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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>
==The Best New Books== '''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br> '''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David AlmondTom Percival|title=The Boy Who Climbed Into The MoonWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Paul lives Will's life is difficult, in the basement a multitude of a large tower blockways. Heis bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes's feeling lonely , he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and out doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of sortsthings like food, so and his dad can't work because he feigns lost his job at the college, was working a headache cash-in-hand job on a building site and stomach ache had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a day off schooltiny amount of hope. Spending his day wisely He is good at art, he gets and clings to know the eccentric people who inhabit the buildingmoments of joy when he is drawing, as well as embracing his own eccentric idea that feel like a light at the moon is actually end of a hole in the skylong, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248297</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Donald SpotoSylvie Cathrall|title=High Society: Grace Kelly and HollywoodA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=35|genre=BiographyScience Fiction|summary=In his defence, we must acknowledge Spoto's subtitle. It underlines that this does not in any way shape or form claim There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monacocompelling premise. It And this is an analysis of her film career: a consideration one of the "Hollywood years"them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicola Killen0008517061|title=Not Me!Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=A group of kids are playingFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, and making an awful messhas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. One by one they're asked if they're responsible There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and one by one they deny any involvement. But have they been caught red handedher daughter Diana, and will it really fall upon Jess the pup to do all the tidying as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248297</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Foster|title=Whizz Bang Oranghis off-Utan|rating=3.5|genre=Children's Rhymes grid and Verse|summary=Subtitled ''rhymes for the very young'', you know what you're getting relaxing life to move in with ''Whizz Bang Orang-Utan''. It's a poetry anthology, with sweet poems Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about kids, what they get up to, whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and of course whizzing her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and banging orang-utansputting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729934</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jess Walter1786482126|title=The Financial Lives of the PoetsJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=There is a certain type of modern fiction I just cannot get along with. It's a narrative that features a concentration on a main character that goes through his plot with unhappiness, making wrong decisions perhaps, getting crapped on by life, and discussing his woes with Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the reader. I get to the end and think nothing of it, until I read the blurb, where I find the book site was supposed going to be hilariously funny, the character an insincere cypher for our lives and times, and the whole thing an ironic masterpiece hold seventy- I should have been disbelieving, disagreeing and disfive 'luxury' apartments -everything else with the hapless hero. I hate such books - I always only see when they discovered the sincerity in the narrative, and never the comedy. Thankfully, such is never the case with this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141049138</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Carlos Ruiz Zafon|title=The Prince bones of Mist|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=During World War Two, Max's father decides to move the whole family to a seaside retreat he knows of - child beneath a wooden house far away from the city he's grown his family up indoorway. Nobody seems too keen on the idea, neither of Max's sisters, his mother, nor he - and Max is gifted a pocket watch by his loving, talented mechanic cum engineer cum watchmaker of a father, enscribed as "Max's Time Machine"There was no skull. But the house they move to, and its surroundings, are full of more successful time machines - a stash of early home videos, a public clock that runs backwards, a sunken shipwreck, a yard full of statues of Was this a stone circus... ritual killing or murder? And let's not forget the mysteriousInevitably, spider-eating cat that joins in Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with proceedingsDCI Harry Nelson. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856421</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Butcher|title=Changes: The Dresden Files|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary= It's always wonderful to see a series going from strength to strength and getting better difficult as it goes along. HoweverRuth knows, when this happens, there inevitably comes a point where it gets so good, you canbut Nelson doesn't help but think , that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the next one can't possibly be any better as it feels like the series has peakednight they spent together some three months ago. ''Changes'', the twelfth in Jim Butcher's ''Dresden Files'' seriesHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is such a bookprone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497134</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Feaver0008551324|title=Love Me TenderThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=A woman remembers her dead husband playing Love Me Tender (It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the song made famous by Elvis Presley) on his tenor hornother. She But Davie Hardie is struggling in a daze, feeling prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the grief body of the bereaved widow she a missing person isburied and who was responsible for her death. This person, the betrayal of the deceived wifehe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the guilt of having murdered himpolice doing what he wants. The title story of this collection And what he wants is all to be transferred to an open prison to serve the more moving remainder of his sentence and startling because of its understated styleto get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and what she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is not said as kept well as away from what is's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521288</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Rollins0008405026|title=Jake Ransom and A Stranger in the Skull King's ShadowFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The prologue It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to this splendid book recounts a terrifying chasehalt. Now, her mother, the discovery of fabulous Mayan artifactsHelena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a shadowy enemy. And that gripping scene sets the tone for straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the rest positioning of the bookbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. After the strange disappearance of their parents, who were on What looked as though it was going to be an archeological dig on the Mountain of Bones, Jake Ransom open-and his sister Kady are sent -shut case is now a parcel containing two halves of a Mayan coin, their mothercomplex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's sketchbook and their fatherdisappearance: others (such as Derwent's notebook. There is no indication what these things mean or what to do with themboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000616</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison Maloney0571379877|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=I was Edward Jevons is a bit of a patriotworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, even when it wasn't as fashionable as it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due to my once having played St. George in a Cub Scout celebration Robert and getting the chance to personally slay the dragon in knitted chain mail with a plastic swordStanza. