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<h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>
Hello from The Bookbag, a 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, the charity shop 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.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kathlaine C Gill Seishi Yokomizo and D Clark GillLouise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=Madness Between Light and DarkThe Honjin Murders|rating=3.54|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=ItTo many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery's 1912is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'. For those who need more, and at New Hope Sanatoriumhere is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, Christine Agnes Tupper although the whole affair is fast growing really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. Abandoned there by parents who were ashamed of She only has an uncle representing her hunchbackfamily, she's nevertheless grown up for one thing. Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to an intelligent girl death in their private annex before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a good heart. Her encounters with the inhabitants man missing parts of his fingers being in the asylum swiftly take her on a fascinatingneighbourhood, thrilling and sometimes terrifying journey some mysterious use of self discovery, allowing Agnes to prove thata traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, even with this case has a twisted spine, her heart is in lot of the right place!peculiar about it.|isbn=16411107081782275002
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=190874572XCixin Liu|title=Letters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)'s End
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyScience Fiction|summary=Back at the beginning of the century If I'd been paying more attention when I picked this book up, I went would have put it back on holiday to Nepalthe shelf. Not because I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort of friends. didn't want to read it, but because I can't remember if d have figured out that it was on that holiday or the final part of a trilogy. Coming in part way through a later one saga is never the easiest thing to do and it's particularly true in science fiction because without knowing the back-story there are not just people whose names mean nothing to you (when it's assumed they will) but there are whole concepts that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Janssonyou won't understand. This latter is particularly true of Cixin Liu's work – his range is phenomenal. I do know that George R R Martin, who knows a thing or two about world-creation, described it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation as ''a unique blend of The Summer Bookscientific and philosophical speculation, conspiracy theory and cosmology''. All of that I eagerly awaited and more.|isbn=1784971650}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1780894511|title=Die Alone|author=Simon Kernick|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=Ray Mason is in prison awaiting trial for murder and he's in the vulnerable prisoner unit: as a cop he's something of a target, but the unit is not as secure as the inmates would have hoped and Mason is injured in a riot. On his way to hospital he'Sort Ofs broken free by armed men and an offer is made to him. He'' translations of s to assassinate the man who is likely to become the rest of Janssoncountry's work next prime minister and he'll then be given a new identity so that he can start afresh abroad. His captors say that they're MI6, but Mason has his doubts. His choices are limited though and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on themhe has personal reasons to believe that it would be better if Alastair Sheridan was dead.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784742783Akwaeke Emezi|title=The Benefit of Hindsight (Simon Serrailler)|author=Susan HillPet|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=A superficial look would suggest to you The people of the town Lucille believe that Simon Serrailer has been lucky and - all things considered - his life is as good as it could bethe monsters are gone. He's back at work after a long break Their children are raised to recuperate from understand that they were saved by the violent incident which cost him his arm angels, those who rid the town of evil, and almost his life. When he's not at work he's spending his time in the cathedral roof drawing the medieval angels which there are being restoredno monsters anymore. ThereBut one day, Jam accidentally cuts herself, and bleeds a little onto one of her mother's talk of an exhibition of his drawingspaintings. Lafferton seems The blood awakens a bizarre, terrifying-looking creature named Pet, who somehow comes to be quite settled as far as crime life and declares that it is concerned until one night when two local men open their front door here to a couple seeking shelterhunt the monster. It's Though Jam tries to convince it that all the usual story of a broken-down carmonsters are gone, Pet is certain that there is one, still, and a phone which won't make a call. The man are generous and welcoming and have no suspicions that the couple are simply there to plan a robbery. It's a serious error of judgement monster is hiding in the course home of this investigation which will throw Simon Serrailler's future into doubther best friend, Redemption.|isbn=0571355110
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=140638853X1686751680|title=Somebody Give This Heart a PenMy Mummy does weird things / Maman fait des choses bizarres|author=Sophia ThakurAmelie Julien and Gustyawan|rating=54|genre=AnthologiesFor Sharing|summary=Sophia ThakurWhich child doesn's debut anthology t think that there mother is a collection of poems , well, ''weird''? It might be that are all unique, whether in relation to the morning their stylemother doesn't like speaking much, length or theme. The collection when every self-respecting child knows that that is split into four sections, titled when you're at your brightest with lots to say? 'grow',Why'wait'then does Mummy stick her fingers in her ears? Then there's doing yoga in front of the television,which could be worrying if it wasn'breakt so funny. We won't go into too much detail about what goes on in the bathroom and 'grow again'the colour changes which have occured when Mummy emerges and frankly, guiding you through a process which is one of the foundations that less said the anthology is built better about her reactions to your artistic efforts onthe wall. Each section begins with a foregrounded title page containing various small pieces of writing I mean, ranging from a quote by a Nigerian playwright, to African proverbs. This provides a nice introduction to the section before what else would you are immersed into the beautifully written and eloquent poems that Thakur has clearly put her heart and soul into.use paint for?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk
|title=What Wonders Do You See... When You Dream?
