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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=Elizabeth ChadwickTom Percival|title=To Defy A KingThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary=#Set Will's life is difficult, in the traumatic and violent period leading up to the Magna Carta, Chadwick concentrates on the fortunes a multitude of two extended familiesways. The Marshals He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', close to he has the throne wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for their expertiseeven the most basic of things like food, political and military mighthis dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the Bigods, who fact that his mum and dad are directly related to King Johnseparated, through their half brother Longespeeand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, son he still has a tiny amount of the family matriarch, and John’s fatherhope. Banished from Court He is good at art, and forced clings to leave her son therethe moments of joy when he is drawing, Ida marries Roger and founds that feel like a strong patriarchal dynasty. However, tension is never far from boiling point, with light at the two half brothers tolerating each other at best, loathing each other more often than notend of a long, due to their opposing naturesdark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442366</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kimberly GreeneSylvie Cathrall|title=My Life on TVA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Sam’s sister, Danni, is There are few greater joys than a pop star and her mother is Danni’s manager. Dad died before Sam was born, so between the three of them life is quite fraught, particularly as they’re the subject of a reality show book which is planned lives up to run for three yearsa compelling premise. If they manage the full three years the house they live in will belong to their mother, but it all looks to be in jeopardy when Danni decides that she can’t take the pop star life any longer and she’s going to hang up her microphone. Sam’s scared that And this will mean they have to leave the house and go back to the days when they had to struggle to pay the rentis one of them. There might be a way round it though – what if she was to become a TV star and the reality show could continue?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409508293</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Grant Gillespie0008517061|title=The Cuckoo BoyDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The reader is introduced to twenty-something married couple Sandra and Kenneth. And yesFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, they suit their nameshas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. They are an average couple There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with an average intellect leading average lives. They are also desperate to become a family unit. Sandrahis vet girlfriend, right from the word goLivia and her daughter Diana, appears to be as moving in together would mean a woman living on her nerves. A smoothlot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-running domestic grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is top of the future she wants for herself and her agenda ... no matter what. daughter? And For the moment they’re enjoying life in that regard, she is insular the present and narrow-minded. So it didn't come as a surprise when I read between putting the lines. She wants a baby but not future on the mess that comes with it. James, a tiny baby is brought into this brittle homeback burner. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955460948</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven Carroll1786482126|title=The Art of the Engine DriverJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Carroll has chosen a bygone era Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the 1950s and also a bygone but much treasured mode of transport, whether itsite was going to hold seventy-five 's Australia or the UK. Immediately Iluxury'm drawn in to apartments - when they discovered the storybones of a child beneath a doorway. Both the title and book's front cover are arresting and originalThere was no skull. The novel centres on one evening in Was this suburban neighbourhood when all its residents are invited to a celebration partyritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Carroll see-saws back and forth It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as he shares a result of the individual lives with usone night they spent together some three months ago. It Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is an engaging styleprone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537273</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Sanders0008551324|title=Diagnosis: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Medical MysteriesThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Popular ScienceCrime|summary=Fans of ‘’House, M.D.’’ may recognise It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the name of Lisa Sanderspolice. She’s Neither side likes or has any respect for the technical advisor other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the TV show as well as being police where the writer body of the ‘’Diagnosis’’ column in the New York Timesa missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Many of the stories which appear in the column are recounted in this bookThis person, he promises, which is a look at the way in which doctors reach a diagnosis someone big and how it will be worth the method has changed (or not) over the yearspolice doing what he wants. I’m not a fan of the hospital dramas which seem And what he wants is to be a major feature transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the TV schedules, but I was fascinated by other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what is, essentially, a series of medical detective stories's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311338</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Smith0008405026|title=TaurusA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=As It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the bull goes from paddock investigation ground to stall a halt. 