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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=Melanie WelshTom Percival|title=Mistress of the StormThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Verity Gallant is the oldest child in her family. SheWill's rather plain and awkward, feels a bit like a social outcast at school, and stumbles along at home too where her beautiful, blondelife is difficult, sweet little sister Poppy is obviously the favourite. One day Verity discovers a mysterious stranger in the library reading a strange bookmultitude of ways. He runs away when is bullied because he sees her, taking has 'the book with himwrong shoes', but Verity chases after him, following him down to the shore where he gets into a boat ready to row away. He gives has the book to her when she challenges him, along with a mysterious round object. This seemingly innocuous event brings about huge changes in Veritywrong shoes because his dad can's life. Having been ignorant about her familyt work and doesn's history she begins to research about t have enough money for even the gentry, with the help most basic of her friendsthings like food, and discovers skills and strengths that she never knew she had. Just in time too, for as his dad can't work because he lost his job at the mysterious stranger tells hercollege, the storm is coming...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617666</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicola Cornick|title=Confessions of was working a Duchess|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Dowager Duchess Laura Cole has come to the village of Fortune’s Folly to live cash-in-hand job on a quiet life as a widow with her young daughterbuilding site and had an accident. But when Throw into that mix the village squire decides to invoke the Dames’ Taxfact that his mum and dad are separated, a law requiring and Will's life seems bleak in every unmarried woman to give up half her wealth to him, the town becomes a hotbed of men searching for heiresses now desperate to marrydirection. Joining the men is Dexter AnstrutherAnd yet, sent to secure a rich wife and carry out he still has a murder inquiry on behalf tiny amount of Lord Liverpoolhope. The last thing Laura and Dexter expect He is to see each other again after their steamy encounter four years ago. But their passion for each other is reawakened good at art, and looks set clings to ruin them both.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303802</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chioma Okereke|title=Bitter Leaf|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jericho, (who's female by the way)moments of joy when he is drawing, is that feel like a beautiful young woman. She's curious about light at the outside world so like many before her, she's taken the brave step end of sampling life in a biglong, bustling city. She returns to her home village with some rather pretentious airs ... and a rich suitor in tow. By sheer coincidence Jericho's mother had attended an interview in her past at her daughter's new boyfriend's family homedark tunnel. A veritable mansion with ' ... sweeping rooms that took longer than a river to cross.' What a lovely way of describingluxury in an essentially poor area of Africa. Everyone thinks the next natural step is marriage and babies but is it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844086275</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter BeaumontSylvie Cathrall|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict |rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor at The Observer. He joined the paper in 1989 and has spent much of the intervening time dealing with the kind of 'foreign affairs' that is better described as 'war reporting'. 'The Secret Life of War' is a distillation of his years in the field. It is a book ill-served by both its title and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve A Letter to sneak it onto the bookshelves of those who really need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrapped.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mira Grant|title=FeedLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=In 2014 the common cold was cured. So was cancer. But in their wake something terrible came – the two viruses used to cure the ailments combined There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to form a terrifying plague that turned humans and large animals into the living deadcompelling premise. Now what's left And this is one of the human race lives every day with the fear that the virus they hold dormant in their bodies could go into amplification, causing them to turn. People stay indoors, stop meeting in crowds, and conduct most of their lives online. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184149898X</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Rees Brennan0008517061|title=The Demon's CovenantDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=A few weeks after Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the events future of [[The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan|The Demon's Lexicon]] and Mae is finally ungrounded. Determined to get on his life with 'normal' life his vet girlfriend, Livia and forget the magic she's lost since brothers Nick and Alan Ryves lefther daughter Diana, Mae is only interested as moving in hitting the town together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and meeting up relaxing life to move in with Seb. Nice, normal Seb.Then Mae learns Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her brother Jamie has been secretly meeting up with Gerald, reservations about whether or not this is the new leader of future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the Obsidian Circle. Afraid that Jamie is getting involved moment they’re enjoying life in dangerous things, Mae does the only thing she can present and calls Alanputting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847382908</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Younge1786482126|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Journalist Gary Younge’s book draws heavily on his articles for Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the Guardian newspaper, as he mentions in his acknowledgements, but it isn’t just bones of a child beneath a collection of his journalismdoorway. There was no skull. Who Are We Was this a ritual killing or murder? is partly a memoir and partly a thoughtful and incisive exploration of the politics and political impact of identity Inevitably, including race, gender, language groups, religion, sexuality in various countries around the worldDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. He sets out to explore It'To what extent can our various identities be mobilized to accentuate our universal humanity s difficult as opposed to separating us off into variousRuth knows, antagonistic camps?but Nelson