134,828
edits
Changes
no edit summary
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
Want to find out learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414804421787333175|title=Healthy Vegan The Cookbook: Vegan Cooking Meets Nutrition ScienceYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Niko Rittenau and Sebastian CopienBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryPopular Science|summary=EmotionallyI 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}}, I am a veganglorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. Mentally, I am ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a veganpsychiatrist. I read [[How did wonder whether it was acceptable to Love Animals be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a Human-Shaped World by Henry Mance]] situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. }}{{Frontpage|author=Maria Stepanova and was appalled by the way in which we treat animals in our search for Sasha Dugdale (preferably cheapTranslator) food. Practically|title=The Disappearing Act|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, I am not a veganStepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. It worked A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for a while apart from the odd blip with regard literary festival she is to cheese but then be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a perfect storm traveling circus. Swept up in this series of those events which you hope don't occur too often , M eventually offers to step in your lifetime tempted me back to animal-based proteinfor a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. It wasn't the taste - I know that I can get plant-based food that tastes just The train functions as good as anything plundered from a motif of transience and impermanence, while the animal kingdom - it was circus embodies the ease reshaping of being able to get sufficient protein when meals were often snatched in identity and a few spare momentsretreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=suppl_staflB0GFQ81YQK|title=Supply Chain 20/20How the Sky and the Earth Made People: A Clear View on From the Local Multiplier Effect for Book LoversOral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Kim StaflundStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=ReferenceChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=SoBefore people came and joined the animals, you've finished writing your book and you think there was only the hard work is all done? You're convinced that all you need to do now is get it published sky and the money will start rolling in? Wrong and wrong againearth. You presumably wrote Everything was quiet until the book because you wanted to - earth and you had a talent for delivering the written word. You knew your subject back sky began to tal to fronteach other. Now you're going to have to get to grips with First, the book supply chainearth created bodies. And then, which even parts of the publishing industry believe sky breathed life into them. These were the first humans and they belonged to both earth and sky. And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, especially how they came to be wrong but it's too difficult . When they grew old and died, their bodies returned to change the earth and no one wants their life returned to be the first to trysky. Then, when you ''finally'' have a copy of And that is why the earth and the book in your hands, you're going to have to work out how to sell it - because it ''sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is'' going why people must pay attention to be down to you, and care for, both.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1398706906B0GHPMNF6P|title=The LostZookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Simon BeckettCarolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=The disappearance of Metropolitan police firearms officer, Jonah ColleyWhen Phil's young son, Theo, just about finished himfather unexpectedly dies, particularly as he blamed himself for what had happenedquits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the family's farm zoo. He'd fallen asleep s not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, and suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the park whilst Theo was playing and when egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a dragon! Now he woke, Theo had gone. It cost him Edgar, his marriage mother Abi, and his home. Ten years later hethe zoo's largely come through it part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of scales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and he's out with his team when he gets a phone call from DS Gavin McKinney. Gavin used not being able to be his best friend but tell anyone about it's a long time since they've spoken. He's obviously But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in some difficulty now - Jonah can hear it in his voice - and he asks Jonah to meet him at Slaughter Quay. ''There's no one else I can trust'', he says.ways they had never before imagined…
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Amanda MasonStephanie Zabriskie|title=The Hiding Place|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=Needing an escape from their turbulent life, Nell Galilee takes her husband and stepdaughter How Maasai Women Spoke to Whitby, where they rent a cliffside holiday cottage by Cows: From the name Oral Stories of Elder House. She hopes that it will be the perfect place to sort things out. But there's something not quite right about Elder House. The atmosphere is unsettling and off – and before long Nell starts to suspect that she and her family aren't alone there…|isbn=1838771964}} {{Frontpage|author=Paul Cleave|title=The Quiet PeopleMaasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary= I am not ''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a fan children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of "the Prologue"Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. Most books '' The Maasai are the worse for them. In a cattle-herding people and this case I might make an exceptionstory writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so. We start with Luca Pittman who is Cattle are status and wealth in a hurry. He has to hurry because he has children that he should not have, and when he hurries, when he bundles things into Maasai culture but this doesn't tell the back whole story of his car the intimate and tries to run symbiotic connection its people, and then hears sirens behind himespecially its women, which he should not hear because this is New Zealand have with their cows and that is not how they do things therefor the natural world. The oral tradition retelling the many conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, he takes a risk. It ends badlydoes.|isbn=1913193942B0G9WTGY6J
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will CarverLivi Michael|title=Psychopaths AnonymousElizabeth and Ruth
