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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>
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Thirteen-year-old Stanley Bound Will's life is an ordinary boy from south London who lives above difficult, in a pub with his bad-tempered half-brother Dougmultitude of ways. He is bullied at schoolbecause he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the situation only gets worse when most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he discovers that lost his job at the popular new boy Lance has been both lying college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and stealinghad an accident. Lance gets Throw into that mix the fact that his revenge by framing Stanleymum and dad are separated, and now no one trusts himWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, even his grumpy brotherhe still has a tiny amount of hope. Little wonder, then He is good at art, that our sad and lonely hero dreams clings to the moments of travelling to distant places to escape his miserable life. But as we all knowjoy when he is drawing, that is feel like a dangerous desire: Stanley should have remembered that people who get what they wish for often regret it. By light at the end of the book he has travelled the universea long, been accused of murder, and met more bizarre characters than even his wildest dreams could have createddark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747599815</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Irene NemirovskySylvie Cathrall|title=JezebelA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=Gladys Eysenach stands in the dock accused of murdering her young lover. She apparently took There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a gun from her handbag and shot him in the early hours of Christmas Day in her own homecompelling premise. What happened is clear – Gladys makes no attempt to deny it – but why it happened And this is less obvious, and Gladys doesn't seem inclined to offer much in the way one of explanation. But gradually, oh so teasingly, we find out what really happened and whythem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520389</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessie Little0008517061|title=The Hoozles: My Magical TeddyDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Willow and her brother Freddie have gone to stay in Summertown with their Aunt Suzy whilst their parents are away for the summerFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Aunt Suzy owns There’s perhaps a toy shop in townlittle uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and she makes her own special Hoozle soft toys. Willow and Freddie each have daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a Hoozle lot of their own that their Aunt made for them compromise: does Jake give up his off- Willow has Toby the teddy bear grid and Freddie has Wobbly the Lion. Willow loves Toby dearly, but it isn't until she is staying relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her aunt that reservations about whether or not this is the future she discovers that Toby can come to life wants for herself and talk to her and she can talk to him! daughter? And so begins a summer full of magical adventures for Willow For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the Hoozlesfuture on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571247911</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel D Victor1786482126|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Seventh BulletJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 1911, author, journalist and celebrated dandy David Graham Phillips Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was shot multiple times by Harvard educated musician Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, who then committed suicide. The journalist had received on going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the morning bones of his death a threatening telegram signed child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with his own nameDCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but had shrugged it off as during Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his career child as a 'muckraker'result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to use the term coined for him by Theodore Roosevelt, he'd made many enemiessudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184856676X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennie Rooney0008551324|title=The Opposite of FallingDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=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 1862 struggling in prison and when wealthy Liverpool girl Ursula Bridgewater finds herself single he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and restless after who was responsible for her fiancée Henry Springton leaves her for another womandeath. This person, he promises, she soon turns to travel as a means of escape is someone big and sets off on her first expeditionit will be worth the police doing what he wants. But she has agreed And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to stay friends with Henry serve the remainder of his sentence and cannot quite escape him completely as they continue to write get an early parole date. Not much to each other. ask, is it? Ten years later The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and Ursula has travelled all over she's even prepared to do the world other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is about to embark on a trip around America, but this time she decides to take a companionkept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701182687</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=K J Parker0008405026|title=The Folding KnifeA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=Bassianus Arcadius Severus – call him Basso – is It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a man of many talentshalt. All but guaranteed a life of ease as his birthright Now, he instead finds himself driven to excelher mother, first as an executive trustee in his father’s bankHelena, and then her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the realm positioning of politicsthe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. His rise What looked as though it was going to the zenith of public life be an open-and-shut case is meteoric, fuelled by ambition, ruthlessness, and above all his ability to turn any defeat into now a resounding victorycomplex double murder. But with Kerrigan is convinced that the Republic – and Basso’s own position and even life – under threat from enemies old and new, will his fall prove equally thunderous? Welcome to ''The Folding Knifeexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, the latest fantasy epic from KUna Burt) are less convinced.J. Parker.