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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>
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__ ==The Best New Books== '''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br> '''Read [[:Category:Features|new the latest features]].'''__NOTOC__'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain PearsTom Percival|title=Stone's FallThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary=I read Iain PearsWill' s life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can'The Portraitt work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can' t work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a year or so ago building site and loved it so I was really looking forward to reading this novelhad an accident. The front cover is strikingly handsome Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and hints of good things to come between its coversWill's life seems bleak in every direction. The novel is divided up into sizeable chunks And yet, he still has a tiny amount of threehope. Three different decades He is good at art, and three different locations. Pears then dips in and out clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the main characters' livesend of a long, telling the reader basically what makes them tickdark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099516179</amazonuk>1398527122
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zachary MasonSylvie Cathrall|title=The Lost Books of A Letter to the OdysseyLuminous Deep|rating=45|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=Zachary Mason suggests that Homer's ''Odyssey'' was merely one particular ordering of the events of Odysseus' return There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to Ithaca after the Trojan Wara compelling premise. 'Echoes of other Odysseys', he suggests exist, including a forty four-episode variation in a 'pre-Ptolomeic papyrus excavated from the desiccated rubbish mounds of Oxyrhnchus' and And this is what is 'translated' here. So we are presented with these forty four often very short stories that reconstruct elements of the Odyssey in a kind of alternate reality, asking 'what if it were slightly different', and what emerges is a non-linear, mosaic one of stories. If Homer had decided to present his book in DVD format, these would be in the 'extras' of alternative 'takes' on things. The result is like a jazz riff on the original storiesthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090224</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sherrilyn Kenyon0008517061|title=InfinityDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Nick GautierFormer Metropolitan Police detective, scholarship kid teased for Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his poverty vet girlfriend, Livia and his mother's job her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a stripper, finds life hard enough even before three lot of compromise: does Jake give up his friends try off-grid and relaxing life to kill him when he stops them from mugging an elderly couple. But when the man who rescues him turns out move in with Livia or does Livia move to mix in seriously weird circles, things get really bizarre. If anything, really bizarre Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is a massive understatement. Nick goes on to meet demons, zombies, shape changers, the future she wants for herself and a host of other mysterious beings, many of whom he already knew her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in human form as his schoolmates. He ends up the present and putting the future on the frontline of a battle against zombies who are running riot in his home of New Orleansback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190741021X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Beard1786482126|title=The ParthenonJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=Despite Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the proliferation site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of populist historians in print and on televisiona child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Professor Mary Beard continues to be a voice apartDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Her conversational style It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of writing belies the academic research at its heartone night they spent together some three months ago. This Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is serious history written as engagingly as a detective storyprone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683491</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Garrett Keizer0008551324|title=The Unwanted Sound of Everything We WantDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=What 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 noise? struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Do we count birdsong at sunrise as noise? And if so, what different term would we use he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to describe a jet aircraft taking offask, is it? Why do we respond The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so differently and she's even prepared to do the two? Even more intriguingly, would our response change if the birdsong woke us other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from an exhausted sleep but the aircraft was taking off to jet us on a long awaited holiday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586485520</amazonuk>what's happening.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mario Puzo0008405026|title=Six Graves to MunichA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In the dying days of the Second World War Michael Rogan, an American Intelligence officer It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was captured never found and tortured by the investigation ground to a group of seven men, most of whom were senior Gestapo officers trying to obtain the secrets which Rogan could give themhalt. His wife was in another room Now, her mother, Helena, and he could hear her screamsfather are dead in their bed. Ten years laterInitially, when he had recovered from it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the appalling injuries he suffered he made up his mind that he would avenge the death positioning of his wife at the hands of the seven menbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. ItKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's no easy task disappearance: others (such as he doesnDerwent't even know who they s boss, Una Burt) areless convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916276X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kishwar Desai0571379877|title=Witness the NightThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=23.