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 searing heat positioning of the farm, he feels strangely disembodied 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 yet all he feels -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is his bodyconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his huge bulk; the angles at which upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he must hold up his heavy head feels to see what Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he needs 's not like most men: Edward is left to see; stumble upon the strange latency that fills himtwo of them kissing in a dark passageway. He watches }}{{Frontpage|author=Jo Callaghan|title=Leave No Trace|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=When a man is found crucified on the skittish grey horsetop of a hill in Nuneaton, transfixed and yet repulsed by its grace and fluidity. He observes his captorsDCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the girl and boy siblings and AI detective Lock. It's their fatherfirst live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and he allows a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their goadings AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to gradually wake him from stuporous apathy. solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224089978</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Holly Black1399613073|title=The White Cat (Curse Workers, Book 1)Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=Cassel Sharpe dreams of a white cat Olivia, Laura and wakes up Anjali met on the roof first day of his medical school buildingand their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, perilously close which is a bonus when you aim to be a fatal fallcardiothoracic surgeon. Afraid that he's suicidal or otherwise unstable, his principal sends him home, while the school decides whether or not he can stay on as Laura is a perfectionist and a pupiltrauma doctor. This Anjali is completely devastating for Cassel, who is struggling with some major issuesthe free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. For starters, he When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's only non-worker going to end in a family of workerstragedy. His gloved hands cover useless fingers. His touch doesn We don't manipulate emotions, remove memories, bring luck, know who suffered the tragedy or kill, maim or otherwise injurethe consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. Even in a world where working is illegal This time, it's hard to be the only normal person in your family|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575096713</amazonuk>their teenage children who are involved.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melvin Burgess0241636604|title=Nicholas DaneThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=14-year-old Nicholas Dane is taken into care after his mother, If you were to bring up an image of a secret smack headcity banker in your mind, dies in an accidental overdoseyou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Meadow Hill A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is an assessment centrethe East End, but the truth is that not much genuine assessment is going on. It's a savagewhere he was familiar with violence, brutal regime poverty and Nicholas fights against it from the startinjustice. Eventually, There was no posh public school on his CV - but he's taken under had been to the wing London School of Tony Creal, the deputy head, Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and the only person in the place who appears to have he has a shred facility with numbers which most of common humanityus can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader... or so Nick thinks. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141316330</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gladys Mitchell1035021803|title=Death and the MaidenThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Edris Tidson used It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to grow bananas on Tenerifethe English country village where she grew up. Not the world capital She's back now because of banana growing so far as I knowa request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, but I guess such plantations could have existed is dead and certainly the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they'd were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be believable when Mitchell penned this classic crime caper near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in 1947a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546833</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.''
I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HaleSunny Singh|title=Sudden Death (Striker)Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=TeensThrillers |summary=Jake Bastin, son of famous former footballer Steve, thought his life was difficult enough even before his father enters negotiations to join St Petersburg’s newest football team as managerThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. But when Hiding from the agent his dad’s discussing the move with collapses of a suspected heart attackterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, things get far more complicated – because Jake there is convinced he was actually poisonedSam, a wartime photographer and can’t understand why his dad seems happy to go along with a cover upAbhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the pair move to St Petersburg, residents who are still alive in the bodies start piling uphotel, and Jake goes from having to fight he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to control his temperbe cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to fight try to save his lifecapture what's happened through her photography. With no way of knowing if he can trust anyone Although they only ever talk over the phone, even his own father, can the youngster stand up their friendship grows as Abhi tries to criminals who are happy help her keep safe and they both wait to kill to get what see if they will be rescued before they want?are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405249501</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin Waters1529153298|title=A Pregnant Ghost and Other Sexual HauntingsThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Spirituality and ReligionGeneral Fiction|summary=This It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a book Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that does what it sets out her father wants to do on move the tinfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, and does so in almost glorious fashionDown South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. The back cover blurb promises hilarity and tittilationFor Miv, but this will also fit on the shelf of any academic looking into the hornier side of the Fortean worldmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, as well as anyone relishing and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the most singular collection of ghost legends dangers or that I can remember