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495123</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Reidy and Genevieve Leloup0571379877|title=Too Pickly!The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=ItEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's [[Too Purply! by Jean Reidy and Genevieve Leloup|Too Purply!]] with fooda theatre director. That about sums it up He's also self-obsessed, demanding, but handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for those of you who haven't already fallen him. Edward has been in love with Jean ReidyStanza since their university days - and he's tale of getting dressed, drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert''Too Pickly!'' looks at s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a little boy (and his hamster) deciding what to eat. Dish by dish, he rejects relationship had begun between them for being too pickly, too wrinkly, too burpy, too stringy, and so on, until but he finds the one that's just rightnot like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408807114</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew GrantJo Callaghan|title=Die Twice (David Trevellyan)Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The title When a man is very much at home and in keeping with found crucified on the thriller genre and it's both eye-catching and also has top of a perfectly reasonable explanation which comes right at hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the very end of case alongside her sidekick, the storyAI detective Lock. I must admit to thrillers generally not being my most favourite reading materialIt's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Some can be But when there is a second body found crucified a bit flashyfew days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a bit trashy evenpotential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. But not this novel. Right from Will they be able to solve the start I felt I was case in for a goodtime, intelligent read. There were pointers to this all over or will Kat find herself taken off the place. For starterscase and, potentially, David Trevellyan has out of a nice line in witty humour. There are numerous snazzy one-liners. It all went down very well.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230747582</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louise Doughty1399613073|title=Whatever You LoveMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionThrillers|summary=Two police officers knock 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's dooris a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. They break Anjali is the news to her that her 9 year old daughter Betty has been run over free spirit of the group and killedshe becomes a GP. Betty When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's friend Willow is going to end in hospitaltragedy. Immediately 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, I was drawn into this story of a motherit's worst nightmare coming truetheir teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571254756</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda Strachan0241636604|title=Dead Boy TalkingThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''They say it takes about 25 minutes re unlikely to bleed to deaththink of someone like Gary Stevenson. I want to scream A hoodie and yell but there's no one here to hear me jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and I... I can't breath enough to yell anyway. I'm going to die here, all on my own.'' Josh his background is lying in the snow in an alleyway in a pool of his own blood. He stabbed one of his best mates yesterdayEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and now it's happened to himinjustice. He knows There was no posh public school on his CV - but he's dying and his thoughts turn had been to how this could possibly have happenedthe London School of Economics. He wonders where Skye Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and what she's doinghe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He hopes Danny is okalso realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. And It was his ability at what was, as he goes over the events of the day beforeessentially, a card game which culminated in his stabbing Ranjgot him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, his missing brother Gary keeps intruding this turned into the picturepermanent employment as a trader. Why did he go? And did his parents' obsession with Gary's disappearance play a part in what's happened? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905537204</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Lee1035021803|title=Who Is Mr Satoshi?The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The novel opens somewhere in the Home Counties and Rob Fossick is attending his motherIt's funeraltwenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. The event in itself is extremely distressing and also depressing for him; factor in that heShe's become a bit back now because of a recluse lately request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and I could feel the sheer loneliness creeping into RobCarole's very bonesclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Lee describes Arthur was the event as 'Zimmer framesreason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, bifocalsshe feels, trifocalslet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, dark grey coats with yawning shouldersshe has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. The apparatus After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of old ageher life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020419</amazonuk>
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{{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=Samantha MackintoshSunny Singh|title=Kisses for LulaHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensThrillers |summary=Girls do worry, about all sorts of thingsThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. And one of Hiding from the things they enjoy worrying about most is whether or not they terrorists who are passing the milestones rampaging through, killing everyone on life's journey at site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the same time as everyone elsehotel manager. The fact that they combine this with loud demands As Abhi continues to be treated try to be an individual is a major reason care remotely for stress-related hair-loss and gibbering the residents who are still alive in parents. Lula is no exception here. Her sixteenth birthday is approaching fastthe hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and unless she gets kissed before then (by pretty well anyone: shekeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's desperate) she is convinced she happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be jinxed for liferescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405249625</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Benedict