doesn'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Keith Colquhoun|title=Five Deadly Words|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Five Deadly Words follows the story of charismatic former dictator Lucast, that she is pregnant with his child as he charms and 'collects' people during his exile in Londona result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. The story is seen mostly from the point of view of Helen Berlin Her condition will be obvious before long, the bright young Detective Constable who not least because Ruth is put in charge prone to sudden bouts of Lucas' safety. Helen finds herself caught up in matters which become increasingly out of her depth as she falls further into the former dictator's worldsickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529496</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Liz Kessler0008551324|title=Philippa Fisher and the Stone Fairy's PromiseThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=In It's unusual for anyone from the third book of this enchanting series Liz Kessler manages Hardie family to show both approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the delights other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the sorrows body of friendship: a topic which missing person is eternally popular with young (buried and not so young) readers. Philippa has travelled with who was responsible for her father and mother to Ravenleigh to spend New Year with her new friend Robyndeath. But she has only just arrived when disaster strikes. Daisy This person, he promises, her other best friend is someone big and fairy godsister (like a fairy godmother but it will be worth the same age as you), realises Philippa's mother police doing what he wants. And what he wants is in danger, to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and tries to helpget an early parole date. But in order Not much to do ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she has 's even prepared to break a lot of rules, and a series of catastrophes means Philippa ends up with Daisy in ATC (Above The Clouds), a sector of the fairy world. And do the other fairies don't realise thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who she works with him is kept well away from what's happening... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842559966</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Smiley0008405026|title=Nobody's HorseA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Abby lives on her familyIt's farm in Californiasixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. They specialise in taking horses Now, her mother, Helena, and ponies which her father are not at dead in their peak and bringing them on so that they can be sold at a profitbed. AbbyInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's father is determined that she won't get attached to any something about the positioning of the horses, because bodies that only increases the pain when they inevitably go, but two are makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to make be an impact on her open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that she could not have expectedthe explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The first Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a foal whose dam dies when heworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a matter of weeks old and he takes Abbytheatre director. He's heartalso self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. The second Edward has the opposite effect because every time that Abby rides him been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's determined drunkenly confided how he feels to buck her offRobert. SheMost men in Robert's frightened of him and itposition would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's a tribute not like most men: Edward is left to Abby that stumble upon the worst she calls him is Grumpy Georgetwo of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571253547</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neil GaimanJo Callaghan|title=InstructionsLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Go through When a man is found crucified on the mysterious doortop of a hill in Nuneaton, mind DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the impcase alongside her sidekick, trust the wolves and answer the ferrymanAI detective Lock. It's question carefullytheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Neil Gaiman takes us on But when there is a tour of second body found crucified a fantasy land few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a series potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of instructions for surviving unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the adventure. You'll discover wonders beyond your wildest dreamscase in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and return home safely, potentially, out of a little older and a little wiser.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408808641</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Don Boyd1399613073|title=Margot's SecretsMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Margot 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 cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a psychologist who specialises in sexual disorders perfectionist and obsessionsa trauma doctor. She lives and works for herself in Barcelona amongst Anjali is the free spirit of the ex-pat community, group and although she only has becomes a dozen or so clients at any one time, spends much of her week living at her officeGP. Her clients, both male When we first meet them they're at a drug and female, are bewildering alcohol-fuelled party and fascinating it's going to end in equal portions, and tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the description of consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the therapy sessions make fascinating and revealing readingthree friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955405149</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Mitchelhill0241636604|title=Damian Drooth, SupersleuthThe Trading Game: Football ForgeryA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Getting If you were to the end bring up an image of a storycity banker in your mind, even one which really grips you, can be hard work if you have only just learned 're unlikely to read independently or are at the younger end think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the confident readers range. But ''Damian Drooth, Supersleuth: Football Forgery'' pin-stripe suit and his background is a slim book (60 pages)the East End, where he was familiar with lots of picturesviolence, poverty and a decentinjustice. There was no posh public school on his CV -sized fontbut he had been to the London School of Economics. And it Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a proper bookfacility 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 