life in the extended family, there's also various others, home helps etc. It seems several people have an axe to grind as far as present and putting the recently deceased Mr Brodie is concerned. You have to ask yourself future on the question at this point, who'd murder a frail, almost-dead man? It would take a particularly callous person. Mr Brodie would have been virtually unable to have put up any sort of struggleback burner. It would have been similar to killing a tiny, helpless kitten. He's so far gone, why not just play the waiting game?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971640</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett1786482126|title=The Reluctant Tommy: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World WarJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Ronald Skirth was one of many young Englishmen of nineteen caught up Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the First World War. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916, site was promoted to Corporal, and sent going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the western frontbones of a child beneath a doorway. Like most of his contemporaries, when he went he There was an unquestioning servant of King and country, fighting for what he believed was rightno skull. On the battlefields of Flanders, one day he came across the body of Hans, Was this a German soldier the same ageritual killing or murder? Inevitably, if not youngerDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The dead manIt's hand was clutching a photograph of his girlfrienddifficult as Ruth knows, who could almost have been the twin sister of Ellabut Nelson doesn't, Skirth's own sweetheart. Like two of that she is pregnant with his friends who had just been killed, Hans had died child as a result of the stupidity one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of otherssickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Danielle Trussoni0008551324|title=AngelologyThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The Nephilim have lived among It's unusual for anyone from the human race since before Hardie family to approach the days of police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the Great Floodother. Horrific creatures, But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the hybrid children body of humans a missing person is buried and angelswho was responsible for her death. This person, their strengthhe promises, beauty is someone big and cruelty are unmatched, it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and they have infiltrated human society completelyto get an early parole date. For centuries Not much to ask, a secret society, students in a branch of theology known as is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn'Angelologyt think so and she', have studied s even prepared to do the ways of the heavens other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and the Nephilim, and waged a secret war against them – a war that has spanned every continentanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. But the Nephilim grow weak, their blood contaminated by the blood of their human ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155580</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carsten Jensen0008405026|title=We, A Stranger in the DrownedFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=In 1848, Laurids Madsen It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and other men of the smalltown of Marstal go investigation ground to war to fight the Germansa halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and an explosionflings him up to heaven, as far as anyone can tellher father are dead in their bed. But Lauridsreturns Initially, claiming his sea boots were too heavy for him to stay upit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there – only 's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be lost to Marstal anywayan open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, as he abandons his familyto sail the high seasUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846550963</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Harris0571379877|title=Blueeyedboy|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=BB - or ''blueyedboy'' in his online persona - is a middle-aged man who lives with his mother in the Yorkshire town of Malbry. He has a dead-end job in a hospital although his mother would have it that he's of some importance. BB has a way of escaping his rather boring life; he writes murderous fantasies on his website in company with other misfits, some of whom he knows in real life. It might be fiction on ''badguysrock'' but he and Albertine share a troubled history and BB's manipulation of friends and enemies causes his past to unravel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385609507</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Kellerby Code|author=Marcus Sedgwick|title=White CrowJonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Rebecca Edward Jevons is not happy to be leaving Londona working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. She Robert's not happy with her dad, shea theatre director. He's not happy with her boyfriendalso self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and she just generally an unhappy personentitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Having to move to a dead Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days -end place like Winterfold doesnand he't help at alls drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Her only friend there is Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a strange girl named Ferelith who one hot summerrelationship had begun between them but he's day shows her an abandoned mansion where not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two hundred years ago of them kissing in a priest performed horrible experiments on human corpsesdark passageway. He wanted to learn something from the dead. But what was it? And what does Ferelith really want from Rebecca?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842551876</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthew HootonJo Callaghan|title=Deloume RoadLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=A tiny, rural community with When a handful of characters man is at found crucified on the heart top of this novela hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. And the thing that binds them all It's their first live case together is Deloume Road, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Hooton gives over every chapter (But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and some are a very short) high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to one of his characters - Irene, Andy, the butchertheir AI Future Policing project. Each is very different from Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the other.case and, potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087657</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Parsons1399613073|title=30-Second Theories|rating=3|genre=Popular Science|summary=Take fifty of science's most thought-provoking theories, and try to explain each in thirty seconds or one page. It's all here, from Schrodinger's cat, to cosmic topology, via the Gaia hypothesis and chaos theory.