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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from the many 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>
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<metadesc>Expert, full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[: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. It'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, 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|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.
 
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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==New Reviews==
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]].'''
 
  
'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
__NOTOC__
 
  
{{newreview
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==The Best New Books==
|author=Rachel Isadora
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|title=The Twelve Dancing Princesses
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|rating=3
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Bookbag recently loved Rachel Isadora's take on [[The Night Before Christmas by Rachel Isadora and Clement Clarke Moore|The Night Before Christmas]], which put the classic Christmas poem in an African setting. This time round, she has turned her eye to the Grimms' 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0142414506</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|author=Gemma Malley
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Returners
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|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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|title=White Nights
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''Ducks are cool. Whatever happens, whatever gets thrown at them, they just carry on, their little legs paddling. Unfazed. They always look like they're smiling.''
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|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
 
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|isbn=0241619785
Will almost wishes he could be a duck. He has precious little to smile about. Sitting watching those ducks go about their business so blithely by the pond, he can't help but remember his mother who committed suicide there some years ago, when Will was just a tiny lad.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800918</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008385068
|author=Alex Milway
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|title=The Midnight Feast
|title=Mousebeard's Revenge (Mousehunter Trilogy)
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|author=Lucy Foley
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=If you started this trilogy way back when, you would probably never expect the pirate, Mousebeard, and the hero and heroine, Emiline and Scratcher, to be working togetherBut they are - so deep is the world of Old Town in intrigue, subterfuge and wicked plans, that they need to combine forces - and get other returning characters back on hand and on their side - to counter Mousebeard's enemies once and for allOnly, one great thing has changedYes, that's rightMousebeard has had a shave...
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|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor.  It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised.  It's all headed up by Francesca MeadowsThe Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famousHer husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the siteThe heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friendsOld scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245102</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Baldwin
|author=Chris Mullin
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|title=Giovanni's Room
|title=A Very British Coup
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Literary Fiction  
|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
|summary=No one had anticipated that Labour would win the election, not least because the party leader was Harry Perkins, a former steel worker.  His manifesto included promises to remove all American bases from British soil, public control of finance and the dismantling of media empires.  There were a few other things too – but they'll do for starters. The establishment – to a man – was appalled.  Press barons, media stars, bishops and civil service mandarins knew that, for the good of the country (not themselves, ''of course'') something had to be done and ''obviously'' the end would justify whatever means they had to take to achieve their aims. Harry Perkins had to be removed from office.
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|isbn=0141186356
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687403</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Orson Scott Card
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|title=Wild East
|title=Ender in Exile
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school.  The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
|summary='Ender in Exile' is the most recently published in the series set in the universe of 'Ender's Game', a long standing and one of the best known series of science-fiction by Orson Scott Card. It's been defined as an 'interquel', fitting chronologically between 'Ender's Game' and the 'Speaker for the Dead', the first two (and probably the best two) novels in the sequence. Technically speaking, 'Ender in Exile' actually fits in-between the last chapters of 'Ender's Game' and describes in more detail events outlined in the resolving sections of 'Ender's Game'. Confusingly for the uninitiated, 'Ender in Exile' is also a sequel to the 'Shadow of the Giant', a parallel sub-series from the universe of the 'Ender's Game'.  
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|isbn=0241645441
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1635866847
|author=Sue Roe
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|title=The Lavender Companion
|title=The Private Lives of the Impressionists
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=In the early 1860s a group of young Parisian artists were keen to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art worldTheir protests at being spurned by the Salon, the French equivalent of the Royal Academy, resulted in their paintings being shown at the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refusés, where crowds and critics came to view - and jeerWhen they held the first of their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty', while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes in paint, smeared it onto yards of canvas, and signed the result with several different names.
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|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for youBefore I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage.  I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally.  (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it.  Notes in the margins are sanctionedYou get to fold down the corners of pages.  You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Angela McAllister and Alex T Smith
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=My Mum Has X-Ray Vision
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|rating=5
|rating=4
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|genre=Teens
|genre=For Sharing
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|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable.   Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
|summary=Milo suspects his mum has x-ray vision. She can see through the ceiling downstairs when he's jumping on her bed. She can see through the outside wall when he's making potions in the garden in her saucepans. Is she really a superhero? Milo puts her to the test...
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|isbn=1471196585
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407105388</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1787333175
|author=Angelica Garnett
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|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|title=The Unspoken Truth
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Popular Science
|summary=I would not normally start a review with the biography of the author, but The Unspoken Truth is presented as autobiographical fiction by a child of the Bloomsbury Group – in fact the subtitle is 'A Quartet of Bloomsbury Stories'. The blurb on the inside cover even identifies which character is based on the author in each of the four stories, just in case we are not sure.
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|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography.  ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist.  I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184353</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|author=Amos Oz
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|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|title=Rhyming Life and Death
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Rhyming Love and Death is a kind of philosophical love letter to literature, or perhaps more so to fiction. It is a book about how to write, about the compulsion to write, and about the strange world that the writer of fiction must live in.
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|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521024</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1803511230
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
 +
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her.  Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so.  Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
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|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=David Chadwick
|author=Jean Hannah Edelstein
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|title=Headload of Napalm
|title=Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don't Get Why Men Don't Get Them
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Thrillers
|genre=Lifestyle
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|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until....
|summary=Men aren't Martian and women don't hail from Venus. We're all Earthlings apparently; which seems like progress of a sort. Even so we still have trouble understanding each other because we speak different languages – Himglish and Femalese. Luckily Jean Hannah Edelstein is fluent in both and has written this light hearted volume to define the problem and translate.
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|isbn= B0D321VJ76
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848091729</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=Winnie's Jokes
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|rating=5
|rating=2.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Who turns off the lights at Halloween? The lights witch. What does an Australian witch ride on? A broomerang. Yep, it's a joke book.
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|summary=Will'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't 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 building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope.  He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729063</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|author=Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|title=Beautiful Creatures
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Teenage boy meets mysterious new stranger in a small town. They fall in love, he finds out she's harbouring a dark secret, the pair of them try to find out if their relationship can work while she tries to keep him safe from her world. This kind of book appears to be released every few weeks since [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] became so successful – but rarely in the past few years has it been done as well as it has in Beautiful Creatures.
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|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141326085</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1786482126
|author=Jasper Fforde
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|title=Shades of Grey
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|author=Elly Griffiths
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Sometimes with authors you just don't know what you've been missingOther times you doJasper Fforde has long been on my catch-up listSnippets of Thursday Next and reviews and interviews were enough to convince me I had to get to know this work.  
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|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorwayThere was no skullWas this a ritual killing or murder?  Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry NelsonIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months agoHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
 