ability at what was, tooessentially, a card game which got him an internship with an engaging main characterCitibank. Eventually, lots of action and this turned into permanent employment as a fascinating mystery, so satisfaction is guaranteedtrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390355</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gill Schierhout1035021803|title=The Shape of HimAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=The story is told in It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the first person by Sara HighburyEnglish country village where she grew up. She's running back now because of a small business in an efficient but rather detached fashionrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. SheFreya's former mentor and Carole's all washed upclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. She starts Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to recount the village: Arthur, she feels, let her earlierdown badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, happier life when it meant something she has not felt able to herbe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. And After the reader soon discovers that split, she worked in a diamond digger called Herbert was - cafe, met and still is - married James (on the rebound from the love of her life. And here Schierhout gives us a taster of the hard , who was murdered) and dirty work digging for stones (they're never called diamonds by the workers apparently). The danger Freya and precarious nature of the work is laid bareJames have now divorced. But Herbert seemed to be a natural. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535777</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne-Marie VukelicSunny Singh|title=Far Above RubiesHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical FictionThrillers |summary=Shy Catherine Hogarth first meets Charles Dickens at her parents' house when he hilariously comes The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in through the window to dance an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a jig before terrorist group. Hiding from the assembled gueststerrorists who are rampaging through, before leaving killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and then entering again via Abhi, the front doorhotel manager. Employed As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by her father Georgeevents, the editor and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the Evening Chroniclephone, their friendship grows as a reporter and sketch writer, Charles is at the start of his writing career Abhi tries to help her keep safe and soon becomes a regular visitor they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Hogarth householdterrorists. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090536</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Barnardo1529153298|title=Dadcando: Build, Make, Do ... the Best Way to Spend Quality Time with Your KidsThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=CraftsGeneral Fiction|summary=The ideas in this book originated as a [http://wwwIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...dadcando) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though.co Women have been disappearing.uk/ website] that Chris Barnardo set up for divorced and separated fathers Well, they've been murdered, but to help them spend quality time with their children Now hehave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's written a book overheard that although aimed at single fathers her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is equally as useful for married dadsa frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and mums too she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or grandparents or carers that her Mum's stopped talking - to inspire crafty ideas of things to make with kidsanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652011</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Williams1398524085|title=The Bridesmaid PactHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=I recently read [[Last Christmas by Julia Williams]] Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and enjoyed it so much that I was determined to read more by this fabulous authorher daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. The opportunity presented itself in Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the shape body of Greg'The Bridesmaid Pact's father, Duncan Ackerley, a truly wonderful book that not only met but also exceeded all my expectationsin the river. In fact it It was so good an easy assumption for the police to make that I read Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the last 200 pages in just one day, totally ignoring my family whilst doing soguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847560873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vicki Myron and Brett Witter1035906708|title=Dewey: The True Story of a World-famous Library CatDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=This heart-warming book tells the wonderful true story We tend to think of a cat called Dewey. His beginnings were very humble and his life could quite probably have been quite short if it had not been for a fortuitous event that occurred one cold winter morning. Vicki MyronMaria Callas as Greek, the chief librarian at Spencer Library but she was born to Greek parents in IowaManhattan, New York, heard some very strange noises coming from the book drop box that borrowers used in order December 1923 and only moved to return their books Athens when the library she was closedthirteen. On opening Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the box States. When she discovered was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a small, dirty, shivering kitten mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her heart melted. As a consequence, the kittenelder sister, which was soon to be named Dewey, was adopted and became the official library catJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847388442</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John GrishamChristopher Edge|title=Ford CountyBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesConfident Readers|summary=When I think Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of John Grisham I tend to think firstly of lawyers'The Black Hole'. WellAll big movie fans, actually, I think they're looking forward to lots of Tom Cruise first to be honestexciting films, and then the whole lawyer thing. I expect surprising twists and longmany, detailed plots. many snacks! This collectionHowever, howeveras the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is a book of short stories so has to work differently. There isn't room within a short story for a lengthy, twisting plotvery different, and so Grisham has to rely on other skills to make them work. My feeling was that some do