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184831129X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoral Injuries|author=Ned Beauman|title=Boxer, BeetleChristie Watson|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=According to Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the blurb first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for Boxer, Beetlea quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, 'This which isa novel for people with breeding… It bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is clevera perfectionist and a trauma doctor. It Anjali is distinctivethe free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. Itis entertaining When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We hope you are toodon'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.' I like about half of This time, it, sodoes that mean I'm on the way to being those things?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340998393</amazonuk>s their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phoebe Reeves Murray0241636604|title=GhostThe Trading Game: Blood and Fire|rating=1.5|genre=Fantasy|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 which you can take out of boxesand paste into your skin. After growing up in an adolescentpsychiatric ward, she will grow up to go on and confront them andfulfil her destiny. Or something like that. Between the huge amount 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 on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808863</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Confession|author=Nick Lake|title=Blood Ninja|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary="It makes perfect sense that ninjas should be vampires". So Taro is told early on in this book, and on the evidence here that statement is correct. With a gutsy, bloody opening to the adventure we see Taro being attacked by ninjas, and rescued by a friendly vampire among them - having doubted the existence of both from his corner of sixteenth century rural Japan. The attack nearly leaves Taro an orphan, but opens himself up to a whole unexpected destiny, as people seek to kidnap him - or worse, and beyond that, an entirely unforseen existence as a teenage vampire when his saviour turns him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873875</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa Lynch|title=The C-WordGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the beginning was the wordIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, closely followed by the internetyou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. The two combined to form A hoodie and jeans replaces the wonder that pin-stripe suit and his background is bloggingthe East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and when that took off and people wanted a more concrete and permanent record, books quickly followedinjustice. Perhaps that's not ''exactly'' how There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the quote goes, but it's close enoughLondon School of Economics. Breast cancer at twenty eight Stevenson is not just scary bright - extremely bright - and unusual. For journalist Lisa, it's downright inconvenient. But, when he has a stage three tumour bulges out facility with numbers which most 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 us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to seebe stupid. The [http://alrighttit.blogspot.com/ blog] It was his ability at what was a success, it garnered some famous fans ([[:Category:Stephen Fry|Stephen Fry]]essentially, among others) and a book offer followedcard game which got him an internship with Citibank. This is the result Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547546</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Trevor Byrne1035021803|title=Ghosts and LightningThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Denny comes home It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to Dublin the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from Wales after his mum dies suddenlyher beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and hangs around drinking and taking drugs with his sisterCarole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, her girlfriend is dead and some of their matesthe circumstances seem suspicious, while he wonders what to do with himselfsay the least. There are some practical matters Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to sort out toothe village: Arthur, such she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the nasty older brother man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who owns their house was murdered) and wants his siblings outFreya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673309</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul MagrsSunny Singh|title=Hell's BellesHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=HumourThrillers |summary=The idea behind this series of novels Hotel Arcadia is quite enchanting and amusinga luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Frankenstein's daughter Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is living and sleuthing in WhitbySam, ably aided a wartime photographer and abetted by her sidekickAbhi, the enigmatic Effiehotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, and he forms a growing menagerie of younger accomplicesbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, namely Michael and Penny. Whilst the original idea showed huge promise, I felt that the author has rather overdone it in terms keeps on venturing out of output, in his desire her room to try to capitalise on his original successcapture what's happened through her photography. Book two in Although they only ever talk over the series was quite disappointingphone, relying on sensationalism rather than adequate plot their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and character development. Book three was an improvement-and I'm delighted they both wait to report that this, the fourth book in the series, shows him returning to form with the promise we saw in the first of see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the seriesterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755346467</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Craig Silvey1529153298|title=Jasper JonesThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title It's 1979 and central character of this bookMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Jasper Jones is a no-userhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, a trouble-maker and hasthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, for some reason in his hour of needthey've been murdered, sought help from an unlikely sourcebut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Charlie BucktinMiv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. Charlie When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a rather bookishfrightening, quietforeign place, unassuming teenagerbest avoided. And although both boys live in For Miv, the town of Corriganmove would mean leaving her best friend, until nowSharon, they havenand she't spoken a word ll do anything to each otherprevent that. They live in different worlds. Until now, She's not worried about the dangers or that isher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537540</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Mullen1398524085|title=The Many Deaths of the