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersHistorical Fiction|summary=Maeve ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a high functioning alcoholicwork of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, drinking continuously and also, curiouslybest known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also a self-acknowledged psychopath. Whilst analysing and critiquing radical critique of the AA steps she is mainly using treatment of the groups to find targetsworking class published under a pseudonym...targets for sexual encounters, targets to feed her desire to hear of peopleThe ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's miserytitle appears in her novel as Pasley, and targets for her violent behaviour. Yet she also seems to be searching for others a young Irish prostitute who think was abandoned as she does, a child and when shefinds herself in Manchester's unable to find like-minded people New Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life. Set in any of Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the groups she decides extent to set up her own, hoping to encounter others who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous is bornwhich the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=19131937561784633682
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529418100Makenna Goodman|title=Bruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin WalkerHelen of Nowhere|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=I'm not usually It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a fan of short stories hard- I find it all too easy to put -place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the book down brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between stories Helen and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of Martin Walkerthe countryside house he's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries considering, Helen represents a volta in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the temptation his life, her past tied to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even tryhis potential fresh start. For those new to The realtor who shows the protagonist around the serieshouse shares stories about Helen, thereand describes her as ''s an excellent introduction entity that will tell you all you need to know about whois pure consciousness, beyond form''s who and . Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the background to why Bruno is in St Denissense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09GJW49GFB0GCB1MQ7D|title=Buried Lies (Gaby Darin Book 5)Why My Mother Went Away|author=Jenny O'BrienAlan Kennedy|rating=45|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Hannah Thomas was having her first night away from her sonI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. Hunter had diabetes and this was controlled by With 'celebrities', there's frequently a pump attached to his stomachbook they might or might not have written, so her over-protectiveness was understandablewhich might or might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, but her fiance, Ian, was pestering her to get married and she thought it would be rarely do you discover a good idea memoir where the telling is so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for him to find out what parenting was the pleasure the words give. ''reallyWhy My Mother Went Away'' likeis one of those rare exceptions. Her friendIt's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, Millyborn at the beginning of the Second World War, had arranged to take her boyfriend, Liamwould become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, for a night in a posh hotel but then he dumped her and she couldn't get was one of the money back, so Hannah was offered founders of the opportunity to go in his place. She would return home to find Ian dead and five-year-old Hunter missingdepartment.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09GV3WS1QJeremy Cooper|title=Without a Trace|author=Jane BettanyDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Life hadn't been easy for Ruth PrendergastDiscord: she'd just come through a divorce lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and right now it was raining hardEvie Bennet, are as different as they come. All she wanted was Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to get back to her new home retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and settle down for a quiet eveningcharm. It wasnThe two, predictably, don't going always see eye to be thougheye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: when she went into her bedroom she found a dead man on her bed with a knife in his chest. She'd no idea who he wassort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=1804272264
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838774823Tom Percival|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: A Three Dog Problem|author=S J BennettThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=ItWill's 2016 and the Queen's Private Secretarylife is difficult, Sir Simon Holcroft has decided that too much good claret and too little exercise is putting in a strain on his waistbandmultitude of ways. SwimmingHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he decides, is has the way to go and he wrong shoes because his dad can use the Buckingham Palace pool which is how he came to be there early one morning 't work and discovered doesn't have enough money for even the body most basic of Cynthia Harris things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the side of the pool. There college, was broken glass - working a crystal tumbler, by the look at it cash- probably one of the young royals being careless in- hand job on a building site and it looked as though Mrs Harris had slipped an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and cut herself so badly that she had bled outdad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. StillHe is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, it was that feel like a light at the end of a shock for Sir Simonlong, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=057136358XEdward W Said|title=April in Spain|author=John BanvilleRepresentations of the Intellectual |rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)Politics and Society|summary=Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didnEdward Said't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as s ''a matter Representations of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. He enjoyed his job, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the army Intellectual''where he got the chance to kill is less a lot strict theory of the little yellow fellows what intellectuals are and had more a fine old time''passionate argument for what they should be. He was spending a lot Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of intellectual as a swizzle stick - surely detached expert speaking only to other specialists. Instead, he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in insists on the ''morning''? It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up intellectual as a job in Spainpublic figure, often awkward, abrasive, and unpopular, who speaks truth to power even when it is inconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dave Letterfly KnodererSylvie Cathrall|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can. Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's struggled with a controlling father, run away A Letter to join the circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the bottle took over.|isbn=B0965V3LLN}}{{Frontpage|author=Tade Thompson|title=Far From the Light of HeavenLuminous Deep|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship Ragtime, bound for the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be There are few greater joys than a babysitter for the ship's AI captain. However, when she wakes book which lives up at the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagoscompelling premise. What the five And this is one of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=0356514323}}{{Frontpage|author=Rob Keeley|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!|rating= 4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Lily loves eating fruit and vegetables. She likes carrots, broccoli, cabbage and aubergines. When her friends at school turn up their noses, Lily is keen to explain how good they are for you and how nice to eat. One day, poor Lily gets tricked by Jordan, who tells her that carrots grow on trees. Infuriated, Lily checks with the teacher, who explains that fruits grow on trees and vegetables, like carrots, grow in the ground. Jordan says, "I did try to tell her, Miss!" and everyone laughs at poor Lily.|isbn= B09HHN541V0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178607981X1786482126|title=Bad ApplesThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Will DeanElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Tuva Moodyson Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was driving up a foggy hillside towards Visberg going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when she they discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at the side bones of the roada child beneath a doorway. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of the car - and heard the screams from deep inside the forestThere was no skull. Determining the direction of Was this a sound isnritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't easy when you need hearing aids and dampness , that she is causing interference but Tuva made her way to where pregnant with his child as a woman was holding her coat over result of the body of a manone night they spent together some three months ago. He'd been decapitated. He was Arne Gustav PerssonHer condition will be obvious before long, a resident not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of Visbergsickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdadottir0008551375|title=Cold As HellWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary= In a red suitcase as Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a fissure in a lava fieldScottish mountain, there is seemingly the result of a bodytragic accident. And the man who has put She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her there has intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just discovered out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that he five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is capable of killingcertain there's a killer on the loose.|isbn=1913193888
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopePaul B Preciado|title=FledglingDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Bavaria''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, 1900. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop houseconsisting of arias, built bit by bit over the decadesletters, essays and now looking imperiously down on the village autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and woods below. It's brings forth a new sensorium as an eccentric house, offering to host eccentricsthe new generation, so the library shelving system a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not as we'd know considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, itis the proportional, valid response to ''the roof is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut epistemological and political crack we are living through it, and so on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD tension between emancipatory forces and a passion for conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the long-standing family hobby backdrop of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who Covid-19 pandemic as that which has to do all the maintenance of catalysed this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going revolution, when dysphoria began to house someone emerge on a global scale, or something else, when crashing through Cassieas ''pangea covidica''s bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a heavenly arrival is going sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again..''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=183994188X1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846276772Samantha Harvey|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica NordellOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyGeneral Fiction|summary=Anyone who is not an ableIn 2024, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise Samantha Harvey won the extent to which they suffer from it: itBooker Prize for ''Orbital''s simply , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a part single day in the lives of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve a group of astronauts aboard the white manInternational Space Station. Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become Through a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, narrative lens that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of mirrors the bias but itastronauts's not just the individuals who are negatively impactedorbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Teresa Driscoll295967572X|title=Her Perfect FamilyPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=The novel begins by introducing you Our unnamed narrator is about to Gemma, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the familiar horrifying realisation, at the eleventh hourpurpose of this journey is, that her graduation outfit is all wronguncertain. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating Django found the tickets ''He is not who he says he is…on the floor somewhere'', paving and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the way for past as the sinister tone that remains throughout pair travel to the novel. In a twist of events, station by coach and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows train is a complex whodunit with a list of suspects that continues to grow the further you readsteam locomotive.|isbn=1542028752