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag of St. George is being used by a political party condemned as racist, itRobert's perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate Sta theatre director. Patrick He's Day than St. George's Day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andy Stanton|title=Mr Gum and the Cherry Tree|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary="Woe, woealso self-obsessed, woedemanding, handsome and a bottle of glum" declares a character in this story, entitled and you would uses Edward to if you shared the sensibilities of Polly, her friend Alan Taylor (the ridiculously named gingerbread man who serves as electrified schoolmaster to some ex-goblins), or any right minded personrun errands for him. The problem is that all the right minded people have switched Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to being wrong mindedRobert. For the old granny they call Old Granny has declared the Old Times back, and taken the entire village population (except for a magician who vanishes Most men in Robert's position would stay away from the story) to Stanza or tell Edward that a sacred glade in a nearby wood, where a tree spirit of Old relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is trying left to enslave stumble upon the two of themkissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405252189</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy JagoJo Callaghan|title=Montacute HouseLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Cess When a man is found crucified on the poultry girl at Montacute House. She and her mother live alone - Cess has never met her father. In facttop of a hill in Nuneaton, she doesn't even know who he is. Shunned by DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the other villagers because of case alongside her illegitimacysidekick, Cess has only two friends, both also social outcaststhe AI detective Lock. There It's Williamtheir first live case together, who has having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a club foot - thought second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of as a curse unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in Elizabethan Englandtime, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and Edith, who's been chased potentially, out of the village for witchery by the woman-hating local priest. a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408803763</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gregory Hughes1399613073|title=Unhooking the MoonMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=The Rat Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and Bob are prairie childrentheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Winnipeg Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a land ''so flat bonus when you can watch your dog run away for three days''aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When their father dies and we first meet them they're orphaned, they are determined to avoid at a childrendrug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's home at all costs and embark upon a road trip going to New York City, end in search of their long-lost uncletragedy. Bob is pretty much We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the hangerconsequences. Twenty-on - he knows five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the Rat is a special kid three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who would never make it in an institution and so he puts his fears aside to follow his singular sisterare involved. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162956</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Millar and John Romita Jr0241636604|title=Kick-AssThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic NovelsAutobiography|summary=Meet DaveIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. The average Joe personifiedA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he sits at home was familiar with his internet connection, his comics collection, his dadviolence, poverty and very little contact with anyone elseinjustice. He is a typical loner teenager, nearly friendless, wears glasses at There was no posh public school on his CV - especially around but he had been to the hot, mature biology teacher who for some reason seems to have maths sums on her blackboardLondon School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Until one day he decides to emulate the comics in It was his collectionability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. The only superheroes in his world are those whose colourful adventures he follows on the page - why not get his own costume mucked upEventually, and go and fight crime?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565356</amazonuk>this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Aaronovitch1035021803|title=Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped The WorldAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=What shape is 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 conspiracy theory? request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Unusual questionFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, I knowArthur Crockleford, but I think on this evidence it is rounddead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. A conspiracy theory is lumpenArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, raggedshe feels, full of holeslet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, and she has a huge circular gap where the obvious and sensible has dropped through, leaving not felt able to be near the believer man or theorist with pursue the implausible skeleton of what they choose to think insteadprofession she loved. They certainly have a habit of coming round After the split, she worked in circles - if I mentioned a heinous crime caused by a western leader that killed hundreds or more peoplecafe, purely to get their way met and get a war started, I could be referring to Roosevelt and Pearl Harbormarried James (on the rebound from the love of her life, Maggie Thatcher who was murdered) and the General Belgrano, or Bush etc Freya and 9/11James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009947896X</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=Ronald Skirth and Duncan BarrettSunny Singh|title=The Reluctant Tommy: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World WarHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyThrillers |summary=Ronald Skirth was one of many young Englishmen of nineteen caught up