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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, & self-published books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|plus author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Xanthe MiltonTom Percival|title=Eat Me!: The Stupendous, Self-raising World of Cupcakes and Bakes According to Cookie GirlWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=CookeryConfident Readers|summary=What Will's life is difficult, in a stunning book this ismultitude of ways. The inside, that He is. I was almoststunned in a less positive way by bullied because he has 'the brightness of wrong shoes', he has the front cover.I donwrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like pink food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the best 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 dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of timeshope. He is good at art, and this book clings to the moments of joy when he is verydrawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, verypinkdark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091925118</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sandra WilsonSylvie Cathrall|title=A Change of FortuneLetter to the Luminous Deep|rating=35|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=Leonie Conyngham seemed There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to have everything going for her. She was beautiful and set to be the belle of the forthcoming season, but a family disaster stripped her of her position as the most important pupil in her school and placed her there as the lowliest teacher, there to do the bidding of those above hercompelling premise. Her possessions stolen and in debt she had little choice in the matter. Her physical attractions have not left her though, but now the young rakes of London are not looking at her as a possible wife, but to see who can be the first to deprive her And this is one of her virtuethem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709089996</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathy Cassidy0008517061|title=Love, Peace and Chocolate (Pocket Money Puffins)Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Jess and Kady have been best friends since they were three years old and now they're in year eight Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Parkway Community SchoolLittle Sky. They're on the edge of puberty but things have been There’s perhaps a bit slow on little uncertainty about the boyfriend front – not that either future of them is looking to rush thingshis life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, particularly as there isn't a single Y8 boy who can make their eyes light up. They've a good, solid friendship which means moving in together would mean a lot to both of them compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and they both think that nothing can come between relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the girls. future she wants for herself and her daughter? Unfortunately they hadn't taken For the arrival of Jack Somers into accountmoment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014133021X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Trapido1786482126|title=Sex and StravinskyThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Josh and Caroline and their daughter Zoe live on Builders were demolishing an old red bus house in Oxford, even though both have quite well paid jobs as an academic and headteacher. Caroline has spent her adult life deferring her plans for Norwich - the future in order site was going to support her widowed mother who lives in hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a house nearbyritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Josh’s job in It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the drama department of Bristol University does offer him one night they spent together some opportunities to escape abroad thoughthree months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, this time not least because Ruth is prone to a conference in his native South Africasudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802325</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Forde0008551324|title=Fifteen Minute Bob|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=For years, conscientious student Rory and his hard-working mother have struggled to cope with his father, an eyeliner wearing struggling singer-songwriter unable to hold down a job, and obsessed with a star called Bob Blade. While Rory finds hisfather's unreliability a nightmare to live with, his two friends Smiler and Barry think he's cool and spend more time hanging out with him than with Rory. As the trio of Smiler, Barry, and Rory's dad team up to make a music video that goes viral on the internet, Rory gets unwittingly involved and, in the words of the blurb from the back,'everything flips'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405229306</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Olga Alexandrovna, Paul Kulikovsky, Sue Woolmans and Karen Roth-Nicholls|title=25 Chapters of My Life: The Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga AlexandrovnaNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was born in 1882, youngest child of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and thus sister of It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas IIpolice. Her first marriage Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to Prince Peter Oldenburg, tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was probably gayresponsible for her death. This person, ended in an amicable divorcehe promises, is someone big and in 1916 she married Colonel Nicholas Kulikovskyit will be worth the police doing what he wants. They escaped from Russia after And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the revolution, remainder of his sentence and settled in Denmark for nearly thirty years until, feeling threatened by Stalin’s regime, they moved to Canadaget an early parole date. She outlived Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him by two years, dying in 1960is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906775168</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gillian Morgan0008405026|title=Salt BlueA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=35|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=I always judge 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 a book by its coverhalt. The eyes Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the pretty face on positioning of the cover of ''Salt Blue'' are arresting, but difficult to assign bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a period, though it’s clearly women’s or teen fictioncomplex double murder. I imagine Kerrigan is convinced that the cover might attract fiction readers of mainstream women’s magazines explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Women’s Weekly or Woman’s OwnDerwent's boss, so it’s spot on for the story insideUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784159</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Shone0571379877|title=In The RoomsKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The book jacket for this