 
My chance finally came with the first in a completely new series: Shades of Grey.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340963034</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Joan Didion
|author=Sam Mills
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|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|title=Blackout
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary='I am a murderer.
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|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.
 
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|isbn=0007216858
'I'm standing in a bookshop, a gun hot in my palm. The bullet that sat in my barrel thirty seconds ago has pierced flesh, blown into brain tissue, metal now fighting consciousness. The woman slumps ont the floor. Blood begins to trickle from her head. It drips onto a pile of signed copies stacked on the floor.'
 
 
 
Oh my word! What an explosive beginning to a book! But what made a boy do something like this?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239412</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008551324
|author=Ebony McKenna
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|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|title=Ondine: The Summer of Shambles
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|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=3
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ondine de Groot wants out of psychic summercamp, so together with her pet ferret Shambles, she flees from the tea leaf readings and astral projection classes, back to her family's restaurant. Only, as soon as she leaves summercamp, she starts hearing voices. Specifically a broad Scottish voice – one that seems to be coming from her ferret. Shambles, it transpires, is in fact a man, turned into a ferret by a witch. Ondine starts to wonder what Shambles would look like as a man, but her imaginings are soon interrupted by the arrival of handsome Lord Vincent, son of the Duke, who sets Ondine's heart fluttering.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405249617</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jean Rowden
 
|title=More Deaths Than One
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Constable Thomas 'Thorny' Deepbriar has a broken leg after his involvement in a case and so is taken by his wife, Mary, to recuperate in the seaside town where he worked as a policeman during the war. He expects to be bored - the most interesting thing on the horizon is a case of missing gnomes. Then he bumps into an old colleague - someone who left the force in a haze of suspicion. Shortly afterwards, a body is found on the beach. Even stranger is that the dead man is someone that Thorny and his colleague thought had died during the war. It seems that things are not as they seem. Can Thorny work out what is going on, even with a broken leg?
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|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 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. And what 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 ask, is it?  The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089309</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1739526910
|author=Paul Strathern
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|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|title=The Artist, The Philosopher and The Warrior
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|author=Glen Sibley
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=The interaction between three very different, not to say contrasting, personalities of the Renaissance period sets the scene for what promises to be an intriguing title.  In 1502 the paths of Cesare Borgia, notorious son of the equally infamous Pope Alexander VI, Niccolò Machiavelli, the intellectual and diplomat, and Leonardo da Vinci, at the time best known as a military engineer though remembered today primarily as a great artist, were destined to cross.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951212</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rachel Heath
 
