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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 [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]... or so Nick thinks. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141316330'''</amazonukbr>}}
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HaleTom Percival|title=Sudden Death (Striker)The Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Jake BastinWill's life is difficult, son in a multitude of famous former footballer Steveways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', thought he has the wrong shoes because his life was difficult dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even before his father enters negotiations to join St Petersburg’s newest football team as manager. But when the agent his dad’s discussing the move with collapses most basic of a suspected heart attackthings like food, things get far more complicated – and his dad can't work because Jake is convinced he lost his job at the college, was actually poisoned, working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and can’t understand why had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems happy to go along with bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a cover uptiny amount of hope. As the pair move to St Petersburg, the bodies start piling up He is good at art, and Jake goes from having clings to fight to control his temper, to fight to save his life. With no way the moments of knowing if joy when he can trust anyoneis drawing, even his own fatherthat feel like a light at the end of a long, can the youngster stand up to criminals who are happy to kill to get what they want?dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405249501</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colin WatersSylvie Cathrall|title=A Pregnant Ghost and Other Sexual HauntingsLetter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Spirituality and ReligionScience Fiction|summary=This is There are few greater joys than a book that does what it sets out which lives up to do on the tin, and does so in almost glorious fashiona compelling premise. The back cover blurb promises hilarity and tittilation, but And this will also fit on the shelf of any academic looking into the hornier side of the Fortean world, as well as anyone relishing the most singular collection is one of ghost legends that I can remember readingthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709089902</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dominic Barker0008517061|title=Adam and the ArkonautsDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Adam is on a missionFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Both he and There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his father have spent the decade since life with his mother was kidnapped by an Evil Scientist looking for vet girlfriend, Livia and herdaughter Diana, and perfecting their own skills. They might have got the best clue as moving in together would mean a lot of all so far compromise: does Jake give up his off- one that has led them to the mysterious, hidden, grid and downright alarming city of Buenos Suenos. Those skills? Being able relaxing life to communicate move in with animals. Since learning Livia or does Livia move to gibber like a spider monkey they can both bark, purr perfectly, Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and more. her daughter? It will take For the extraordinary menagerie to survive moment they’re enjoying life in the unusual city, and try present and discover what happened to Adam's mum - and what putting the Evil Scientist might want by holding her hostage for future on the same skills in returnback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880025X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Juan Gabriel Vasquez1786482126|title=The Secret History of CostaguanaJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=In 1904 PolishBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich -born British novelist Joseph Conrad wrote his novel about a selfthe site was going to hold seventy-publicising Italian expatriate by the name of five 'luxury'Nostromo'', set in apartments - when they discovered the fictitious South American republic bones of Costaguanaa child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Columbian writer Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, Juan Gabriel Vásquez imagines that the fictitious José Altamirano has assisted Conrad in she is pregnant with his research by telling him his own story, only to find that child as a result of the British novelist has subsequently inexcusably omitted him from his bookone night they spent together some three months ago. Now Her condition will be obvious before long, he not least because Ruth is seeking prone to set the record straight by telling the reader, who he imagines in the role sudden bouts of a jury, as well as someone named Eloísa (who we later find out about) the same story to pass judgement on if this was fairsickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800187</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Barratt0008551324|title=Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral HistoryDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=As Barratt points out It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the opening pages, there are literally thousands of titles available about police where the sinking body of the Titanica missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, at the time the largesthe promises, most expensive is someone big and most luxurious ship ever builtit will be worth the police doing what he wants. His aim in this volume And what he wants is to bridge be transferred to an open prison to serve the gap between another forensic examination remainder of how his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it sank, ? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and yet another reshe's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded -run of what he calls the familiar stories of heroism make certain that DS Max Craigie and tragedy anyone who works with him is kept well away from literature in the public domain to provide the human story behind the disasterwhat's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848091516</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick Woodhead0008405026|title=The Forbidden TempleA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=35|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Luca, a mountaineer trying to escape It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from his disappointingly unsupportive parents her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a past accidenthalt. Now, her mother, Helena, witnesses something strange and her father are dead in the distancetheir bed. Initially, while watching his climbing partner Bill put the kibosh on their latest sky-bursting Himalayan ascent - a mountain shaped it looks like a perfect pyramid, circled by other peaks hestraightforward murder/suicide but there's never seen beforesomething about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Back in England nobody else seems What looked as though it was going to have seen them either, but colleagues mention mysterious Shangribe an open-La style Buddhist sanctuaries and- could this be the prime one, hidden from prying eyes for centuries? Nobody wants to declare it actually exists at allshut case is now a complex double murder. MeanwhileKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Himalayan natives Una Burt) are trying to pull the wool over Chinese occupiers' eyes regarding a very sacred personageless convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090773</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Abby McDonald0571379877|title=The Liberation of Alice LoveKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=You can just picture Alice Love standing before the panel on BritainEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's Got Talenta theatre director. He'And what do you do?' they like s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to askrun errands for him.