novel Edward Jevons is of New York by nighta working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a cityscape par excellencetheatre director. It also boasts Toby YoungHe's comment as ''laughalso self-out-loud funny.'' I have a lot of time obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for Toby Young. I find him witty and entertaining. But I usually approach claims such as this Edward has been in love with a healthy dose of 'we'll-waitStanza since their university days -and-seehe' scepticisms drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. However, Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he was right. And I am truly impressed with Shone's ability not like most men: Edward is left to make me laugh out loud and at stumble upon the very beginning two of the novel too. A very good sign of delights to come, I thoughtthem kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099534061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Natasha NarayanJo Callaghan|title=The Maharajah's Monkey: A Kit Salter AdventureLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Kit Salter has When a nose for adventure. Somehow she always finds troubleman is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, or it finds her, and this latest episode is no exception as she DCS Kat Frank finds herself travelling from assigned to the home comforts of Oxford all the way to Indiacase alongside her sidekick, then on to the freezing mountains of TibetAI detective Lock. What has happened to Monsieur Champlon? It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Has he abandoned poor Aunt Hilda? Why But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is the mysterious monkey leaving threatening messages for Kit? 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 what does it all have Will they be able to do with solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the Maharajah? Kit case and her friends set off on , potentially, out of a fantastic journey to investigate.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847245293</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith and Tony Lee1399613073|title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic NovelMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=34.5|genre=Graphic NovelsThrillers|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a zombie story quarter of any renown will not remain simply a zombie storycentury. Before Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you can say ''the risen undead'' it will become aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a series of books, inspiring others, perfectionist and/or lead to the same story being published in many different guisesa trauma doctor. Here, then, on its way to Hollywood, Anjali is Jane Austen’s story the free spirit of Lizzie Bennet, the feisty young woman trying to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it'manky unmentionabless going to end in tragedy. We don'' – at least she is until t know who suffered the hidden truths open up to her, just as tragedy or the soft soils of Hertfordshire do to yield their onceconsequences. Twenty-human remainsfive years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. And this This time it’s in graphic novel form, it's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566948</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Celine Kiernan0241636604|title=The Poison ThroneTrading Game: Moorehawke TrilogyA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyAutobiography|summary=After years away from her childhood home at If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the courtEast End, Wynter Moorhawke – now an apprentice carpenter to her seriously ill father Lorcan – returnswhere he was familiar with violence, desperate to see her childhood friends Prince Alberon poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his halfCV -brother Razibut he had been to the London School of Economics. But Alberon Stevenson is in exile, 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. It was his father King Jonathonability at what was, essentially, far a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from being the kind ruler Wynter remembersher beloved aunt, reigns with an iron fistCarole. As Razi Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Jonathon’s illegitimate sonArthur Crockleford, is appointed dead and the unwilling heir circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the thronereason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, Wynter must help him 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 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 was murdered) and Freya and his friend Christopher survive in increasingly dangerous timesJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498211</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate LawsonAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Mother of the BrideAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=This is the story ''Opening up new ways of Jess Foster who is busily preparing for her forthcoming marriage to Max Porter, willingly aided by her mum, Molly, and her stepmother, Marnie. It soon becomes apparent though that thinking about the women have different ideas, particularly opinionated Marnie who seems set on Jess having the society wedding shape of the year and even goes as far as hiring a wedding planner. Molly, on the other hand, agrees with Jess that things should really be kept simpleto come. Thus the scene is well set for all the moods and mayhem which occurs when arranging a wedding. Will Jess be able to stick to her guns and arrange the type of wedding that she wants or will it just be easier to give in to other suggestions?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561179</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard PlattSunny Singh|title=Would You Believe...two cyclists invented the aeroplane?!Hotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionThrillers |summary=Where can you find The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a welter of trivia and facts about transport terrorist group. Hiding from the agesterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, from the first use of Shanks’s pony, hotel manager. As Abhi continues to the latest holidays try to care remotely for the edge of space? What has so much detail it can fit residents who are still alive in the reasons for Mark Twain’s pen-name? hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Where can Although they only ever talk over the adult browsing phone, their child’s non-fiction library find a 'Glamorous Glennis' going 'kinda screwy' friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see how it refers to the breaking of if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the sound barrier? In these tidy 48 pages, for oneterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0199119694</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Morris Gleitzman1529153298|title=NowThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=We first met Felix in It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'Onces not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. He thought he was the luckiest child in the orphanage Well, they've been