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=84092901030008551324|title=If OnlyThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Matthew TreeNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: 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 asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, 's prepared to ensure that tell the young man got on board police where the boat body of a missing person is buried and thereafter Patrick who was to send him a monthly allowanceresponsible for her death. Patrick sent the money regularly This person, he promises, is someone big and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between it will be worth the two although we hear more about police doing what Lowry has to say than Patrickhe wants. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that And what he didn't care wants is to have him in this country where he might be a danger transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his wife sentence and other childrento get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The alcohol problem was obvious new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even before Patrick managed prepared to get do the young man on his wayother thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=1035043092|title=Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston The Killing Stones (translatorJimmy Perez)|titleauthor=The Rabbit FactorAnn Cleeves|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Henri. With I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a mind so much more focused new life on maths and calculations than it is other human beings, heOrkney. It's perfect for his job in the insurance company – until they decide been seven years since we heard from him, but he's not a team-membernow living with Willow Reeves and their young son, that they'd prefer everyone to be all open-planJames, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshopping. This is when he finds his brother has diedwell as Cassie, having a heart attack while busy changing the daughter of his Volvoformer partner. Willow's radio channelalso his boss, and has left Henri everything. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that she 'everything' is just an adventure park, and nothing else. should''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants to occupy his mindbe on maternity leave, but he perks up a little when he sees huge holes in the finances – it runs at body of a steady money-moving pacepopular islander, Archie Stout, despite some desultory staff ideasis found, but loans have been made out and in the amount vanishedaftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. Fortunately (or otherwise) some people are quickly on the scene to explain that missing money – it He's d been turned into battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a gambling debt that has also now pair - which had been inherited by Henri, and the activities of these guys are not conducive to getting stolen from a cheap life insurance plan.museum..|isbn=191319387X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471179311Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Unheard|author=Nicci FrenchTower|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Tess''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, a teacher and Jasonhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, a headmasterThea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, have split up: she and Poppy have moved out the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the family home and Jason story of a second protagonist is now married to Emily. The separation was amicable - they had just drifted apart. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in what was unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family home and another in the flat she shares with her mother19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. It ''seemed'Annie' s fate is, above all, an enticing story to be working well until the day that Poppy came home with T. It is a menacing drawing of a woman falling from a tall building and story which she started swearingconsumes avariciously, using words she was unlikely to have heard both in either home. Her behaviour deteriorated and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns to a therapist quest for helptruth and knowledge, then her doctor and finally the police but no one will take what she has to say seriouslyin service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471196615Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Iced|author=Felix FrancisBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Miles Pussett used to be Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past symbol of intimacy and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down the three-quarter-mile Cresta Runcloseness, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hourbecomes evidence of love lost. He was in St Moritz When the same weekend as White Turf - thatnarrator cries out internally, ''s high-class horseracing on the frozen lake come over here and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling of the horses. Itkiss me,'s seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore that he'd never go back it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to itconfirm her emotional numbness. But when he sees that something suspicious The imagined recipient of this plea is going onXavier, Miles can't help but look for answersher ex-partner, even when it puts him in dangera ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=147228612X0008405026|title=The Late Train to Gipsy HillA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Alan JohnsonJane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=We all know people like Gary Nelson, although we probably havenIt't taken much notice of thems sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. They live quiet, uneventful lives She was never found and stay mostly under the radarinvestigation ground to a halt. In a city like LondonNow, her mother, Helena, that's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himher father are dead in their bed. The highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on the train each morning: he'd love to ask her for Initially, it looks like a date straightforward murder/suicide but he doesnthere't have s something about the positioning of the couragebodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Then, on his homeward commute, Arina speaks What looked as though it was going to him be an open-and asks for his help-shut case is now a complex double murder. Before long he finds himself on Kerrigan is convinced that the run from mobstersexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan policeUna Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire McGowanAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=I Know YouThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=''Then:'' Casey returns We were born from a walk with the baby, Carson, and comes across three bodies, almost a whole family taken downsame body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''
Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I'Now:ve read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux' Rachel is out for a walk s process of reckoning with this giant absence in her dog, Brandylife, when an absence that she comes across a body in the woodshas always felt but often denied.|isbn=15420199741804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977}}{{Frontpage|isbn=15291482511529077745|title=Misfits: The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=A Personal Manifestoman 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.}}{{Frontpage|author=Michaela CoelOlga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? ItWhat's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it.?''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084336311836284683|title=Next of KinThe Big Happy|author=Kia AbdullahDavid Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=It was the sort of thing that happened every dayWell! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, although not to Leila Syed. Sheit'd never driven her nephew, Max, s nothing like I expected it to school before but his fatherbe, Andrew Hanson, had rung her in and it takes me on a panicwild ride. He was supposed And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to be taking Max to school ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but heI'd been called into work and ll have to at least set the delay in getting there could lead to financial lossesscene. As the school was only five minutes out of LeilaOnce that's way, could she drop him off? Of coursedone, she could and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her car. On the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her work too, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at riskI think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaSally Rooney|title=Everybody Toots! (Everybody Potties!)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Toots, trumps, farts. Whatever your word for them, find us a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny to talk about and joke about, that is. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go at the wrong time. In class, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At you. Justine Avery's latest entry in her ''Everybody Potties!'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently and calmly, with the familiar humour attached, explains that tooting is perfectly normal. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1784165263|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma CurtisIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction |summary=Martin Curran's wifeSally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the dotmany relationships woven into this story, despite the fact that she was actually painting central one of their properties prior for readers to it being letunravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. If she didn't get homeIvan, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchairsocially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, but don't be too quick to be understanding. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointment''successful lawyer living in Dublin. All this was in ElizaFollowing their father's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannouncedpassing after a long battle with cancer, at the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being availablebrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17847427751836285493|title=A Change The Double Life of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)a Wheelchair User|author=Susan HillRob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Drugs hadn't really been that much Will is a keen player of video games, a problem in Lafferton conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit supportive friend. But most of a waste of timeall, he is an aspiring writer. They still wereEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, to a great extentMarlowe Park, but Serrailler knew that something had to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport the drugs and the operation running the county lines was tightone at which he excels. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldnThis hasn't be the correct one) of the person who was running him but gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up in the organisation. The police might catch spends a few couple of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher upafternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09FS89KX91009473085|title=Fall On MeThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Penelope PottsAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=Women's FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Life should have been good for HollieSometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: She was just going into the final year of her veterinary degree and 2010- three years later 2024 - was still working at BB14 Wasted Years?''s diner. Bob - 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 owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good bossbook for you. Hollie had moved in with her boyfriendIf that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, Marcus: her mother thought he was great can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and he was doing well in his careershould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. Hollie wasnIt't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted to control her 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 all he wanted her to leave her job at the diner. Then there was nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the fact changes that he would be violent, both to her occurred and to other peoplethe situation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=John GwynneJenny Valentine|title=The Shadow Of The GodsUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyTeens|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Saga, set 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 era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnaroktime. But then chance brings them back together, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered for all to seethey are inseparable. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy Something has happened though, something terrible and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genretragic, with mythical creaturesand now they must work through their grief, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick booktheir friendship, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battle.|isbn=03565142181471196585
}}