<br>'I work Edward has been in the film industry...love with Stanza since their university days - and he'<br>'Oooh, really?'<br>'.s drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert..as a lawyer.'<br>'Oh.' Like all those accountants theyMost men in Robert're always showing, you can imagine that Alice too s position would receive a rather luke-warm welcome on the show. And Alice would concur stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that her job isn't all that glam, even if her industry itself is a bit swish. But itrelationship had begun between them but he's an appropriate job for her, since Alice not like most men: Edward is very sensible and by-left to stumble upon the-book. She's certainly not the type two of person to go overdrawn, or run into any kind of trouble financially, so when her card is declined one day she's pretty sure it's just them kissing in a computer errordark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099533928</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Guillermo OrsiJo Callaghan|title=Leave No-one Loves a PolicemanTrace|rating=2.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It 's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is December 2001 a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and Argentina is a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in crisistime, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4. Pablo Martelli used 5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a policeman – not just any policeman, but part cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a force now referred GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to as end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the National Shame' for its role doing horrible things to opponents of consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the military regimethree friends. Now he sells bathrooms This time, but it seems he cannot escape his past – once a policeman, always a policeman's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694028</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Jackson0241636604|title=MoonwalkThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Michael JacksonIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's autobiography, based on tapere unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-recorded conversations with stripe suit and his editor Shaye Ereheartbackground is the East End, where he was first published in 1988familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. This new edition has an introduction by Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records and There was no posh public school on his original mentor, and an afterword by Areheart about how CV - but he had been to the book was writtenLondon School of Economics. The main part of the book Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a straight reprint facility with numbers which most of the original, with no updating at allus can only envy. Intriguingly, although Gordy's four pages refer He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to is protégé in the past tense, calling him ''the greatest entertainer that ever lived'be stupid. It was his ability at what was, Areheart's writingessentially, and also the cover, refer to a card game which got him in the presentan internship with Citibank. No reference anywhere is made to his untimely deathEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547953</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lulu Taylor1035021803|title=Midnight GirlsThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Best friends Allegra McCorquodaleIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Imogen Heath Carole. Freya's former mentor and Romily de LisleCarole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, known as is dead and the Midnight Girlscircumstances seem suspicious, spend their nights at to say the least. Arthur was the exclusive Westfield Boarding School for Girls up reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, 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 attic rooms smoking and bitchingprofession she loved. But when After the girls are witness to split, she worked in a tragic accidentcafe, they become bound together forever by what they met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have seen and vow never to tellnow divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099524929</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenny NimmoAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Charlie Bone All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and the Red KnightStephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Since the loss of his father, Charlie Bone has had to live in the house of horrible Grandmother Bone. But when he discovers he can hear people in pictures talking, a whole ''Opening up new world opens to him. His grandmother and her even more unpleasant sisters insist he should now attend Bloor Academy, a school where he meets other children endowed with magical abilities because they are descendants ways of thinking about the Red King. This King, an African magician, came to the North nine hundred years ago, and left a part shape of his powers things to each his ten childrencome. But several of those children turned to evil, as have their descendants, and Charlie and his friends have to stop them from doing terrible harm to the town. In each of the books in the ''Charlie Bone'' series, he encounters new allies and new enemies, until the whole story culminates in one immense final battle in 'Charlie Bone and the Red Knight'. This book is based on the search for a will, a quest which gradually draws together many of the themes of the series, and ends with the kind of solution which will leave the reader sighing with satisfaction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405249609</amazonuk>}}
}}