murdered, since he was the only one whose parents werenbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't deadsound quite so frightening. Sadly, he was wrong about Miv's upset because she's overheard that. We followed his story in her father wants to move the family 'Down South'Then'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, in which he and his dear the move would mean leaving her best friend Zelda are on the run from the Nazis at the height of the Holocaust and its terrifying Final Solution. In Now, we catch up with Felix many years later. He's built a good life as a surgeon in AustraliaSharon, and is now frustratingly retired, unable she'll do anything to operate because of his shaky handsprevent that. He She's looking after his granddaughter, Zeldanot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's namesake, whose parents are doctors volunteering in Darfurstopped talking - to anyone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>014132998X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Justine Hardy1398524085|title=In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir's Long War - One Family's Extraordinary StoryHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Joseph RuebinsCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. He is one second away from a very satisfying climax to his boxing careerHer children, sons Niall, Paul and winding up for his ultimate punchOllie and her daughter, when he freezesEtty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, and suffers a strokeAlec, and ends up in hospitalis not. Overnight someone kills Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the elderly man body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the next bedriver. Meanwhile, a policeman hunts down 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 man who killed his songuilt. Where The Salter children are the connecting links - not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and how could the fact that Joseph was put in the wrong ward due to a mishap with the forms imperil the rest of his close-knit family?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956236898</amazonuk>wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Stockbridge1035906708|title=The Fortunes of Grace HammerDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=The short prologue shares with the reader a childhood incident We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in the life of Grace HammerDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. It had a dramatic effect on her and Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her life thereafter. She is a father changed person. Sheit to 's also driven. She grows into a desirable woman and turns menCallas's heads wherever she goesto make it more manageable in the States. But When she's also smart. Some would perhaps think at this point, why not go 'up west', bag a sugarwas back in Athens -daddy and live in luxury supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the rest Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her days? But life is not as simple as thatpreference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520958</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel DeWoskinChristopher Edge|title=Repeat After MeBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=September 1989: It is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a few months after the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijingmovie marathon at their local cinema, China. Aysha is teaching English at a private language school in New York Cityplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. She makes friends with some All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of her students. Da Ge is angry exciting films, and disruptive yet attractive and interesting at many, many snacks! However, as the same timemovie starts, and they very quickly become involved, although his interest in her realise that something about this new film format is not as romantic asvery different, perhaps, she would like it to beand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. He asks her But as they lurch from one film genre to marry him so he can stay in the country. Aysha agreesnext, although there can they figure out what on earth is still a lot she does not know about going on? Will they ever get back to the mysteriouscinema, unstable Da Ge.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715638998</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicola MorganRachel Greenlaw|title=WastedCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jess wants to study music. She's a wonderful singer'I can hear the song of the sea. And so a chance encounter with JackThe call of the deep, who needs a singer for his band, is exactly the happenstance she'd hoped for. Even better that Jack is so charming and handsome and charismatic. And still better that he feels the same attraction to her. How lucky can a girl get? Jack believes answering beat in luckmy heart. In fact, he lives his life by it. He doesn't do a thing unless his coin says he can. Newly in love, Jess is slowly drawn into his game of chance. Although it worries her a little, she can't know that a time will come when the toss of a coin is the difference between life and death. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321958</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carl McInerneyJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Funniest Football Joke Book EverPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Who scored the most goals in Things have been a bit sticky for the Greek Mythology League? The centaur forwardEarthlings. Badoom boom tshhhhAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. It's a football joke book, packed Just as they were beginning to get used to the gills with all sorts this technological change and starting to think of cheesiness other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and silliness. Funniest ever? Perhaps not, but along with it's not too bad, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849391114</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Matthew Tree
|title=We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk 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. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.