readingher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089902</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dominic Barker1398524085|title=Adam and the ArkonautsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Adam is on a missionCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Both he Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and his father have spent the decade since his mother was kidnapped by an Evil Scientist looking for herdaughter, and perfecting their own skillsEtty. They might have got the best clue of are all so far worried but - one that has led them to the mysteriousstrangely - her husband, Alec, hiddenis not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and downright alarming city Greg, find the body of Buenos Suenos. Those skills? Being able to communicate with animals. Since learning to gibber like a spider monkey they can both barkGreg's father, purr perfectlyDuncan Ackerley, and morein the river. It will take was an easy assumption for the extraordinary menagerie police to survive make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the unusual city, and try and discover what happened to Adamguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's mum - little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what the Evil Scientist might want by holding her hostage for the same skills in returnreally happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880025X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Juan Gabriel Vasquez1035906708|title=The Secret History of CostaguanaDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=LucaWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, a mountaineer trying but she was born to escape from his disappointingly unsupportive Greek parents and a past accident, witnesses something strange in the distanceManhattan, while watching his climbing partner Bill put the kibosh on their latest sky-bursting Himalayan ascent - a mountain shaped like a perfect pyramidNew York, circled by other peaks hein December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's never seen beforeto make it more manageable in the States. Back When she was back in England nobody else seems to have seen them either, but colleagues mention mysterious ShangriAthens -La style Buddhist sanctuaries supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - could this be she was raised under the prime one, hidden from prying eyes Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for centuries? Nobody wants to declare it actually exists at all. Meanwhileher elder sister, Himalayan natives are trying to pull the wool over Chinese occupiers' eyes regarding a very sacred personageJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090773</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary=Michael Jackson's autobiography, based on tape-recorded conversations with Lucas and his editor Shaye Ereheartfriends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, was first published in 1988a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. This new edition has an introduction by Berry GordyAll big movie fans, founder they're looking forward to lots of Motown Records exciting films, and his original mentormany, and an afterword by Areheart about how the book was written. many snacks! The main part of However, as the book movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is a straight reprint of the originalvery different, with no updating at alland they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Intriguingly, although Gordy's four pages refer But as they lurch from one film genre to is protégé in the past tensenext, calling him ''can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the greatest entertainer that ever lived', Areheart's writingcinema, and also the cover, refer to him in the present. No reference anywhere is made to his untimely death.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099547953</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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenny NimmoJames Sherwood Metts|title=Charlie Bone and the Red KnightPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Since the loss of his father, Charlie Bone has had to live in Things have been a bit sticky for the house of horrible Grandmother Bone. But when he discovers he can hear people in pictures talking, a whole new world opens to himEarthlings. His grandmother AI and her even more unpleasant sisters insist he should now attend Bloor Academyautomation have been proceeding apace, a school where he meets other children endowed with magical abilities because often replacing jobs they are descendants of the Red King. This King, an African magician, came 're paid to the North nine hundred years ago, do and left a part of his powers other tasks that took time to each his ten childrenaccomplish. But several of those children turned Just as they were beginning to get used to evil, as have their descendants, and Charlie all this technological change and his friends have to stop them from doing terrible harm starting to the town. In each think of the books in the ''Charlie Bone'' seriesother, he encounters new allies and new enemiesways to spend time, until the whole story culminates in one immense final battle in 'Charlie Bone along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down 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 seriesalong with it, and ends with all the kind of solution many daily social interactions on which will leave the reader sighing with satisfaction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405249609</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tasha Pym and Joel Stewart|title=Have You Ever Seen A Sneep?|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Ever fallen foul of a Sneep? (No, not [[Oliver Who Travelled Far and Wide by Mara Bergman and Nick Maland|Oliver Donnington Rimington-Sneep]]). What about a Grullock, Knoo or Loon? One poor little boy tries to go about his daily business, but keeps getting interrupted by these mysterious monsters. You've never heard of them before, you say? He wants to have a word with you then..they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>055255698X</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David McKeeMatthew Tree|title=Elmer On StiltsWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Who doesn't already know Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and love Elmer the patchwork elephant? This time round, he's helping 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 other elephant chums avoid the nasty hunters. Throw in a CD version of the story read by Joss Ackland - yesstudies, really - cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and you're on to a real