The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in the First World Waran unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. He joined Hiding from the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, was promoted to Corporalthere is Sam, a wartime photographer and sent to Abhi, the western fronthotel manager. Like most of his contemporaries, when he went he was an unquestioning servant of King and country, fighting As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for what he believed was right. On the battlefields of Flandersresidents who are still alive in the hotel, one day he came across the body of Hans, forms a German soldier the same agebond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, if not younger. The dead man's hand was clutching a photograph and keeps on venturing out of his girlfriend, who could almost have been the twin sister of Ella, Skirthher room to try to capture what's own sweethearthappened through her photography. Like two of his friends who had just been killedAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, Hans had died their friendship grows as a result of Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the stupidity of othersterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Danielle Trussoni1529153298|title=AngelologyThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Nephilim have lived among the human race since before the days of the Great FloodIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Horrific creatures (A woman? I mean, the hybrid children of humans and angelshonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, their strengththough. Women have been disappearing. Well, beauty and cruelty are unmatchedthey've been murdered, and they but to have infiltrated human society completely'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. For centuries Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a secret societyfrightening, students in a branch of theology known as 'Angelology'foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, have studied the ways of the heavens and the Nephilimmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and waged a secret war against them – a war she'll do anything to prevent that has spanned every continent. But She's not worried about the Nephilim grow weak, their blood contaminated by the blood of their human ancestorsdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155580</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carsten Jensen1398524085|title=We, the DrownedHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=In 1848Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Laurids Madsen Paul and other men Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the smalltown of Marstal go river. It was an easy assumption for the police to war to fight make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the Germans, guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and an explosionwonder about what really happened.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fictionflings him up |summary=We tend to heaven, as far think of Maria Callas as anyone can tell. But LauridsreturnsGreek, claiming his sea boots were too heavy for him but she was born to stay upthere – Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to be lost Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to Marstal anyway, as he abandons his family'Callas' to sail make it more manageable in the high seasStates. 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 and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846550963</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanne HarrisChristopher Edge|title=BlueeyedboyBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=BB - or ''blueyedboy'' Lucas and his friends are all booked in his online persona - is for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a middle-aged man who lives with his mother in place that has the Yorkshire town nickname of Malbry'The Black Hole'. He has a dead-end job in a hospital although his mother would have it that heAll big movie fans, they's re looking forward to lots of some importance. exciting films, and many, many snacks! BB has a way of escaping his rather boring life; he writes murderous fantasies on his website in company with other misfitsHowever, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, some of whom he knows in real lifeand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. It might be fiction But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on ''badguysrock'' but he and Albertine share a troubled history ? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and BB's manipulation of friends and enemies causes his past to unravel.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385609507</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcus SedgwickRachel Greenlaw|title=White CrowCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Rebecca is not happy to be leaving London. She's not happy with her dad, she's not happy with her boyfriendI can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, and she just generally an unhappy personthe answering beat in my heart. Having to move to a dead-end place like Winterfold doesn't help at all. Her only friend there is a strange girl named Ferelith who one hot summer's day shows her an abandoned mansion where two hundred years ago a priest performed horrible experiments on human corpses. 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=Paul ParsonsJames Sherwood Metts|title=30-Second TheoriesPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5|genre=Popular ScienceConfident Readers|summary=Take fifty of scienceThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's most thought-provoking theories, re paid to do and try other tasks that took time to explain each in thirty seconds or one pageaccomplish. It's Just as they were beginning to get used to all herethis technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, from Schrodinger's catalong came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, to cosmic topologyalong with it, via all the Gaia hypothesis and chaos theorymany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184831129X</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanMatthew Tree|title=Boxer, BeetleWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=According Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to the blurb for Boxerbe different from his father, Beetle, 'This isa novel for people with breeding… It is cleverdrunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. It is distinctive. Itis entertaining. We hope you are tooSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.' I like about half of it, sodoes that mean I'm on the way to being those things?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998393</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phoebe Reeves MurrayA G Slatter|title=Ghost: Blood and FireThe Briar Book of the Dead|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'' There's something about living tattoos which you can take out a part 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 me 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 wants to work out what was going on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808863</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|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 keep this book, and on the evidence here that statement is correctjust to myself for however long I can. With a gutsyThis secret magic of my own, bloody opening to the adventure we see Taro being attacked by ninjasall mine, and rescued by a friendly vampire among them - having doubted the existence of both from his corner of sixteenth century rural Japanat last. The attack nearly leaves Taro an orphan, but opens himself up I just want to enjoy it for 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 himwhile.