|title=The Finest Type Of English Womanhood
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was just after the end of the Second World War and seventeen year old Laura Trelling was at a loose end in her Sussex village. She didn't really fit in with the other young people and her eccentric parents were becoming more and more isolated, to the extent that Laura was embarrassed by their carelessness of her welfare.  A chance encounter with Paul Lovell was to change everything and before long she was on her way to a South Africa not yet burdened with apartheid.
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|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532743</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008405026
|author=Bobbie Darbyshire
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|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|title=Truth Games
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|author=Jane Casey
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Crime
|summary=The central theme in this book is sex - and lots of itWe're introduced to a group of mainly twentysomethings and thirtysomethingsMen and womenMost of them are attractive and hold down glamorous jobs and careersAll in rude health, with wonderful social lives and trendy homesThey all appear, on the surface, to be a bunch of shiny, happy people. What on earth could be missing?
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|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer nightShe was never found and the investigation ground to a haltNow, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bedInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspiciousWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murderKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905614721</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529077745
|author=Nia Pritchard
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|title=More Than Just A Hairdresser
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|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=2.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
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|genre=Crime
|summary=It's a brand new year, and Liverpudlian hairdresser Shirley is looking forward to the months ahead following one hell of a new year's eve party. What's more, she's going to chronicle her adventures in her brand spanking new diary which she will write in diligently, even when she's feeling a bit 'morning after the night before'.
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|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens.  The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up.  D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1870206851</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1399613073
|author=Anthony Quinn
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|title=Moral Injuries
|title=The Rescue Man
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|author=Christie Watson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=This love affair tale with the city of Liverpool is mostly told through the eyes of architect Tom Baines. With the Second World War looming, Baines is desperately working on a book to capture the memory of buildings that are at risk, and appears a man more in love with the past and solid, cold structures than mankind.
+
|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.  Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor.  Anjali is the free spirit of the 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 end 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531933</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0241636604
|author=Paul Murray
+
|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|title=Skippy Dies
+
|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Life in Seabrook College is a messSome of the staff are young enough to remember their own school days there, but many are certainly too old for thatA lot of the boys are victims of ragging and bullying for being too chunky, or too smart - but some are so chunky and smart there's a certain kudos to themThe female of the species is a thing only spied from their own school next door, and only met by selling them ritalin as a weight-control pill, or meeting them at the very rare combined school disco.
+
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary StevensonA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injusticeThere was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics.  Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy.  He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupidIt was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank.  Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241141826</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Leanne Egan
|author=A G Taylor
+
|title=Lover Birds
|title=Meteorite Strike
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Teens
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her.  A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it?  Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them?  So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|summary=Sarah is not ready.  She's not ready to forgive the man who is her father, for abandoning her and her young brother Robert eight years ago. She cannot yet forgive the circumstances of her mother dying, and of the promise they were forced to make, to go to Australia with the man, and start a new life.  She is certainly not prepared for the meteor strike to smash into Australia just as they fly above it, which downs the plane in a horrid crash, and seems to carry with it an alien virus which forces many people to drop permanently asleep.
+
|isbn=000862657X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409508579</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1009473085
|author=Jane Yolen and Mark Teague
+
|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|title=How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?
+
|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=[[How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen|How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?]] was a witty and visually creative tale of Very Bad Bedtime Behaviour for modern children enamoured of dinosaurs. 'How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?' continues the formula, this time with table manners.
+
|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''.  If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you.  If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years.  It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast.  It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007216092</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Cynthia Kadohata
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=A Million Shades of Grey
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=At just twelve, Tin is the youngest elephant handler in his village. Ever since he can remember, Tin has dreamed of working with elephants and he loves his own elephant, Lady, to distraction, even spending most of his nights sleeping by her side. Tin is much less keen on school, but his parents insist that he goes. Tin really can't see the point, as his sole ambition is to become a fully-fledged elephant trainer. His parents may talk about opportunities in the world outside his village but if they don't involve elephants, he's not interested.
+
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738823X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|author=Chloe Hooper
+
|title=Nowhere Man
|title=The Tall Man: Life and Death on Palm Island
+
|author=Deborah Stone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cameron Doomadgee – Mulrunji – was just thirty six years old when he was arrested on Palm Island. Quite why he was arrested was never clear. He wasn't drunk, although he had been drinking beer – and was walking along the road singing ''Who Let the Dogs Out?''  Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley felt that there was reason to arrest Mulrunji for creating as public nuisance and he was taken to the police station. What happened next was to be the subject of intense media speculation and legal proceedings over the coming years, but within forty five minutes Mulrunji was dead.
+
|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520761</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Virginie Despentes
|author=Timothy W Ryback
+
|title=King Kong Theory
|title=Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=Autobiography
|genre=History
+
|summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.
|summary=As the fictional schoolboy hero Nigel Molesworth might have said, 'any fule kno' that Adolf Hitler was notorious for burning books.  Nevertheless he was also an avid collector and passionate reader, as around 1200 surviving volumes once in his possession now in the Rare Book Division of the Library of Congress, and a smaller quantity in Brown University, Rhode Island, demonstrate. Among them were world literature classics, such as 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and 'Gulliver's Travels'.  He also owned an edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, in hand-tooled Moroccan leather with a gold-embossed eagle flanked by his initials on the spine.  The Bard, he once said, was greatly superior to Goethe and Schiller.
+
|isbn=191309734X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532174</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alba de Cespedes
|author=Druin Burch
+
|title=Forbidden Notebook
|title=Taking the Medicine
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=In 1898, Burch points out that a new drug was developed and marketed for the treatment of tuberculosis by Bayer & Co. TB is such an ancient enemy of man that there is apparently evidence of an earlier strain to be found in Egyptian mummies. The German firm had discovered a chemical that seemed to work well, and patients and indeed their own staff, who were tested  seemed to respond well - it was named Heroin - and its addictive effects were at first missed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951506</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gigi Amateau
 