Firefly BrothersHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The country is in deep recessionCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. The economy has collapsed. The banks are hated Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and there's 'the next round of politiciansher daughter, assuring us they were not afflicted by the same lack of vision as their predecessors'Etty. Does this sound at are all familiar? But just when you think you have strayed into the nonworried but - strangely -fiction aisleher husband, it all becomes clearAlec, is not. This is 1930s America - full of gangsters Shortly afterwards, speakeasiesEtty and Greg, tommy gunsfind the body of Greg's father, fedorasDuncan Ackerley, beautiful heiresses, bumbling cops and in the newly formed FBI, daring bank robberies and kidnapsriver. Yes, It was an easy assumption for the gang is all here, but police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Many Deaths of the Firefly BrothersSalter children are not convinced but there' is a lot more than your average gangster book s little else they can do but get on with their lives and it's a hugely fun storywonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007340826</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1035906708|title=The Dog Who Came In From The Cold (Corduroy Mansions)Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=AhWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, bliss! To sit down once more but she was born to an Alexander McCall Smith story Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and wish only for someone thoughtful moved to come and serve me tea and biscuits whilst I read! Athens when she was thirteen. We are back, once again, with the residents of Corduroy Mansions Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to earwig on their conversations, their private thoughts and, of course, to catch up with what every one's favourite dog, Freddie de la Hay, has been getting up Callas' tomake it more manageable in the States. Written once again When she was back in serial format Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for The Daily Telegraph each short chapter is her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a gemmother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, and all the characters we met previously in Corduroy Mansions are back again to entertain usJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971616</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gladys MitchellChristopher Edge|title=Death at the OperaBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The summer holidays is a time for relaxing, playing in the sun, Lucas and getting bored – precisely what Joe and Scarlett his friends are doing when we encounter them all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the beginning nickname of this thrilling book'The Black Hole'. It is hardly surprising then All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, that when as the two children see a ghostly train racing towards them in the woodsmovie starts, they take a risk very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and step insidethey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. The train itself is strange But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, but when can they find clothes laid figure out in the single compartment with their own names marked what on earth is going on them, Joe starts ? Will they ever get back to get really worried. His sister Scarlett, howeverthe cinema, is more curious – or more reckless – and she immediately begins to try on the blue dress which has been left for her. And then Joe's phone starts to count down from an hour . . .their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0746097530</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily PurdyRachel Greenlaw|title=The Tudor WifeCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical FictionTeens|summary=From ''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the moment she sets eyes on handsome George Boleyndeep, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly the answering beat in love and prays that George will be hersmy heart. As Jane and George's families negotiate the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn and quickly realises that George only has eyes for Anne, but remains determined that she can make George love her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>}}'
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=Robert Porter was angry. The politician filling Things have been a bit sticky for the television screen was lying. He knew itEarthlings. He railed against it AI and said politician would automation have thought himself lucky not been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to be there in person. Nina only managed to calm her husband by enquiring whether he would like red or white wine with the meal do and had other tasks that been the end of the matter then that would have been the end of the matter – if you see what I meantook time to accomplish. But the telephone rang Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and it was Robert's boss with details starting to think of the team-bonding office trip other, new ways to Floridaspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Robert assured him that he Life was really keen to go (he wasn't) pretty much shut down and Nina was looking forward to , along with it too (she wasn't). And then Nina started wondering about , all the difference between the politician's lies and Robert's, er, evasionsmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Surely it must be possible to tell the truth?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091931673</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ally CarterMatthew Tree|title=I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then IWe'd Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls)ll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=If ever there were a new series chock full of characters Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to make Harry, Ron, Hermione et al look like wimps, then this is it. Virginia might not be the most exciting of Statesdifferent from his father, a drunk and sleepy Roseville may not be the most thrilling chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of towns, but for our purposes that's good. Boring his artistic passions all failed miserably 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 had endless crises of snooty, snobby rich kids? Exceptself confidence...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 differenceSo Tim applied himself to his studies, for all its boarders are spies in training, with a curriculum in lethal weapons cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams 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 masterset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408309513</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barrie Roberts1529900360|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Man From HellGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Noted West Country philanthropist Lord Backwater iskilled – by poachersIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, according Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the police investigatinghelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. His sondisagrees Finally, it was Robin, and calls in Sherlock HolmesDelaware's partner, who quickly establishes nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something thatthe true solution man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to the mystery an Italian shoe empire and she is much stranger – involving a fearedcriminal brotherhood, crimes from many years past, married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Gates Italian. But which ofHell themselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565089</amazonuk>them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=H Paul Jeffers1529395224|title=The Further Adventures Letting the Cat Out of Sherlock Holmes the Bag: The Stalwart CompanionsSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Animals and Wildlife