Gummer1529153298|title=The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British IslesList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction|summary=The mid-fourteenth century was an unsettled time for EnglandIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. It was an age which saw the first phases of the protracted Hundred Years’ War with FranceWell, and the Scottish war of independencethey've been murdered, which came but to an end with have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the capture of King David IIfamily 'Down South'. As if these events were not enoughWhen you're from Yorkshire, in 1346 there was the first case of Down South is a man in Europe contracting an unknown disease that rapidly swept across frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the continentmove would mean leaving her best friend, claiming the lives of millionsSharon, and one medieval chronicler noted she'll do anything to prevent that . She's not worried about the bodies looked like a macabre lasagne: corpses piled row upon row separated only by layers of dirtdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548836</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin Cotterill1398524085|title=Love Songs From A Shallow GraveHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Dr Siri Paiboun is about to celebrate his seventy-fourth Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but it looks as though it might be his lastnever turned up. Instead of being at home with Madam DaengHer children, sons Niall, his wife of three monthsPaul and Ollie and her daughter, he's in jailEtty. It's not your average runare all worried but -ofstrangely -the-mill jail either. Siri her husband, Alec, is chained to some lead piping and conditions are not exactly five star. Meanwhile Phosy Shortly afterwards, Etty and Dtui are having marriage problems whilst he struggles to investigate Greg, find the deaths body of three womenGreg's father, all skewered by Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an epee easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their thighs showing a letter engraved with a knifelives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849160457</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Duncan1035906708|title=Kissing Mr Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Kissing Mr Wrong is the first book I have read by Sarah Duncan and it has definitely given me an appetite to read more. It tells an absorbing tale with many different threads that bind together well and with a main character that I loved. Indeed, it has all of the ingredients for a riveting read – one that I didn't want to put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345959</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Joanna Simmons and Jay Curtis|title=The Aargh to Zzzz of Parenting: An Alternative GuideDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Gary Irvine only wants two things out We tend to think of life. He'd like Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to have children and he wants to reduce his golf handicap. Nothing extraordinary there, you might think except for the fact that his wifeGreek parents in Manhattan, PaulineNew York, is planning in December 1923 and only moved to leave him for a self-made carpet millionaire and Gary is a dreadful golferAthens when she was thirteen. His handicap is eighteen – Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but I'm not entirely certain how he got her father changed it down to that level in the first place. His family doesn't give him much solace either. His brother Lee is on the fringes of the local criminal underworld and hasnCallas't the wit to keep himself out of trouble with Ranta Campbell, make it more manageable in the local overlordStates. Ranta When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could be quite likeable if it wasn't get appropriate training for his penchant for a certain type of violence designed to keep the others in line rather than to teach her voice - she was raised under the victim Nazi occupation by a lesson.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516667</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kevin Brooks|title=iBoy|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Tom Harvey is wandering along after school on his way to meet up with his friend Lucy when he hears his name called from up high in one mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the tower blocks on his estate. He doesn't have time to look up before everything goes up. Waking up in hospital days laterher preference for her elder sister, Tom discovers he has fragments of a shattered iPhone embedded in his brain. And still worse, his friend Lucy has been gang-raped in a brutal attack that Tom had been so closed to walking in onJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141326107</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel WatersChristopher Edge|title=Passing Strange (Generation Dead)Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Karen DeSonne, the sexiest zombie amongst the many differently biotic teenagers Lucas and his friends are all booked in Oakvalefor a movie marathon at their local cinema, gets a turn at centre stage in place that has the latest in Daniel Watersnickname of 's The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they'Generation Dead'' series. Karen has always worn a disguise. When she was alivere looking forward to lots of exciting films, her various camouflages hid the crippling depression that engulfed her so often and eventually led to her suicide. Now she's deadmany, make upmany snacks! However, hair dye and blue contact lenses enable her to "pass" as a living girl. She talks fluently the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and her movements they are fluidswept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, unlike most of her differently biotic peers, whose pausescan they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, stutters and jerky movements mark them out for all to see. their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847389600</amazonuk>1839942738
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam RossRachel Greenlaw|title=Mr PeanutCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Doing it for the first time... you know, ''Losing'' It. It. Sex. They talk about it a lot, teenagers. And eventually, they do it. But when is I can hear the right time? Where is song of the right place? Who is sea. The call of the right person? Is everyone else doing it already? Will they be cheap if they do it too? Or will they be left behind on deep, the peripheries of all that's important answering beat in life? And there's so much eagerness in teenagers - not just for sex, but for everything. They sure do hate to waitmy heart. But sometimes, it's better to wait. The trick for the poor things, I suppose, is knowing when exactly to stop waiting. And when you've never done it, how on earth can you possibly know that?!