|title=Chancey
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Chancey's dam was Starry Night and her owner loved that horse so much that she wanted a foal who was exactly like her, but when Chancey was born she was bitterly disappointed for instead of the black Appaloosa with white marking Chancey was born albino.  It was only his striped hooves which proved his breeding.  The owner was not big enough to overcome her feelings and when she fell on hard times it was Chancey who was left out in the field to suffer despite the fact that he was no longer a young horse.
+
|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140632258X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1782278222
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Ottessa Moshfegh
|author=Sian Rees
+
|title=My Year of Rest and Relaxation
|title=Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade
+
|rating=3
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|genre=History
+
|summary=At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.
|summary=The Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was passed in Britain in March 1807, and the last legal British slave ship left Africa seven months later. Other countries were slow to follow suit.  Everyone in Britain knew there would be resistance, and when the abolitionist Granville Sharpe purchased land in Sierra Leone to 'repatriate' freed slaves, Ottobah Cugoana, a former slave living in London, asked if it was possible for 'a fountain to send forth both sweet water and bitter.'  Could the slave trade, he wondered, be abolished from West Africa - when West Africa was its source?
+
|isbn=1784707422
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951174</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jo Callaghan
|author=Sapphire
+
|title=Leave No Trace
|title=Precious
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Precious Jones is a sixteen year old black girl from Harlem – well she's never actually been out of Harlem – and when we meet her she's pregnant by her own father for the second time.  Her first child was a girl and she was born with Down's Syndrome.  With unconscious irony Precious calls her ''Little Mongo'' and leaves her to live with her grandmother.  When her second pregnancy becomes obvious she's expelled from school and joins an alternative education programme.  Precious really wants to learn and the book is the story of her journey from illiteracy to maturity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548720</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dean Hale, Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale
 
|title=Calamity Jack
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=''I was born to scheme'', declares our hero Jack.  With flashbacks we see the young lad and a pixie friend, larking about for revenge or small profit.  But when his mother's bakery gets more and more into the red, the size of the profit has to increase.  And when you add in revenge against the local crime lord - a giant of a man - so does the size of the target of the jape.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747587426</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sue Grafton
 