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The book opens on Edward Jevons is a disturbing dream sequence (or is it working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a memory?) that sets up the murder which is to be at the centre of this booktheatre director. DurgaHe's also self-obsessed, a young girl living in Julundurdemanding, is instructed by a mysterious male character handsome and entitled and uses Edward to return to the house from which she run errands for him. Edward has just fled, the house been in which her whole family lies deadlove with Stanza since their university days - poisoned, stabbed and partly scorchedhe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. There Durga Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is tied up, having been attacked and rapedleft to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636857</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael RidpathJo Callaghan|title=Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Magnus Jonson was When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in some difficulty in BostonNuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. HeIt'd overheard another detective getting himself involved in something illegal and s their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when he reported this he there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that even draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the good guys weren't terribly fond case and, potentially, out of him – a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the others first day of medical school and their friendship would prefer keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to see him dead before be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the case came group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to trialend in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The solution was simple but unusualTrading Game: Jonson was born A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in Iceland although heyour mind, you'd mostly grown up in Boston and the police in Iceland wanted re unlikely to think of someone to give them some help in beefing up their murder squadlike Gary Stevenson. Jonson disappeared from BostonA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, telling no one where he was going familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and resurfaced in Icelandhe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Simple? NoEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873972</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rushkoff1035021803|title=Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How The Antique Hunter's Guide to Take it BackMurder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=The author It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of this book a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was mugged outside his apartment one Christmas Evethe reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. He posted a note online to warn his neighbours Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be extra carefulnear the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, and was promptly berated for doing something so public that could potentially damage property values she worked in his local area. This is a thought-provoking snippetcafe, met and if married James (on the rebound from the whole book love of her life, who was like this, I'm sure I would murdered) and Freya and James have been grippednow divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516691</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=John FarndonSunny Singh|title=Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxbridge QuestionsHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Popular ScienceThrillers |summary=My history of interviews with Oxbridge colleges forms The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a very short dialogueterrorist group. MeHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, to university admissions representativekilling everyone on site, ''You don’t actually do media studies per sethere is Sam, do you?'' Hea wartime photographer and Abhi, ''No – our graduates run the mediahotel manager.'' Had I got As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a lot furtherbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and sat in front keeps on venturing out of a potential tutor, I would have faced a question designed her room to baffle, provoke, bewilder – or try to inspire a flight of intuitive intelligence. Thus is the media-running wheat separated from the media-consuming chaffcapture what's happened through her photography. And thus is this book given its basis – sixty of Although they only ever talk over the more remarkable questionsphone, answered their friendship grows as our erudite author might have wished Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to answer themsee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184831132X</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melanie Welsh1529153298|title=Mistress The List of the StormSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jericho, (whoIt's female by the way), 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a beautiful young Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She's curious about the outside world so like many before her, shenot what's worrying Miv's taken the brave step of sampling life in a bigfamily, bustling citythough. Women have been disappearing. She returns Well, they've been murdered, but to her home village with some rather pretentious airs ... and a rich suitor in towhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. By sheer coincidence JerichoMiv's mother had attended an interview in upset because she's overheard that her past at her daughterfather wants to move the family 's new boyfriendDown South's family home. A veritable mansion with When you' ... sweeping rooms that took longer than re from Yorkshire, Down South is a river to crossfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she' What a lovely way of describingluxury in an essentially poor area of Africall do anything to prevent that. Everyone thinks She's not worried about the next natural step is marriage and babies but is it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086275</amazonuk>dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Beaumont1398524085|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor Charlotte Salter was expected at The Observerher husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. He joined the paper in 1989 Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and has spent much of the intervening time dealing with the kind of 'foreign affairs' that her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is better described as 'war reporting'not. 'The Secret Life Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of WarGreg' is a distillation of his years s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the fieldriver. It is a book ill-served by both its title was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve to sneak it onto then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the bookshelves of those who really need to read it, guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but probably wouldnthere't choose to s little else they can do so were it more accurately wrappedbut get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mira Grant1035906708|title=FeedDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=In 2014 the common cold We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was curedthirteen. So Her original surname was cancer. But in their wake something terrible came – the two viruses used Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to cure the ailments combined 'Callas' to form a terrifying plague that turned humans and large animals into make it more manageable in the living deadStates. Now what's left of the human race lives every day with the fear When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the virus they hold dormant in their bodies could go into amplification, causing them to turn. People stay indoors, stop meeting in crowds, Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and conduct most made no secret of their lives onlineher preference for her elder sister, Jackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149898X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Rees BrennanChristopher Edge|title=The Demon's CovenantBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?