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Camilla Reid and Ailie BusbyJames Sherwood Metts|title=Lulu's LooPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=We've Things have been here before, as Lulu introduced us to her [[Lulu's Shoes by Camilla Reid a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and Ailie Busby|shoes]]automation have been proceeding apace, [[Luluoften replacing jobs they's Clothes by Camilla Reid re paid to do and Ailie Busby|clothes]] and [[Lulu's Christmas by Camilla Reid and Ailie Busby|Christmas]]other tasks that took time to accomplish. Here, she's kind enough Just as they were beginning to get used to show us all that goes on with her loo, nappies this technological change and potty. As beforestarting to think of other, there are plenty of interesting flaps new ways to lift spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and things to explore, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408802651</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maria EdgeworthMatthew Tree|title=HelenWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sweet-tempered Helen Stanley has been left penniless and homeless after her uncle's death. Soon her best friend Cecilia writes Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to encourage Helen to come be different from his father, a drunk and live with her chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and her new husband, General Clarendon at Clarendon Parkwho had endless crises of self confidence. Helen soon finds herself settled in So Tim applied himself to Clarendon Park and reacquaints herself with Cecilia and more importantly with Cecilia's mother, Lady Davenant, who considers Helen a daughterhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and even prefers her to Ceciliaset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956003893</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=Pamela Fudge1529900360|title=A Change For The BetterGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Jo Farrell It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had spent all her life caring been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for other peoplehis help on difficult cases. After she lost her alcoholic husband His assertions that there were only open-and her demanding, hypochondriac mother she had time for herself, but when she looked in the mirror she wasn-shut cases which didn't particularly impressed by what she sawneed the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. The middle-agedFinally, slightly plump woman with grey curls reminded her of her mother and the clothes she it was wearing did little to Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help eitheragain. It She knew that the involvement was something odd which helped her to changethat the man she loved needed. The very scruffy man from downstairs (next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the sort you would cross swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the road heir to avoid) came an Italian shoe empire and she is married to borrow a newspaper an extremely rich man and somehow they got talking about what needed to be done to change her lifeit's not the Italian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090609</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cath Staincliffe1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Kindest ThingSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Imagine that your partner of twenty or so years discovers that they are dying from a terminal diseaseSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Now imagine that theyHis father was a GP and Rowlands didn've asked you to help them t want to die a little soonerfollow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on their own terms-call put on his father's life. What would you do? This is When he was seventeen he took the dilemma that faced Deborah opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet andwas convinced this was the job for him. Before long, after she went ahead and helped her husband Neil to die, she found herself charged and standing trial for murder he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with her own teenage daughterso many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, Sophie, testifying against herhe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849012083</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter James0861541774|title=Dead Like YouA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Brighton is faced with a serial rapist who appears to have a fetish for shoes - after the rape, he removes the womanDCI Domenic Jejeune's shoes close friend and takes them former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with himan old ally, Guy Trueman. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is immediately reminded of a previous unsolved case that he Maik was involved in several years before, during which a young girl disappeared, never to be found. It was precisely at street brawl - he would later maintain that time that Grace's own wife, Sandy, disappeared and, although he is now having was facing a child man armed with another woman, a knife - and he has never been able to forget Sandykilled a Ghurka. If the rapist has reared his ugly head again Initially, why has he chosen to do so after so long? Could it be faced a copycat rapist? And will Grace's memories charge of Sandy help him manslaughter but evidence came to find some clue as light that suggested that he might have planned to her disappearance?