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Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)
Revision as of 10:43, 24 November 2023
, 10:43, 24 November 2023no edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CK3MYJ56
|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)
|author=Ann Macarthur
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old. He used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession? On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something. Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train. Greg's been asked to investigate.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Katherine Howe
|title=A True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.
|isbn=0861547438
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tananarive Due
|title=The Reformatory
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...
|isbn=1803366532
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471180158
|title=Maybe Tomorrow
|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Harry Allen
|title=Children of the Sun
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.
|isbn=1805140493
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Edel Rodriguez
|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
|isbn=1474616720
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=K P O'Donnell
|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…
|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838954481
|title=The Misper
|author=Kate London
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that. He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer. And so lives must go on. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035025299
|title=Went to London, Took the Dog
|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL
|title=Radio Free Olympia
|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1635866243
|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook
|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crafts
|summary=''I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on a page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a great deal of trial and error, patience, and perseverance.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy)
A friend recently showed me a knitting pattern for which she'd paid good money. The first line of the instructions began: ''Cast off 100 stitches...'' It was clear that no good could come of this - the instructions didn't get any better - and (finally) PayPal obliged with a refund when the seller refused as she couldn't afford the repayment. The pattern looked pretty, but the creator didn't have the basic knowledge and skills to enable her to connect with her knitters. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=Oscar's Lion
|rating=3
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|isbn=0008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will follow. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him.
}}