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873875</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Trevor Byrne1529900360|title=Ghosts and LightningThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Denny comes home to Dublin from Wales It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after his mum dies suddenlyAlex recovered, and hangs around drinking and taking drugs with Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his sister, her girlfriend help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and some -shut cases which didn't need the help of their mates, a psychologist only worked for a while he wonders what to do with himself. There are some practical matters to sort out too Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, such as who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the nasty older brother who owns their house and wants his siblings outman she loved needed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673309</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Douglas Rogers|title= The Last Resort|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayfrom the country many years agonext case did look simple, but has never been able to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn and Roz – to follow him out oftheir homeland, despite though. Two lovers were murdered in the resettlement policies swimming pool of Robert Mugabe,the hyper-inflation, and the corruption a remote property in the countryBel Air. Instead, He was thepair just wanted heir to stay on the farm welcoming people an Italian shoe empire and she is married to Drifters,their backpackersan extremely rich man and it' lodges not the Italian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Magrs1529395224|title=Hell's BellesLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=HumourAnimals and Wildlife|summary=The idea behind this series of novels is quite enchanting Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and amusing. FrankensteinRowlands didn's daughter is living and sleuthing t want to follow in Whitby, ably aided and abetted by her sidekick, the enigmatic Effie, and a growing menagerie of younger accompliceshis footsteps, namely Michael and Penny. Whilst particularly when he considered the original idea showed huge promise, I felt strain that the author has rather overdone it in terms of output, in his desire to capitalise being on-call put on his original successfather's life. Book two in When he was seventeen he took the series opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was quite disappointing, relying on sensationalism rather than adequate plot a vet and character developmentwas convinced this was the job for him. Book three Before long, he was an improvementat Liverpool University. It hadn't -and Ias with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'm delighted d wanted to report that this, the fourth book in the series, shows him returning to form with the promise we saw in the first of the seriesbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755346467</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Craig Silvey0861541774|title=Jasper JonesA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The title DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and central character of this bookformer colleague, Jasper Jones is a no-userDanny Maik, has taken a trouble-maker and has, for some reason short holiday in his hour of needSingapore to meet up with an old ally, sought help from an unlikely sourceGuy Trueman. Charlie Bucktin. Charlie is Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a rather bookish, quiet, unassuming teenagerGhurka. And although both boys live in the town of CorriganInitially, until now, they haven't spoken he faced a word charge of manslaughter but evidence came to each other. They live in different worlds. Until now, light that suggested that is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537540</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Thomas Mullen|title=The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The country is in deep recession. The economy has collapsed. The banks are hated and there's 'the next round of politicians, assuring us they were not afflicted by the same lack of vision as their predecessors'. Does this sound at all familiar? But just when you think you he might have strayed into planned to murder the non-fiction aisle, it all becomes clearman. This is 1930s America - full of gangsters, speakeasies, tommy guns, fedoras, beautiful heiresses, bumbling cops and Now he could be facing the newly formed FBI, daring bank robberies and kidnapsdeath penalty. Yes, the gang is all here, but 'The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers' is Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a lot more than your average gangster book diplomatic incident and itwouldn's a hugely fun storyt help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007340826</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=The Dog Who Came In From The Cold (Corduroy Mansions)Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ah, bliss! To sit down once more to an Alexander McCall Smith story and wish only for someone thoughtful to come and serve me tea and biscuits whilst I read! We are back, once again, with the residents of Corduroy Mansions 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 to. Written once again in serial format for The Daily Telegraph each short chapter Perfect Passion Company is a gemdating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the characters we met previously online apps in Corduroy Mansions are back again to entertain us.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971616</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gladys Mitchell|title=Death at the Opera|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Miss Ferris would not normally have been entertained for providing a major part in Hillmaston School's production of The Mikado. She was self-effacingmore personal, meek and not very talentedtailored service. But – she had offered to finance the cost of the production and this swung matters in Ness has asked her favour. It did mean that younger cousin Katie if she couldn't afford the holiday she had planned for the summer and had to spend it in her aunt's boarding house, but she'd been pleased to make the gesture as she'd been happy at the school.