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=Dexter Bexley and The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the Big Blue Beastie terrorists who are hooting rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and hooting and hootingAbhi, the hotel manager. Everyone As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in town is sick the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to the back teeth of their incessant hootingbe cowed by events, so they kick them and keeps on venturing out of townher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Dexter and Although they only ever talk over the Beastie hit the roadphone, hooting their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they go, embarking on a rollicking adventure and meeting up with a princess and a dragonboth wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385617720</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken McClure1529153298|title=Dust to Dust (Steven Dunbar)The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=John Motram It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a cell biologistPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) HeShe's a promising and well-not what's worrying Miv's family, though of academic and his pet subject is - Black Death. Intrigue is high on the agenda right from the beginningWomen have been disappearing. Motram is invited Well, they've been murdered, but to a meeting along with other high-fliers in their respective fieldshave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. This meeting is top secretMiv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. Motram When you're from Yorkshire, Down South isa frightening, howeverforeign place, mystifiedbest avoided. The situation appears pretty straightforwardFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, so why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, he wondersshe'll do anything to prevent that. And why has everyone to refer to She's not worried about the patient only as dangers or that her Mum'Patient X?'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971268</amazonuk>s stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Captain William Wells1398524085|title=A Sailor's TalesHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Captain William Wells Charlotte Salter was born in New Zealand where his father ran a successful carpentry businessexpected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but his heart wasn- strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg't in following his s father into the family firm or , Duncan Ackerley, in most of the lessons at schoolriver. He It was an enthusiastic sportsman but what enthralled him most were easy assumption for the ships sailing out of Wellington harbour, which police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he could see from his bedroom windowcouldn't stand the guilt. Without his parentsThe Salter children are not convinced but there' knowledge he applied for a scholarship which allowed six boys each year to travel to the UK and undertake s little else they can do but get on with their basic nautical training. Billy Wells, who previously had only got 2% in his English exam (his name was spelled correctly) had the second highest score in the country lives and was soon on his way to Englandwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095629040X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Holly McQueen1035906708|title=Confetti Confidential|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=''Confetti Confidential'' is the third book in the Isabel series, but the first one I've read. Even without that grand claim on the front, you couldn't help but draw comparisons between Kinsella's series and this one from the very first page. The writing style is virtually identical – to the point where you do actually wonder if this is just a pseudonym – and while the chatty, chummy, conversational approach is not for everyone, if it's the sort of thing you like then this is the sort of book you'll love.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545756</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Sabrina Broadbent|title=You Don't Have To Be GoodDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Bea Kemp has reached a crisis point We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in her life. She is in her fortiesManhattan, childlessNew York, enjoying a tedious job in December 1923 and a lacklustre marriage with Frankonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. She seems Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to have spent her entire life 'being goodCallas' and to make it really does not seem to have got more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her anywhere. Her only pleasure seems to come from voice - she was raised under the time she spends with Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her niece and nephew, Laura and Adrian, and as made no secret of her preference for her successful elder sister Katharine has no qualms about using her as an unpaid childminder, that's quite a lot! However, all that looks set to change when Katharine announces that she is moving away with the children so she does not need Bea to look after themJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535556</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rekha WaheedChristopher Edge|title=Saris and the CityBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=Yasmin Yusuf is a likeable main character with a group of Sex-Lucas and-the-City-style his friends. The story begins with Yasmin splitting up with the man she was convinced was going to propose, rapidly followed by losing her job. We then follow her as she determines to become successful and make her mark are all booked in her new jobfor a movie marathon at their local cinema, whilst holding out for ''a place that has the packagenickname of 'The Black Hole' in her personal life. I particularly liked the way each chapter is a lesson All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and lets many, many snacks! However, as the reader know what Yasmin will be learning or proving through events played out in movie starts, they very quickly realise that chapter. For examplesomething about this new film format is very different, chapter one is ''Lesson One: If he's the bad boy and youthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn're t even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the good girlnext, you will can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get burnt''back to the cinema, hence the resulting ex-boyfriend.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755356136</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marjorie M LiuJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Iron Hunt (Hunter Kiss)Planet Storyland|rating=34.5|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=Maxine is the last in the line of the Wardens, who wear demons as tattoos in Things have been a bit sticky for the day, making them invulnerableEarthlings. At nightAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they'the boys' peel away and leave her open re paid to attack – do and there are an awful lot of people out other tasks that took time to attack heraccomplish. While she's spent her life, since inheriting the tattoos from her mother, tackling zombies (who are humans possessed by demons in Just as they were beginning to get used to all this worldtechnological change and starting to think of other, rather than 'traditional' zombies)new ways to spend time, she quickly finds there are far worse things out there in the prison dimension they call homealong came an awful pandemic. The death of an investigator trying to find her leads to strange alliances being formedLife was pretty much shut down and, questions about her past being raisedalong with it, and all the end of the world approaching… unless she can stop itmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498009</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kenzaburo OeMatthew Tree|title=The ChangelingWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The novel starts Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at the end. Therefore we know that one any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of the two principal characters, namely Goro, appears to have committed suicideself confidence. The question is why. And the whole novel is an attempt So Tim applied himself to provide that elusive answer. Goro was an extremely successful film director of international repute. He was based in his native Japan studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but travelled extensively with his workachievable ambitions. And you have to ask yourself why would a man such as this decide to end his life?