|title=U is for Undertow
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Several years ago I joined a funny little book group in London, and one of the first books we read was a Sue Grafton alphabet bookI had, up to this point, never read any crime fiction, foolishly feeling myself above such books, and so I was dubious about what I'd have to say about itThat book changed my literary life.  I devoured it.  I couldn't get enough!  I immediately searched for all the other books in the series and read them quickly, one by one, swiftly followed by a delicious plunge into the world of Agatha Christie which gave me a joyously long reading list.  And so now, years later, I find myself with the latest book in the alphabet series lying in my lap, a happy smile on my face as I found I read voraciously once again!
+
|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock.  It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold casesBut when 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 draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing projectWill they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023070932X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=139851120X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B0DB64PYV5
|author=Jethro Adlington
+
|title=The White Rose
|title=Online Therapy: Reading Between the Lines
+
|author=Dave Baines
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Home and Family
+
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=You can get most things online these days and even therapy is becoming more widely available on the internet.  It might seem like a simple step to take but many of the signals beyond the spoken word are not available to the online therapist. In a face-to-face situation body language is an added form of communication and even small changes in skin tone can give clues as to state of mind.  In a situation where these clues are not available it's essential to make the most of ''all'' the clues offered by the written word.
+
|summary=In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312748</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Laurie Halse Anderson
 
|title=Chains
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Isabel and her sister Ruth are slaves. But they should be free - Miss Mary Finch left a will that said so. But Miss Mary Finch is dead and her greedy nephew and heir denies all knowledge of the will. So Isabel and Ruth are sold to the Locktons and taken to New York. The Revolutionary War is underway and New York is a dangerous place. The Locktons are loyalists, but the patriots are in control of the city.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747598061</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lorraine Jenkin
 
|title=Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Women's Fiction
 
|summary=From the first sentence: 'With one hell of a crash, Lettie Howell’s dinner service hit the wall…', I knew that I was going to enjoy this tale.  An opening thus full of expletive and resounding Welsh Voice immediately makes it clear who’s the boss and I can relax, knowing I’m in competent hands.  Welcome, Lorraine Jenkin, to my handful of favourite chick-lit authors.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1870206959</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tom Wolfe
 
|title=The Bonfire of the Vanities
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=In his own mind, bond trader Sherman McCoy is a 'Master of the Universe'. He has a pleasant wife, a beautiful mistress, and a sweet six year old daughter. Henry Lamb is a black student from the projects. Under normal circumstances, it's clear that McCoy's world and Lamb's world would never overlap. But when McCoy and his mistress Maria Ruskin end up lost in the Bronx, and an accident leads to Lamb being hit by McCoy's Mercedes, a chain of events start which will lead to his downfall.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548798</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 08:50, 31 October 2024

Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!

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0241619785.jpg

Review of

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5star.jpg Short Stories

As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity. Full Review

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Review of

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found. Full Review

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Review of

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Giovanni's Room follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. Full Review

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Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words. Full Review

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Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

It's strange, the things that make you immediately feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading The Lavender Companion, I visited the author's website and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I loved this book already. Full Review

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together. Full Review

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Review of

You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here by Benji Waterhouse

5star.jpg Popular Science

I was tempted to read You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here after enjoying Adam Kay's first book This is Going to Hurt, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. You Don't Have to be Mad... promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. Full Review

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Review of

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

5star.jpg Short Stories

Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. Full Review

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Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

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Review of

Headload of Napalm by David Chadwick

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until.... Full Review

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will'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't 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 building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

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Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

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Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a 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 sudden bouts of sickness. Full Review

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Review of

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear. Full Review

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Review of

The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the 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. And what 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 ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. Full Review

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Review of

Where I've Not Been Lost by Glen Sibley

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities. Full Review

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Review of

A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

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 halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. Full Review

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Review of

The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. Full Review

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Review of

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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 perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the 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 end 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. Full Review

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Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was 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 he 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. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. Full Review

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Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she? Full Review

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Review of

The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024 by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)

5star.jpg Politics and Society

Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it isn't and that applies to The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what really happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, Johnson at 10, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. The Conservative Effect is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024. Full Review

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

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Review of

Nowhere Man by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done. Full Review

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Review of

King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes

4star.jpg Autobiography

King Kong Theory is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays. Full Review

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Review of

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways. Full Review

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Review of

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

3star.jpg Literary Fiction

At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation. Full Review

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Review of

Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

4star.jpg Crime

When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is 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 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 case and, potentially, out of a career? Full Review

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Review of

The White Rose by Dave Baines

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away. Full Review