|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=A few weeks after the events of [[The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan|The Demon's Lexicon]] and Mae is finally ungrounded. Determined to get on with 'normal' life and forget I can hear the magic she's lost since brothers Nick and Alan Ryves left, Mae is only interested in hitting song of the town and meeting up with Sebsea. Nice, normal Seb.Then Mae learns her brother Jamie has been secretly meeting up with Gerald, the new leader The call of the Obsidian Circle. Afraid that Jamie is getting involved in dangerous things, Mae does the only thing she can and calls Alan.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847382908</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gary Younge|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Journalist Gary Younge’s book draws heavily on his articles for the Guardian newspaperdeep, as he mentions in his acknowledgements, but it isn’t just a collection of his journalism. Who Are We? is partly a memoir and partly a thoughtful and incisive exploration of the politics and political impact of identity, including race, gender, language groups, religion, sexuality answering beat in various countries around the worldmy heart. He sets out to explore 'To what extent can our various identities be mobilized to accentuate our universal humanity as opposed to separating us off into various, antagonistic camps?'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917036</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Liz KesslerJames Sherwood Metts|title=Philippa Fisher and the Stone Fairy's PromisePlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In the third book of this enchanting series Liz Kessler manages to show both the delights and Things have been a bit sticky for the sorrows of friendship: a topic which is eternally popular with young (and not so young) readersEarthlings. Philippa has travelled with her father AI and mother automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to Ravenleigh do and other tasks that took time to spend New Year with her new friend Robyn. But she has only just arrived when disaster strikesaccomplish. Daisy, her other best friend and fairy godsister (like a fairy godmother but the same age Just as you), realises Philippa's mother is in danger, and tries they were beginning to help. But in order get used to do so she has all this technological change and starting to break a lot think of rulesother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and a series of catastrophes means Philippa ends up , along with Daisy in ATC (Above The Clouds)it, a sector of all the fairy world. And the other fairies don't realise who she is ..many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842559966</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane SmileyMatthew Tree|title=NobodyWe's Horsell Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Abby lives on her family's farm in California. They specialise in taking horses and ponies which are not at their peak and bringing them on so that they can Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be sold at a profit. Abby's different from his father is determined that she won't get attached to any of the horses, because that only increases the pain when they inevitably go, but two are going to make an impact on her that she could not have expected. The first is a foal drunk and chronic underachiever whose dam dies when he's a matter dreams of being exceptional at any of weeks old his artistic passions all failed miserably and he takes Abby's heartwho had endless crises of self confidence. The second has the opposite effect because every time that Abby rides him he's determined So Tim applied himself to buck her off. She's frightened of him his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and it's a tribute to Abby that the worst she calls him is Grumpy Georgeset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571253547</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neil GaimanA G Slatter|title=Instructions|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Go through the mysterious door, mind the imp, trust the wolves and answer the ferryman's question carefully. Neil Gaiman takes us on a tour of a fantasy land with a series The Briar Book of instructions for surviving the adventure. You'll discover wonders beyond your wildest dreams, and return home safely, a little older and a little wiser.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408808641</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Don Boyd|title=Margot's SecretsDead
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=Margot is '' There's a psychologist who specialises in sexual disorders and obsessionspart of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. She lives and works for herself in Barcelona amongst the ex-pat communityThis secret magic of my own, and although she only has a dozen or so clients at any one timeall mine, spends much of her week living at her officelast. Her clients, both male and female, are bewildering and fascinating in equal portions, and the description of the therapy sessions make fascinating and revealing readingI just want to enjoy it for a while.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955405149</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gill Schierhout1529900360|title=The Shape of HimGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=The story is told in the first person by Sara HighburyIt 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 his help on difficult cases. SheHis assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn's running t need the help of a psychologist only worked for a small business in an efficient but rather detached fashionwhile. SheFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's all washed uppartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She starts to recount her earlierknew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, happier life when it meant something to herthough. And Two lovers were murdered in the reader soon discovers that swimming pool of a diamond digger called Herbert remote property in Bel Air. He was - the heir to an Italian shoe empire and still she is - the love of her life. And here Schierhout gives us a taster of the hard married to an extremely rich man and dirty work digging for stones (theyit're never called diamonds by s not the workers apparently)Italian. The danger and precarious nature But which of them was the work is laid bare. But Herbert seemed to be a natural. Whyprimary target?