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843547341</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Ryan1529900360|title=Signal RedThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Ryan has certainly researched thoroughly It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for this novel - and it showshis help on difficult cases. Straight away the blurb on the back cover tells us His assertions that therewere only open-and-shut cases which didn's an 'afterword' by Bruce Reynolds, no less than t need the ringmaster/leader help of the Great Train Robbery ganga psychologist only worked for a while. Notice how Finally, itwas Robin, Delaware's always given capital letters. Even all these decades down the linepartner, those readers of a certain age remember it and perhaps shake their head in amazementwho nudged Milo into asking for help again. And there's also a very useful 'aftermath' section as Ryan painstakingly sets out all She knew that the robbers' names and what's happened since involvement was something that date in the summer of 1963. Perhaps, like others, I also assumed the leader, the top man if you like, was Ronnie Biggsshe loved needed. No soThe next case did look simple, apparentlythough. I also remember television footage Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of his release from prison on compassionate grounds only a year or so agoremote property in Bel Air. The crime seems He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to have achieved almost mythical proportions - some would say an extremely rich man and it's up there with what were you doing when JFK not the Italian. But which of them was assassinatedthe primary target?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075535818X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Hooper1529395224|title=Fallen GraceLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Grace Parkes is not yet sixteen when she loses her babySiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Worse still, it is 1861, His father was a GP and Grace is unmarried. To have a baby out of wedlock is a shameful thing for a girl Rowlands didn't want to follow in Victorian timeshis footsteps, even if it is not by her own choice, and Grace has to cope all alone with particularly when he considered the shame of her condition and strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the loss opportunity of her child, not to mention doing work experience with a sister family friend who needs constant care was a vet and their increasing povertywas convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. But ''Fallen Grace' It hadn' is not some nineteenth century version of the misery memoir: Grace has resourcefulness and determination t - as well as beautywith so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, and her story moves at he'd wanted to be a gripping paceprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747599130</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carrie Ryan0861541774|title=The Dead-Tossed WavesA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Gabry DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has lived her whole life behind the safety of the Barriertaken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in the seaside town of Vistaa street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. She isn't keen to venture past it Initially, to explore the remains he faced a charge of an old amusement park, manslaughter but Gabry is drawn by evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the allure of Catcher, her best friend Cira's brotherman. Cira and the others are sure they will Now he could be safe from the Mudo – the shambling undead that plague facing the world Gabry lives indeath penalty. Gabry decides Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to risk it, help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and her whole world is turned upside downwouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575090898</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Giles MiltonAlexander McCall Smith|title=According to Arnold: A Novel of Love and MushroomsThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Arnold Trevellyan’s ordinary life The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as a charismatic auctioneer is about an alternative to change all the online apps in ways he could never have imaginedproviding a more personal, tailored service. Encouraged by his wife Flora Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a sabbatical, the two head trip to a remote region of France Canada to indulge Arnold’s passion get away for mushroomsa while. Whilst Katie is coming out in of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the forest hunting for rare mushrooms Arnold stumbles across a secret hidden for centurieschance to come home to Edinburgh. This secret makes him abandon Flora And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and their life together for the island of Tuva Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in the South Pacific where he soon finds himself married her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to Lola, its queen.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330452517</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joan M Moules0811771741|title=Fragile MemoriesInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=34|genre=Women's FictionCrafts|summary=Maura was surprised when she inherited the manor house at Picton near SalisburyMelissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. She hadnSome will be quick knits - others are of the 't been close to her Uncle Tom for many years and he had a stepson, Jimlong, whom she thought would have inherited cosy afternoons in preference to herfront of the fire' variety. It was five years since sheThe projects are divided by the time they's been back ll take to Picton and when she returned complete - less than five hours, five to put the property on the market she was surprised by the extent of her longing ten hours, ten to return theretwenty hours and more than twenty hours. Money was going to be a problem thoughAll the projects are attractive, modern and useable. She worked as a model and couldnI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 't really to this from the manor – and she didnsocial-media-worthy projects't have the money for the propertybut that's upkeepme being picky. Her boyfriend, Nick, had an answer. He already had three successful restaurants and was looking to extend into the countryside – what better place could there be for his new restaurant?