|isbn= 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=Keris Stainton1529900360|title=Della Says: OMG! The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Ever since she was four, Della has It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had a secret crush on Dan, the good-looking been badly injured but he felt responsible and gentle boy who once shared his brand new crayons with her. And noweven after Alex recovered, more than ten years later, he wants Sturgis was reluctant to kiss herask for his help on difficult cases. It seems too good to be true, His assertions that there were only open-and -shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while Della fears the whole thing is a joke. Finally, set up by mean girl Gemima. After allit was Robin, Gemima is DanDelaware's best friendpartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. And then disaster strikes: Della's very private and confidential diary goes missing She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The diary with all the excruciatingly embarrassing entries about Dan, her familynext case did look simple, her friendsthough. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408304279</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Liane Moriarty1529395224|title=What Alice ForgotLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Women's FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary='This wasnSiôn 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 worst thing strain that had ever happened to her…it being on-call put on his father's life. When he was just seventeen he took the most ridiculous' laments thirty nine year old mother opportunity of three, Alice, doing work experience with a family friend who has had the last ten years of her life struck from her memory by was a blow to vet and was convinced this was the head in her step aerobics classjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. Alice now thinks sheIt hadn's twenty nine, newly pregnant t - as with her first so many students - been his dream since he was a child and happily married . If anything, he'd wanted to Nick and furthermore she hasn't be a clue what she's doing at an aerobics class in the first placeprofessional footballer. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043768</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Coe0861541774|title=The Terrible Privacy A Nye of Maxwell SimPheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. 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 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 death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Maxwell Sim. ActuallyThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, perhaps I should rephrase that so that it doesn't sound like run by Ness and operating as an imperative instruction - for if you do meet himalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, you might not like the experiencetailored service. An ex-salesmanNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, he's now in after sales (ie he's stuck on as Ness is planning to take a customer returns counter in trip to Canada to get away for a department store); however he while. Katie is completely awful coming out of a break up with regards a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to other peopleEdinburgh. His wife has run off with their daughterAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, all his few friends have forsaken him (thanks to 44 Scotland Street and his Facebook wall). We start the book Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with him trying some new characters who quickly begin to patch things up with his father, who's safely in Australiacharm. He finds all those who know of him are already aware he's depressed. Those who don't know him can find him painfully shyKatie has no experience in running a business, or able to talk away their will to livein match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, gabbling on and on about Watford. But a lot is about to change. Hethere's about always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to be combined with some people excited about green toothbrushes.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917389</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Samantha Hunt0811771741|title=The SeasInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''The SeasInstaKnits for Baby'' follows the story gives us a collection of a nameless nineteenknits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits -year old girl who is lonely and adrift in a cruel coastal town so far to the north others are of the USA that the roads only run south. She misses her father, an absent alcoholic sailor, while her silence-loving mother, who grew up on an isolated island with deaf parents'long, worries deeply about her. Early on cosy afternoons in front of the story we get fire' variety. The projects are divided by the distinct impression that our narrator is not deemed time they'normal' by her peersll take to complete - less than five hours, who call her all sorts of unflattering things. With nothing five to do in her small townten hours, and no one ten to do it with, she spends her time pining for a local alcoholic called Jude who is fifteen years her senior, twenty hours and who refuses her amorous advances on the grounds that it would be wrongmore than twenty hours. As All the story unfoldsprojects are attractive, Jude modern and the girluseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's relationship grows and changes, sometimes in unexpected waysme being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013934</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lara FoxDean Koontz|title=Miss Understanding: My Summer on the ShelfThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensParanormal|summary=Anya Buxton Benny is backhaving a terrifically bad day. ItHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the summer holidays and her mum thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is keen for her the very last person to find deserve all this bad luck. He is a summer job rather than waste her days lounging around at homenice person. A really nice person. After So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the brief, worrying possibility that she might just end up as a newspaper delivery girl she lands a dream position gaining work experience with a London publishing to his house. She finds herself simultaneously editing is a dishy, though slightly disturbed teen authornew friend, struggling with a long distance relationship with Albad weather friend called Spike, wondering if 'The Boy' really who has turned over been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a new leaf good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and being wooed by the bosswill certainly take care of Benny's son. Andenemies, if he, of courseBenny, sheand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's blogging it all for her dedicated followerswild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340988835</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheryl Webster and Tim WarnesAdam Stower|title=What Small Rabbit HeardMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=It's cold Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and windy. Small Rabbit just wants friendly cat, one who is able to stay insidesleep and eat and eat and sleep and, but Big Rabbit insists that itwell, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's freshcat, not coldso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they're going on both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a walkworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. He's This time round it drops them into a bit of Viking land, where a cheeky scamp troll hunter is Small Rabbitexpected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, so when Big Rabbit says ''try to keep up''be honest, Small Rabbit somehow mishears it as but he's turned up and he'jump in the mud''. As the walk goes on, Small Rabbit mishears Big Rabbit time and time again, getting up ll have to all sorts of shenanigans.