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535777</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A J Jacobs1529395224|title=My Experimental Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Lifeof a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=HumourAnimals and Wildlife|summary=A J Jacobs has a reputation for setting himself onerous tasksSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His first book father was about reading a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the entire Encyclopedia Britannica; strain that being on-call put on his second detailed father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a year spent according to vet and was convinced this was the Biblical preceptsjob for him. In My Experimental Life Before long, he recounts nine briefer episodes of living outside was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his comfort zonedream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547422</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne-Marie Vukelic0861541774|title=Far Above Rubies|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Shy Catherine Hogarth first meets Charles Dickens at her parents' house when he hilariously comes in through the window to dance a jig before the assembled guests, before leaving and then entering again via the front door. Employed by her father George, the editor of the Evening Chronicle, as a reporter and sketch writer, Charles is at the start A Nye of his writing career and soon becomes a regular visitor to the Hogarth household. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090536</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPheasants|author=Chris Barnardo|title=Dadcando: Build, Make, Do ... the Best Way to Spend Quality Time with Your KidsSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=The ideas 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 this book originated as a [http://www.dadcando.co.uk/ website] street brawl - he would later maintain that Chris Barnardo set up for divorced he was facing a man armed with a knife - and separated fathers to help them spend quality time with their children Now he's written killed a book that although aimed at single fathers is equally as useful for married dadsGhurka. Initially, and mums too or grandparents or carers to inspire crafty ideas he faced a charge of things manslaughter but evidence came to make with kids.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652011</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julia Williams|title=The Bridesmaid Pact|rating=5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=I recently read [[Last Christmas by Julia Williams]] and enjoyed it so much light that suggested that I was determined he might have planned to read more by this fabulous authormurder the man. The opportunity presented itself in Now he could be facing the shape of death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'The Bridesmaid Pact', a truly wonderful book that not only met but also exceeded t help Danny at all my expectations. In fact it was so good that I read the last 200 pages in just one day, totally ignoring my family whilst doing so. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847560873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Vicki Myron and Brett WitterAlexander McCall Smith|title=Dewey: The True Story of a World-famous Library CatPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=This heart-warming book tells The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the wonderful true story of online apps in providing a cat called Deweymore personal, tailored service. His beginnings were very humble Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and his life could quite probably have been quite short if it had not been look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a fortuitous event that occurred one cold winter morningwhile. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Vicki Myron 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 chief librarian at Spencer Library in IowaIsabel Dalhousie novels, heard but with some very strange noises coming from the book drop box that borrowers used in order new characters who quickly begin to return their books when the library was closedcharm. On opening the box she discovered Katie has no experience in running a smallbusiness, or in match-making, dirtybut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, shivering kitten and there's always her heart melted. As a consequencevery helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, the kittenWilliam, which was soon to be named Dewey, was adopted and became the official library cat. lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847388442</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Grisham0811771741|title=Ford CountyInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrafts|summary=When I think Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of John Grisham I tend knits from toys to think firstly of lawyersblankets. Well, actually, I think Some will be quick knits - others are of Tom Cruise first to be honest, and then the whole lawyer thing. I expect surprising twists and 'long, detailed plots. This collection, however, is a book cosy afternoons in front of short stories so has to work differentlythe fire' variety. There isnThe projects are divided by the time they't room within a short story for a lengthyll take to complete - less than five hours, twisting plotfive to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and so Grisham has to rely on other skills to make them workmore than twenty hours. My feeling was that some do All the projects are attractive, modern and some don'tuseable. Set in AmericaI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's Deep South all the stories revolve around a rather mixed bag of characters from Ford County, with the eversocial-media-present lawyers worthy projects' but also gamblers, murderers, con artists, drunks and scoundrelsthat's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545780</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth ChadwickDean Koontz|title=To Defy A KingThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionParanormal|summary=#Set in the traumatic and violent period leading up to the Magna Carta, Chadwick concentrates on the fortunes of two extended familiesBenny is having a terrifically bad day. The Marshals He loses his job, close to the throne for their expertisehe loses his fiancee, political and military mighthis house gets trashed. Oh, and the Bigodssomeone has delivered a really weird, who are directly related disturbing coffin-sized object to King Johnhis home, through their half brother Longespeeand it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, son of Benny is the family matriarch, and John’s fathervery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Banished from Court, and forced So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to leave her son therehis house is a new friend, Ida marries Roger and founds a strong patriarchal dynasty. Howeverbad weather friend called Spike, tension who has been sent to help him since Benny is never far clearly under attack from boiling pointnefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, with the two half brothers tolerating each other at bestif he, loathing each other more often than notBenny, due to their opposing naturesand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442366</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kimberly GreeneAdam Stower|title=My Life on TVMurray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=Sam’s sisterMurray is supposed to be a humble, Dannitidy and friendly cat, one who is a pop star able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and her mother is Danni’s manager, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. Dad died before Sam was bornBut he's a bad magician's cat, so between his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the three of catflap they both use can chuck them life is quite fraughtout, particularly as they’re not into the subject of a reality show which is planned to run for three years. If they manage the full three years the house they live in will belong to their motherregular back garden, but it all looks to be in jeopardy when Danni decides that she can’t take the pop star life any longer into a world of frightening adventure 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 rentwhiffs. There might be a way This time round it though drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – what if she well, one much bigger than Murray was , to become a TV star be honest, but he's turned up and the reality show could continue?he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409508293</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Grant GillespieB0C47LV1PC|title=The Cuckoo BoyFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=The reader is introduced to twenty-something married couple Sandra and Kenneth. Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And yesif you could, they suit their names. They are an average couple with an average intellect leading average lives. They are also desperate to become a family unit. Sandrais the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, right from would it land? The catch is that the word go, appears to answer for both could well be a woman living on her nerves. A smooth-running domestic life is top of her agenda ... no matter what. And in that regard, she is insular and narrow-minded. So it didn't come as a surprise when I read between the lines. She wants a baby but not the mess that comes with it. James, a tiny baby is brought into this brittle home. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955460948</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Sanders1529431735|title=Diagnosis: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Medical MysteriesThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceCrime|summary=Fans of ‘’HouseIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, M.D.’’ may recognise which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the name of Lisa Sandersmore surprising. She’s the technical advisor to He'd been exiled on the TV show as well Costa del Sol as being the writer of the ‘’Diagnosis’’ column in the New York Times. Many of the stories which appear in the column are recounted in this book, which is a look at the way in which doctors reach wanted drug smuggler for a diagnosis and how the method has changed (or not) over the yearsdecade. I’m not The return has come about because he's had a fan of the hospital dramas which seem to be a major feature of the TV schedules, but I was fascinated by what is, essentially, a series of medical detective stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311338</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Smith|title=Taurus|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=As the bull goes letter from paddock to stall in the searing heat of the farmhis ex-wife, he feels strangely disembodied - saying that she's ill and yet all he feels is his body: his huge bulk; the angles at which he must hold up his heavy head hasn't long to see what he needs live. It's hard to see; the strange latency that fills him. He watches the skittish grey horsefeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, transfixed and yet repulsed by its grace and fluidity. He observes stripped to his captors, the girl underwear and boy siblings and their father, and he allows their goadings sent to gradually wake him from stuporous apathy. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089978</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Holly Black|title=The White Cat (Curse Workers, Book 1)|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Cassel Sharpe dreams of a white cat and wakes up on watery grave in the roof boot of his school building, perilously close to a fatal fallstolen Ford Sierra. 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 Is it a pupil. This is completely devastating for Cassel, who is struggling with some major issues. For starters, he's only non-worker in warning from a family of workers. His gloved hands cover useless fingers. His touch doesn't manipulate emotions, remove memories, bring luck, Spanish gang or kill, maim or otherwise injure. Even in a world where working is illegal, it's hard problem closer to be the only normal person in your family|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575096713</amazonuk>}}home?