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706878</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Giorgio Faletti|title=I Kill|rating=3murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty.5|genre=Crime|summary=Monte Carlo: not generally Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a place associated with moderation diplomatic incident and temperance of any kind and therefore probably the perfect setting for a killing spree by a serial killer with a particular fetish for extreme souvenir gatheringwouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849012954</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eliza GrahamAlexander McCall Smith|title=JubileeThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As the village celebrates the Queen's Golden Jubilee two people can't help but think back The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the Silver Jubileeonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Evie Winter and Ness has asked her niece Rachel have vivid memories of the day when Evie's daughter Jessamy wandered off younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the mystery of her disappearance has never been solvedbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. She was eleven years old, brightKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, athletic and loved by her mother and cousinso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. There would seem And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to be no explanation as an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to why she might have disappeared of her own free will 44 Scotland Street and no evidence that she was abductedthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Life Katie has carried onno experience in running a business, or in match-making, but it Ness has not been the same. It has not been easy.full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330509268</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jamie Rix0811771741|title=The Incredible Luck of Alfie PluckInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Poor Alfie PluckMelissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. He lives with his two aunts who Some will be quick knits - others are grotesquely disgustingof the 'long, and who call him their Household Drudge. They reminded me cosy afternoons in front of some of Roald Dahlthe fire's most appalling creationsvariety. Compared The projects are divided by the time they'll take to Alfie's auntscomplete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, Harry Potter's Dursley relatives ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are warm attractive, modern and friendlyuseable. Alfie is decidedly down on luckI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001019</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna DaleDean Koontz|title=Magical MischiefThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Mr Hardbattle runs Benny is having a dusty old bookshop where magic terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has moved in. Its smell puts customers off delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it regularly causes chaos such as 's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the books rearranging themselves of their own accordvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. But this bookseller He is a nice man who doesn’t want to disturb the magic too much by getting person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the vacuum cleaner, and on the whole they get used delivery to each other. Now though, he his house is facing a huge rent increase. Enter two customersnew friend, young Arthur and Miss Quinta bad weather friend called Spike, who agree has been sent to help him find since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a nice new home for the magicgood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and to help look after the shop while Mr Hardbattle travels to visit some people Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who have answered an advert offering the magic a new homeexactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800438</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael RobothamAdam Stower|title=Bleed For MeMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=An ex-detective Murray is found dead in supposed to be a pool of blood in his teenager's bedroom. She runs from the scene of the crime. Is this the easiest cut-humble, tidy and-dried case ever? This novel friendly cat, one who is told in the first person by the investigating psychologistable to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, Professor Joe O'Loughlin. He's got a lot going on in whatever takes his life right nowfancy next of the two. His health is not good so But he's to keep popping pills to try and get through another working day. Hea bad magician's also newly separated and cat, so his daughters seem to talk favourite bun has been turned into a completely different language. He feels old hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and very ragged round the edges. Into this mixcatflap they both use can chuck them out, he discovers that not into the teenager everyone is talking aboutregular back garden, the teenager who's been discussed but into a world of frightening adventure and described as whiffs. This time round it drops them into a cold-blooded killerViking land, where a troll hunter is his daughterexpected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's best friend. Could his life get any worse, turned up and he thinks. Yes. Big-time.'ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442188</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathy HopkinsB0C47LV1PC|title=Million Dollar MatesFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=ItCan you make a 's nine months since Jess Hall's mother died and sheYo birthing person's still finding it difficult to come to terms with what's happened. She and her brother Charlie have been living with Gran but all that's about to change. Jess' Dad has got the job of general manager at Number 1joke? And if you could, Porchester Park. These apartments are not just up-market they're where is the A-listers live and after some initial reluctance about leaving Gran Jess question should you make it? Or is excited. There's an Olympic-size pool where she can swim and both she and Charlie will be able to have their own rooms in the house question if you did, would it land? The catch is that goes with the jobanswer for both could well be... Everyone at school envies here and it looks as though she's living the dream.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387578</amazonuk>}}no.
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{{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?