|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of 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 - as 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=After replying to an article written by the worldDCI Domenic Jejeune's first consultingdetectiveclose friend and former colleague, Sherlock HolmesDanny Maik, young Teddy Roosevelt, about has taken a short holiday in Singapore to study lawat Columbia, strikes meet up a correspondence with himan old ally, Guy Trueman. They're pleased tofinally meet when Holmes is acting Maik was involved in America – a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and naturallyhe killed a Ghurka. Initially,Roosevelt introduces him he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to another friend, NYPD Detective WillHargreaveslight that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Of course, foul play is in Now he could be facing the air – death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and the three men areled into an investigation which starts off as wouldn'just' a dead body, butleads them to discover a plot against the President himself,Rutherford Hayest help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565097</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brady UdallAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Lonely PolygamistPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Golden Richards bursts onto The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the printed pageonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. He Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, 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 central character and let's be honestchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, without him there would be no wivesbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, no childrenthanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, no complicated domestic life - make that, domestic livesbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Immediately I pictured Golden Katie has no experience in my mind's eyerunning a business, as a Homer Simpson type or in match- making, but with lots more children. HeNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there's a bumblingalways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, blusteringWilliam, bear of to lend a man. It's as if he's just 'turned up' for the conception of his children, just idly ambled along when they were born.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224078062</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cass Titcombe, Patrick Clayton-Malone and Dominic Lake0811771741|title=Canteen: Great British Food|rating=4.5|genre=Cookery|summary=I love food and I can happily read a recipe book for fun and InstaKnits for inspiration. It's always good to see what cookery books spawned by restaurants offer. Just occasionally you spot a combination of foods which you would never have thought of, but which works brilliantly, but more often I've found myself wondering two things. Who, in their own home, would go to the trouble of creating these dishes and, more importantly, who would want to eat them? At the other end of the scale you find 'Canteen: Great British Food' and you heave a sigh of relief.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091936322</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBaby|author=Adriana Trigiani|title=Viola in Reel LifeMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=It definitely wasnMelissa Leapman't Violas 's choice to go to boarding school and she really would have preferred not to have to share a room with three other girls she'd never met before, but her parents – both film makers - were going to be abroad InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a year and single rooms were in short supplycollection of knits from toys to blankets. And that was howSome will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, at cosy afternoons in front of the beginning of fire' variety. The projects are divided by the school yeartime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, Viola came ten to be at twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the Prefect Academy in South Bendprojects are attractive, Indiana rather than in her native New Yorkmodern and useable. SheI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'd left behind her best friend, Andrew (no – hesocial-media-worthy projects's not her boyfriend, hebut that's a best friend who happens to be a boy) and is sharing a room with Marisol Carreras, Romy Dixon and Suzanne Santryme being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389260</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensParanormal|summary=When Illyria Benny is sackedhaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, the fool Feste spirits theDuke's daughterand his house gets trashed. Oh, Violettaand someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to Londonhis home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to chase deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the evil Malvolio andreclaim an ancient relic. There they meet William Shakespearedelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, whothey persuade has been sent to help them in an exciting quest which builds him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (aclimax in the Forest of Ardenwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747597324</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen SlavinAdam Stower|title=The Stopping PlaceMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=How often do you pick up Murray is supposed to be a book with no idea at all where it humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is likely able to lead? sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. How often does such But he's a book still have you wondering bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hundred pages in? Not bemusedhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not lostinto the regular back garden, absolutely sure that but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is going expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to lead somewherebe honest, but still with no clue as to exactly where. How often do you get he's turned up and he'll have to the end of a book and think, simply, "Wow!"?do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847391869</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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529431735
|title=The Winter Visitor
|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?