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546841</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Dunmore|title=The Betrayal|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Andrei is a perceptive could come and deeply conscientious doctor, a young rheumatologist and paediatrician working in a Leningrad hospital just look after the terrible siegebusiness, during the last days of Stalin’s dictatorship. He as Ness is as quick planning to notice symptoms in his colleagues as in his young patients. When he is approached by Russov, take a fellow physician, he registers his confrere’s pervading smell of fear. This is all part of the pathology of the times; life as it is lived under a tyrannical dictatorship. A dictatorship determined trip to Canada to pursue get away for a purge – a vendetta directed against doctors, particularly Jewish doctorswhile. The sweating Russov manages to inveigle Andrei Aleksayev into treating a very sick child, Gorya, the son Katie is coming out 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>}} {{newreview|author=Sophie McKenzie|title=Time Train to the Blitz|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=The summer holidays is break up with a time for relaxingbad boyfriend, playing in the sun, and getting bored – precisely what Joe and Scarlett are doing when we encounter them so jumps at the beginning of chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this thrilling book. It is hardly surprising thennew story from Alexander McCall Smith, that when the two children see a ghostly train racing towards them in the woodsbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, they take a risk thanks to 44 Scotland Street and step inside. The train itself is strangethe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but when they find clothes laid out in the single compartment with their own names marked on them, Joe starts some new characters who quickly begin to get really worriedcharm. His sister Scarlett, however Katie has no experience in running a business, 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 . . .|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0746097530</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emily Purdy|title=The Tudor Wife|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=From the moment she sets eyes on handsome George Boleyn, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly in love and prays that George will be hers. As Jane and George's families negotiate the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn and quickly realises that George only has eyes for Annematch-making, but remains determined that she can make George love Ness has full confidence in her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mari Strachan|title=The Earth Hums in B Flat|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Choosing a child as the viewpoint character of a novel requires confidence abilities, and imagination. To succeed is to convince the reader of events at two levels – the childthere's world within the adult world surrounding always her. The very best novels about childhoodhelpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, like say Harper Lee's classic, 'To Kill a Mockingbird'William, also reflect a wider cultural truth. In 'The Earth Hums in B Flat', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as the characters struggle to cope with their family secrets. If that sounds lend a bit tacky, fear not, because the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet and sharp corners.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Perry0811771741|title=The Sheen on the SilkInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary=Anna Zarides arrives Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in Constantinople, determined to find out why her twin brother Justinian has been convicted front of murderthe fire' variety. But it is 1273 The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, and a woman cannot move about freely five to ask questions. Anna is a skilled doctorten hours, who uses Arab ten to twenty hours and Jewish medicine in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: in her quest for information she disguises herself as a eunuch than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and successfully treats a wide range of people from the very poorest right up to the emperor himselfuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mavis CheekDean Koontz|title=Truth to TellThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=Robert Porter was angry. The politician filling the television screen was lyingBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He knew itloses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. He railed against it Oh, and said politician would have thought himself lucky not someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object 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 his home, and had it's possible that been the end of whoever or whatever was inside is the matter then thing that would have been has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the end of the matter – if you see what I meanvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. But the telephone rang and So fortunately for Benny it was Robert's boss with details of turns out that the team-bonding office trip delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to Floridahelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Robert assured him that he was really keen Spike is going to go (he wasn't) take care of Benny, and Nina was looking forward to it too (she wasn't). And then Nina started wondering about the difference between the politicianwill certainly take care of Benny's lies enemies, if he, Benny, and RobertHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's, er, evasionswild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Surely it must be possible to tell the truth?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091931673</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ally CarterAdam Stower|title=I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls)Murray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=If ever there were Murray is supposed to be a new series chock full of characters humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to make Harrysleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Ron, Hermione et al look like wimpswell, then this is it. Virginia might not be the most exciting whatever takes his fancy next of States, and sleepy Roseville may not be the most thrilling of towns, but for our purposes thattwo. But he's a bad magician's good. Boring cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and ordinary is good. Flying under the radar is good. To the town's residentscatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Gallagher Academy is just your typical all girls private school. They don't know much about itregular back garden, but then who would want to when it's clearly housing into a group world of snooty, snobby rich kids? Except..frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it's not. The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is not the place it makes out it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – this is an elite institution with a differencewell, one much bigger than Murray was, for all its boarders are spies in trainingto be honest, with a curriculum in lethal weapons but he's turned up 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 he'll have to master.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408309513</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=Barrie Roberts1529431735|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Man From HellWinter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Noted West Country philanthropist Lord Backwater It's February 1991 and Essex iskilled – by poachersbitingly cold, according to which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the police investigatingCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. His sondisagrees The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and calls in Sherlock Holmes, who quickly establishes thatthe true solution hasn't long to live. It's hard to the mystery feel any sympathy when Hopkins is much stranger – involving a fearedcriminal brotherhood, crimes from many years pastabducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the Gates boot ofHell themselvesa stolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565089</amazonuk>}} Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?