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192728679</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael BoothB0C47LV1PC|title=Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know About CookingFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Politicians continue to argue that the solution to social issues lies with the family, so it is timely that at the heart of Lionel Shriver's 2005 Orange Prize winning novel is the issue of nature vs nurture - what makes Can you make a person like he or she is? Is the eponymous Kevin born evil or is he influenced by his mother's coldness towards him. There are no clear answers and that's what gives this brave book, which tackles the taboos that some mothers donYo birthing person't bond with their children, such power.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687349</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elin Hilderbrand|title=The Castaways|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=On the island of Nantucket, four couples have forged strong bonds of friendship. Together they live and love, raise their children, share their dreams. It's an idyllic existence and at the same time a very purposeful one. The couples have worked hard to create the quality of life they now enjoy and nothing can take it away from them. Until now. Greg and Tess are dead, the result of what appears to be a sailing accident. They leave behind two young children, and six devastated friends, all of whom have to come to terms with what has happened. For some there is guilt over final words said or final warnings left unsaid. For others, there is the knowledge that secret relationships will now have to stay that way evermore. 'The Castaways' is the book of that fateful summer, the accident and its aftermath, but it's more than just that. It's a look at the precious role friends and family play in our lives, and how innocent actions or words can change the course of history forever.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919825</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jenna Burtenshaw|title=Wintercraft|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=The wardens raid villages and cities for people competent to fight in the war, a war nobody knows anything about other than joke? And if you’re sent to fight you don’t come back. The last time they raided Morvane was ten years agocould, taking Kate’s parents with them. Kate is taken in by her uncle, Artemis, and grows up in the book shop with him and her friend, Edgar. But now the wardens are back, and looking for more people to fight. However, they are also looking for the Skilled – a dying breed of people who can see through the veil of life and death. They want to build an army of the dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755370961</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Dessen|title=Infinity (Pocket Money Puffins)|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Girl is a teen from small town America. We don't know where exactly, but question should you make it's somewhere people drive (which rules out the likes of NYC) and it's somewhere that has a roundabout. Most of America doesn't have these – instead they have much more sensible crossings and lights and T-junctions – so it's a source of intrigue for many of the town's residents. For new driver Girl the roundabout ? Or is joint top on her List Of Things To Master, along with sleeping with her boyfriend Anthony. They might seem entirely unrelated to the likes of question if you and medid, but to Girl the links are clear. They're both things she will have to deal with for a first time eventually, but she still can't decide whether to rush ahead in order to get them out of the way quickly, or put them off for just a little longer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141330775</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Prineas|title=would it land? The Magic Thief: Found|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=When we last saw Conn, he had blown up his wizard master's house, was exiled from the city of Wellmet, and lost his locus magicalus (it's like a magic wand, just it's a stone). He's been unable to do magic ever since, which is rough because he needs his powers now more than ever. A terrible evil catch is blazing a trail towards Wellmet, intent on destroying the city, and Conn's only hope to defeat it is to somehow get a new locus magicalus. He sets out on a quest to find one, but the journey is long and dangerous, and time is running out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161917</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Amanda Sington-Williams|title=The Eloquence of Desire|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The novel starts in the post-war austerity years in England and centres around a middle-class, traditional family unit. Sington-Williams gives the reader a detailed description of that period - the bland food, the monotony of commuting to London (some things don't change) and of course, the rain. George, his wife Dorothy and their teenage daughter Susan don't really talk to each otheranswer for both could well be. They tend to skirt round issues and walk on eggshells. Appearances are everything. So a suitably fabricated story is told to their small, family circle of George's company move. George has no choice in the matter. So he does what he always has done up till now, he puts a brave face on for the world and grins and bears it. It's a huge change in their domestic situation. Uprooted to a strange, foreign, tropical country they've only glimpsed in National Geographic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230114</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Wildsmith1529431735|title=Animal GalleryThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Starting off with a crash of rhinoceroses, through a corps of giraffes, a hover of trout, It's February 1991 and ending up with a dray of squirrelsEssex is bitingly cold, Brian Wildsmith treats us to a beautiful look at collections of animals.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019272794X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=China Mieville|title=Kraken|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Meet Billy Harrow, curator of molluscs and other pickled creatureswhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Imagine if you will BillyHe's thoughts d been exiled on entering the chamber that houses the highlight of his museumCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's tour had a letter from his ex- an immense squidwife, housed in a glass crate - only saying that she's ill and hasn't long to find the entire thing - animal and tank - impossibly removedlive. Imagine, too, the more esoteric kind of policeman and -woman needed It's hard to arrivefeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to tell him that his exhibit was underwear and sent to a watery grave in the keystone boot of a mysterious cult with the end of times on their mind, and that they might just like Billy to infiltrate it and see what was precisely whatstolen Ford Sierra. Just consider - is Billy, the man who bottled the giant squid, Is it a warning from a John the Baptist to this cult, Spanish gang or a Judasproblem closer to home?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0333989503</amazonuk>}}