and some donthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn'teven imagine. Set in America's Deep South all the stories revolve around a rather mixed bag of characters But as they lurch from Ford County, with the ever-present lawyers but also gamblers, murderers, con artists, drunks and scoundrels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545780</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elizabeth Chadwick|title=To Defy A King|rating=5|one film genre=Historical Fiction|summary=#Set in the traumatic and violent period leading up to the Magna Cartanext, Chadwick concentrates can they figure out what on earth is going on the fortunes of two extended families. The Marshals, close to the throne for their expertise, political and military might, and the Bigods, who are directly related ? Will they ever get back to King John, through their half brother Longespee, son of the family matriarch, and John’s father. Banished from Courtcinema, and forced to leave her son there, Ida marries Roger and founds a strong patriarchal dynasty. However, tension is never far from boiling point, with the two half brothers tolerating each other at best, loathing each other more often than not, due to their opposing natures.real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442366</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kimberly GreeneRachel Greenlaw|title=My Life on TVCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Sam’s sister, Danni, is a pop star and her mother is Danni’s manager. Dad died before Sam was born, so between ''I can hear the three song of them life is quite fraught, particularly as they’re the subject sea. The call of a reality show which is planned to run for three years. If they manage the full three years deep, the house they live in will belong to their mother, but it all looks to be answering beat 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 this will mean they have to leave the house and go back to the days when they had to struggle to pay the rentmy heart. There might be a way round it though – what if she was to become a TV star and the reality show could continue?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409508293</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven CarrollJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Art of the Engine DriverPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Carroll has chosen Things have been a bygone era in bit sticky for the 1950s Earthlings. AI and also a bygone but much treasured mode of transportautomation have been proceeding apace, whether it's Australia or the UK. Immediately Ioften replacing jobs they'm drawn in re paid to the story. Both the title do and book's front cover are arresting and originalother tasks that took time to accomplish. The novel centres on one evening in Just as they were beginning to get used to all this suburban neighbourhood when all its residents are invited technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to a celebration partyspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Carroll see-saws back Life was pretty much shut down and forth as he shares , along with it, all the individual lives with us. It is an engaging stylemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099537273</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa SandersMatthew Tree|title=Diagnosis: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Medical MysteriesWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|summary=Fans of ‘’HouseTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, M.D.’’ may recognise the name a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of Lisa Sanders. She’s the technical advisor to the TV show as well as being the writer exceptional at any of the ‘’Diagnosis’’ column in the New York Times. Many his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of the stories which appear in the column are recounted in this book, which is a look at the way in which doctors reach a diagnosis and how the method has changed (or not) over the yearsself confidence. I’m not a fan of the hospital dramas which seem So Tim applied himself to be a major feature of the TV scheduleshis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but I was fascinated by what is, essentially, a series of medical detective storiesachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848311338</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=Holly Black1529900360|title=The White Cat (Curse Workers, Book 1)Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Cassel Sharpe dreams of a white cat It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and wakes up on the roof of his school buildingeven after Alex recovered, perilously close Sturgis was reluctant to a fatal fallask for his help on difficult cases. Afraid His assertions that hethere were only open-and-shut cases which didn's suicidal or otherwise unstable, his principal sends him home, while t need the school decides whether or not he can stay on as help of a psychologist only worked for a pupilwhile. This is completely devastating for Cassel Finally, who is struggling with some major issues. For startersit was Robin, heDelaware's only non-worker in a family of workerspartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. His gloved hands cover useless fingers She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. His touch doesn't manipulate emotions The next case did look simple, remove memories, bring luck, or kill, maim or otherwise injurethough. Even Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a world where working remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is illegal, married to an extremely rich man and it's hard to be not the Italian. But which of them was the only normal person in your family|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575096713</amazonuk>primary target?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melvin Burgess1529395224|title=Nicholas DaneLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary=14-year-old Nicholas Dane is taken Siôn Rowlands fell into care after his mother, veterinary science accidentally. His father was a secret smack head, dies GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in an accidental overdose. Meadow Hill is an assessment centrehis footsteps, but particularly when he considered the truth is strain that not much genuine assessment is going being on-call put on. Ithis father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a savage, brutal regime vet and Nicholas fights against it from was convinced this was the startjob for him. Eventually Before long, hewas at Liverpool University. It hadn's taken under the wing of Tony Crealt - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, the deputy head, and the only person in the place who appears he'd wanted to have be a shred of common humanityprofessional footballer... ... or so Nick thinks. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141316330</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gladys Mitchell0861541774|title=Death and the MaidenA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Edris Tidson used 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 grow bananas on Tenerifemurder the man. Not Now he could be facing the world capital of banana growing so far death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as I know, but I guess such plantations any interference from another police force could have existed provoke a diplomatic incident and certainly theywouldn'd be believable when Mitchell penned this classic crime caper in 1947t help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546833</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HaleAlexander McCall Smith|title=Sudden Death (Striker)The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Jake BastinThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, son of famous former footballer Steve, thought his life was difficult enough even before his father enters negotiations run by Ness and operating as an alternative to join St Petersburg’s newest football team as manager. But when the agent his dad’s discussing all the move with collapses of online apps in providing a suspected heart attack, things get far more complicated – because Jake is convinced he was actually poisonedpersonal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and can’t understand why his dad seems happy look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to go along with Canada to get away for a cover upwhile. As the pair move to St Petersburg, the bodies start piling Katie is coming out of a break upwith a bad boyfriend, and Jake goes so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from having Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to fight an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to control his temper44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to fight to save his lifecharm. With Katie has no way of knowing if he can trust anyoneexperience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, even his own fatherWilliam, can the youngster stand up to criminals who are happy to kill to get what they want?lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405249501</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin Waters0811771741|title=A Pregnant Ghost and Other Sexual HauntingsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=Spirituality and ReligionCrafts|summary=This is Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a book that does what it sets out collection of knits from toys to do on the tin, and does so in almost glorious fashionblankets. The back cover blurb promises hilarity and tittilation, but this Some will also fit on the shelf be quick knits - others are of any academic looking into the hornier side of the Fortean world'long, as well as anyone relishing the most singular collection cosy afternoons in front of ghost legends that I can remember reading.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089902</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dominic Barker|title=Adam and the Arkonauts|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Adam is on a missionfire' variety. Both he and his father have spent the decade since his mother was kidnapped The projects are divided by an Evil Scientist looking for her, and perfecting their own skills. They might have got the best clue of all so far time they'll take to complete - one that has led them less than five hours, five to the mysteriousten hours, hidden, and downright alarming city of Buenos Suenos. Those skills? Being able to communicate with animals. Since learning ten to gibber like a spider monkey they can both bark, purr perfectly, twenty hours and morethan twenty hours. It will take the extraordinary menagerie to survive All the unusual cityprojects are attractive, modern and try and discover what happened to Adamuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's mum - and what the Evil Scientist might want by holding her hostage for the same skills in returnme being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880025X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Juan Gabriel VasquezDean Koontz|title=The Secret History of CostaguanaBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=In 1904 Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad wrote Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his novel about house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a selfreally weird, disturbing coffin-publicising Italian expatriate by the name of sized object to his home, and it''Nostromo'', set in s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the fictitious South American republic of Costaguana. Columbian writer, Juan Gabriel Vásquez imagines thing that the fictitious José Altamirano has assisted Conrad in trashed his research by telling him his own storyhouse! The thing is, only Benny is the very last person to find deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the British novelist delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has subsequently inexcusably omitted been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from his booknefarious forces for being a good person. Now, he Spike is seeking going to set the record straight by telling the readertake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, who if he imagines in the role of a jury, as well as someone named Eloísa Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who we later find finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out about) the same story to pass judgement on if this was fairwho exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800187</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick BarrattAdam Stower|title=Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral HistoryMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers |summary=As Barratt points out in the opening pagesMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, there are literally thousands whatever takes his fancy next of titles available about the sinking of two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the Titaniccatflap they both use can chuck them out, at the time not into the largestregular back garden, most expensive but into a world of frightening adventure and most luxurious ship ever builtwhiffs. His aim in this volume This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to bridge the gap between another forensic examination of how it sankbe honest, but he's turned up and yet another re-run of what he calls the familiar stories of heroism and tragedy from literature in the public domain 'll have to provide the human story behind the disaster.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848091516</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529431735
|title=The Winter Visitor
|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?