winnerset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842708376</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken McClure1529900360|title=Dust to Dust (Steven Dunbar)The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=John Motram is a cell biologist. HeIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's a promising fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and welleven after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-though of academic and his pet subject is - Black Death. Intrigue is high on shut cases which didn't need the agenda right from the beginninghelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. Motram is invited to a meeting along with other high-fliers in their respective fieldsFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. This meeting is top secretShe knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. Motram isThe next case did look simple, however, mystifiedthough. The situation appears pretty straightforward, so why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, he wondersTwo lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. And why has everyone He was the heir to refer an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the patient only as Italian. 'Patient XBut which of them was the primary target?'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971268</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Captain William Wells1529395224|title=A Sailor's TalesLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Captain William Wells Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was born in New Zealand where his father ran a successful carpentry business, but his heart wasnGP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in following his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father into 's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family firm or in most of friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the lessons at schooljob for him. He was an enthusiastic sportsman but what enthralled him most were the ships sailing out of Wellington harbourBefore long, which he could see from his bedroom windowwas at Liverpool University. Without It hadn't - as with so many students - been his parents' knowledge dream since he applied for was a scholarship which allowed six boys each year to travel to the UK and undertake their basic nautical trainingchild. Billy WellsIf anything, who previously had only got 2% in his English exam (his name was spelled correctly) had the second highest score in the country and was soon on his way he'd wanted to Englandbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095629040X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Holly McQueen0861541774|title=Confetti ConfidentialA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune''Confetti Confidential'' is the third book s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in the Isabel seriesSingapore to meet up with an old ally, but the first one I've readGuy Trueman. Even without Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that grand claim on the fronthe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, you couldn't help he faced a charge of manslaughter but draw comparisons between Kinsella's series and this one from evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the very first pageman. The writing style is virtually identical – to Now he could be facing the point where you death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do actually wonder if this is just nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a pseudonym – diplomatic incident and while the chatty, chummy, conversational approach is not for everyone, if itwouldn's the sort of thing you like then this is the sort of book you'll lovet help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545756</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sabrina BroadbentAlexander McCall Smith|title=You Don't Have To Be GoodThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Bea Kemp has reached The Perfect Passion Company is a crisis point in her life. She is dating agency in her forties, childlessEdinburgh, enjoying a tedious job run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a lacklustre marriage with Frankmore personal, tailored service. She seems to have spent Ness has asked her entire life 'being good' younger cousin Katie if she could come and it really does not seem look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to have got her anywhereCanada to get away for a while. Her only pleasure seems Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the time she spends Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with her niece and nephewsome new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, Laura and Adrianor in match-making, and as her successful sister Katharine but Ness has no qualms about using full confidence in her as an unpaid childminderabilities, thatand there's quite a lot! Howeveralways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, 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 them.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535556</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rekha Waheed0811771741|title=Saris and the CityInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrafts|summary=Yasmin Yusuf is a likeable main character with Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a group collection of Sex-andknits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits -others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the-City-style friendsfire' variety. The story begins with Yasmin splitting up with projects are divided by the man she was convinced was going time they'll take to proposecomplete - less than five hours, rapidly followed by losing her job. We then follow her as she determines five to ten hours, ten to become successful twenty hours and make her mark in her new job, whilst holding out for ''the package'' in her personal lifemore than twenty hours. I particularly liked All the way each chapter is a lesson projects are attractive, modern and lets the reader know what Yasmin will be learning or proving through events played out in that chapteruseable. For example, chapter one is I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'Lesson One: If hebut that's the bad boy and you're the good girl, you will get burnt'', hence the resulting ex-boyfriendme being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755356136</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marjorie M LiuDean Koontz|title=The Iron Hunt (Hunter Kiss)Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=FantasyParanormal|summary=Maxine Benny is the last in the line of the Wardenshaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, who wear demons as tattoos in the dayhe loses his fiancee, making them invulnerableand his house gets trashed. At night 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 thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the boys' peel away and leave her open very last person to attack – and there are an awful lot of people deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. 