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090587</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth Thomson and Chloe ThomsonDean Koontz|title=Have You Started Yet?: You and your period: getting the facts straightThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionParanormal|summary=Every young girl will face her periods starting but it’s the preparation which goes on beforehand which will determine whether or not this Benny is seen as the body developing naturally or having a problemterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Both are attitudes which are likely Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to stay through life his home, and it’s obviously better it's possible that it’s whoever or whatever was inside is the firmer rather than thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the lattervery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. ‘’Have You Started Yet’’ gives factual information in an informative and reassuring manner and in A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a form which good person. Spike is easily readable going to girls take care of about nine years old Benny, and abovewill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230744907</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony BrowneAdam Stower|title=Me Murray and YouBun|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=Once upon Murray is supposed to be a time there was a little girl called Goldilocks... You know humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the resttwo. But he's a bad magician'Me s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and You'' flips the classic fairy tale aroundcatflap they both use can chuck them out, telling it from not into the three bears' point regular back garden, but into a world of viewfrightening adventure and whiffs. Nice idea This time round it drops them into a Viking land, non? It where a troll hunter isexpected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but calling it a retelling merely scratches the surface...he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385614896</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David GatwardB0C47LV1PC|title=The Dead (The Dark)Fragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When the dead body of Filipino writer Crispin Salvador is found floating in the Hudson RiverCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, apparently having committed suicide, his student and fellow Filipino, Miguel is suspicious that darker forces may have been behind his death, particularly when there is no sign of Salvador's latest manuscript that threatens to dish the dirt on the sleaze and corruption of the rich and powerful in his native Philippines. In order to investigate further, Miguel decides to write a biography of his teacher and mentor. That's the premise of this book, but it tells question should you almost nothing about the experience of reading make it. This ? Or is no straightforward narrative of a regular crime fiction. It's a kaleidoscope of sometimes apparently disjointed writing that gradually comes together to create a story that only starts to come into focus about half way throughthe question if you did, but would it's not until the final pages where the true picture land? The catch is brilliantly revealed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510002</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anna Kendall|title=Crossing Over|rating=3|genre=Teens|summary=Roger can cross over into the Country of that the Dead. To be able to do this he must answer for both could well be in pain, something his abusive Uncle, Hartah, takes full advantage of. So they travel, Hartah, Roger and his Aunt Jo, from faire to faire making money from Roger’s talents and exploiting the grieving. Until, Hartah, takes them to the sea. It is there that Roger gets dragged into helping Hartah and others wreck the Frances Ormund, a navy ship carrying precious cargo back to the Queendom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575094257</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stefan Klein|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=This excellent combination of science history and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientific. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope with being analysed, and the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece of Italian art, and she’s survived much worse. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowableno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrea Camilleri1529431735|title=The Wings of the SphinxWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Inspector Salvo Montalbano’s immediate reaction when Caterella rang him at home was that a dead man had been found somewhereIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Cat soon puts him right though. It’s a woman. She’s He'd been found, naked but particularly clean and exiled on the edge of the local rubbish tip. Most of her face had been blown away, which was going to make identification particularly difficult. Two things were obvious though – she was particularly beautiful and she had Costa del Sol as a tattoo of wanted drug smuggler for a butterfly on her shoulder bladedecade.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330507648</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Feinstein|title=Moment of Glory: The Year Tiger Lost His Swing and Underdogs Ruled the Majors|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=Despite the picture of Tiger Woods on the dust jacket this book is only incidentally return has come about him. Between 2000 and 2002 Woods because he's had dominated topa letter from his ex-class golfwife, winning six of the twelve majors. But hesaying that she's always after improvement ill and he sacked his swing coach and turned hasn't long to someone newlive. The swing is the engine of a golferIt's game and tinkering with a good swing has major implications. For Woods it meant that he floundered out of the big money in 2003. For everyone else it meant that there were chances hard to be taken. You might have expected that it would be the established stars who took advantagefeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, but it wasn't stripped to be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847442455</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jackson Pearce|title=Sisters Red|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Scarlett March lives his underwear and sent to hunt the Fenris - the werewolves that took her eye and savaged her body during a brutal attack when she was just a young girl. Scarlett managed to save her sister Rosie, but Grandma Oma died horrifically. Scarlett's body is marked by scar after scar and the scars never let her forget. She lives and breathes watery grave in the hunt, killing Fenris after Fenris and saving teenaged girl after teenaged girl. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444900587</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chuck Palahniuk|title=Tell-All|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Katherine Kenton. A movie star boot of great renown, she's always on TV as someone famous - or the wife of somebody who happens to be famous and male, whether they were actually ever weddeda stolen Ford Sierra. She herself has had copious real-life marriages, making somebody out of Is it a nobody on many an instance. Her shelves of 'best lifetime' awards are groaning, and their dusting is warning from a job akin to painting the Forth bridge. The person who dusts them is narrator for this book, but she does more than that. She is everything to "Miss Kathie" - general housekeeper, housemate, and string-puller. But what might those strings be being pulled for? When Katherine meets Spanish gang or a new toyboy, and our narrator seems problem closer to get in the way, to what purpose might this behome?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087150</amazonuk>}}