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 herfrom nefarious forces for being a good person. While she Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's spent her lifeenemies, since inheriting the tattoos from her motherif he, Benny, tackling zombies and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who are humans possessed by demons in this world, rather than finds herself roped into Benny'traditional' zombiess wild adventure), she quickly finds there are far worse things can figure out there in the prison dimension who exactly they call home. The death of an investigator trying to find her leads to strange alliances being formed, questions about her past being raised, and the end of the world approaching… unless she can stop itare.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498009</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kenzaburo OeAdam Stower|title=The ChangelingMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers |summary=The novel starts at the end. Therefore we know that Murray is supposed to be a 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 two principal characters. But he's a bad magician's cat, namely Goroso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, appears to have committed suicide. The question is why. And and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the whole novel is an attempt to provide that elusive answer. Goro was an extremely successful film director regular back garden, but into a world of international reputefrightening adventure and whiffs. He This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was based in his native Japan , to be honest, but travelled extensively with his work. And you he's turned up and he'll have to ask yourself why would a man such as this decide to end his life?do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843547341</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert RyanB0C47LV1PC|title=Signal RedFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Ryan has certainly researched thoroughly for this novel - and it shows. Straight away the blurb on the back cover tells us thereCan you make a ''s an Yo birthing person'afterword' by Bruce Reynoldsjoke? And if you could, no less than is the ringmaster/leader of the Great Train Robbery gang. Notice how question should you make it's always given capital letters. Even all these decades down ? Or is the linequestion if you did, those readers of a certain age remember would it and perhaps shake their head in amazement. And there's also a very useful 'aftermath' section as Ryan painstakingly sets out all the robbers' names and what's happened since land? The catch is that date in the summer of 1963answer for both could well be.. Perhaps, like others, I also assumed the leader, the top man if you like, was Ronnie Biggs. No so, apparently. I also remember television footage of his release from prison on compassionate grounds only a year or so agono. The crime seems to have achieved almost mythical proportions - some would say it's up there with what were you doing when JFK was assassinated?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075535818X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carrie Ryan1529431735|title=The Dead-Tossed WavesWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Gabry has lived her whole life behind the safety of the Barrier, in the seaside town of Vista. She isnIt't keen to venture past it, to explore the remains of an old amusement park, but Gabry s February 1991 and Essex is drawn by the allure of Catcherbitingly cold, her best friend Cirawhich made Bruce Hopkins's brother. Cira and the others are sure they will be safe from the Mudo – the shambling undead that plague return all the world Gabry lives in. Gabry decides to risk it, and her whole world is turned upside down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575090898</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Giles Milton|title=According to Arnold: A Novel of Love and Mushrooms|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Arnold Trevellyan’s ordinary life as a charismatic auctioneer is about to change in ways he could never have imaginedmore surprising. Encouraged by his wife Flora to take a sabbatical, He'd been exiled on the two head to Costa del Sol as a remote region of France to indulge Arnold’s passion for mushrooms. Whilst out in the forest hunting wanted drug smuggler for rare mushrooms Arnold stumbles across a secret hidden for centuriesdecade. This secret makes him abandon Flora and their life together for the island of Tuva in the South Pacific where The return has come about because he soon finds himself married to Lola, its queen.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330452517</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joan M Moules|title=Fragile Memories|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Maura was surprised when she inherited the manor house at Picton near Salisbury. She hadn't been close to her Uncle Tom for many years and he had a stepsonletter from his ex-wife, Jim, whom saying that she thought would have inherited in preference 's ill and hasn't long to herlive. It was five years since she's been back hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to Picton his underwear and when she returned sent to put the property on the market she was surprised by a watery grave in the extent boot of her longing to return there. Money was going to be a problem thoughstolen Ford Sierra. She worked as Is it a model and couldn't really to this warning from the manor – and she didn't have the money for the property's upkeep. 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>}} {{newreview|author=Ruth Thomson and Chloe Thomson|title=Have You Started Yet?: You and your period: getting the facts straight|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|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 is seen as the body developing naturally a Spanish gang or a problem. Both are attitudes which are likely closer to stay through life and it’s obviously better that it’s the firmer rather than the latter. ‘’Have You Started Yet’’ gives factual information in an informative and reassuring manner and in a form which is easily readable to girls of about nine years old and above.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744907</amazonuk>}}home?