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=''The day has ended''<br>
''Hasn't it been splendid?'' <br>
''But now, it's time, to be sure'' <br>
''For an entirely different adventure'' <br>
I hope you haven't forgotten how it feels to be much too excited for bed. If you're a parent at least, you'll know how it is to persuade an excited small person that yes, it is in fact time for bed. ''What Wonders DoYou See...'' sets out to cater to these children. Instead of trying to persuade them that night time is calm time, it takes a slightly different tack. It tells them that sleep is actually an exciting time: a time of dreams in which imagination takes over and has no limit. But the trick in accessing this wonderful and exciting world, is to get calm and relaxed first so that you can easily fall asleep and open the door to it.
|isbn=194812422X
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1910989460Michael Harris|title=FlemberSolitude: The Secret Book|author=Jamie SmartIn Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLifestyle|summary=A mysterious islandThis is not the book I was expecting it to be. A strange and mystical power called FlemberFor some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm, how to step outside the mainstream, but it is not that at all. A boy-inventor called Dev Instead of telling us how, who uncovers a long forgotten secretit is more about the ''why''. And Harries examines how we're eroding solitude, which used to be a giantnatural part of our human life, red robot bear?! The sleepy village and why that matters. Of course he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of Eden is that, and eventually in the final chapter he talks about to descend into hilarious chaos his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the alleys and by- can disastrous Dev save ways that his brand new best friend? Find out in thinking about this fully illustrated mad-cap adventurelost art led him.|isbn=1847947662
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241355222Andy Briggs|title=Frostheart|author=Jamie LittlerCtrl+S
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Way out Life in the furthest part of near future's not all bad. We've reversed global warming and fixed the known worldcollapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, a tiny stronghold exists all on its own, cut off from the rest of humanvirtual-kin by monsters that lurk beneath the Snow Seasensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire. There, a little boy called Ash waits But almost anything isn't enough for the return of his parents, singing a forbidden lullaby to remind him of themsome... and doing his best to avoid his veryEvery day, VERY grumpy yeti guardiannormal people are being taken, Tobu. But life is about their emotions harvested - and lives traded - to get a whole lot more crazycreate death-adventurous defying thrills for Ashthe rich and twisted. Now Theo’s mother has disappeared. When a brave rescue attempt reveals And as he has amazing magical powersfollows her breadcrumb trail of clues, he's whisked aboard ll come up against the Frostheartmost dangerous SPACE has to offer: vPolice, AI Bots and anarchists - as well as a sleigh packed full of daring explorers who could use his helpcriminal empire that will kill to stop him finding her . . . But can they help him find his family?|isbn=1409184641
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19131010371609809378|title=The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte MettlestoneRabbits' Rebellion|author=Jaclyn MoriartyAriel Dorfman and Chris Riddell|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bronte doesnWe't miss her parentsre in the realm of the rabbits, only the foxes and shewolves have taken over. King Wolf, His Wolfiness, has declared the rabbits don's not particularly sad when she learns of their terrible fate at t exist, but the pesky birds have spread rumours from awing that the hands of piratesbunnies are in fact still around. And why should she Demanding a propaganda spree, King Wolf orders a humble monkey to be? After allhis official portrait photographer, they just dumped her on Aunt Isabelle (without even asking if it would be but whatever the poor innocent monkey prints out in his darkroom there is a convenient arrangement for either party) when she was a babydistinct leporine hint. They swanned off Can King Wolf succeed in proving himself victorious, can the rabbits show their continued existence to have adventures, and never once came back all who need to check if their only child was healthy know of it – and happy.what can the poor monkey caught in between do?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1401280048Innosanto Nagara|title=Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris WildgooseM is for Movement
|rating=4
|genre=TeensEmerging Readers|summary=The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystandersSet in Indonesia, paparazziin the not too distant past, and suchlike – reminding him he's this is a billionaire at the age of eighteenstory about social change. Feeling rather stuck Dealing with some difficult issues, such as political corruption and nepotism, the legacy he's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deedsbook is neither boring nor preachy. But one nightIt educates gently, when he speeds off in his posh new car in pursuit of a criminalwith vibrant, he goes too far as far as the authorities are concernedchallenging illustrations, and gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham Asylum. There he learns of some other it portrays how social movements need people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkerswill try, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents even when it seems that they can, and murder the ownerwill fail. Can he get close to The message is a positive one of them and get the truth of their schemes; that in an increasingly uncertain world, or will we do still have the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder?power to instigate change.|isbn=1609809351
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07W4MNBSG1780724047|title=Be Careful Who You MarryA Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs|author=Lizzy MumfreyPeter J Conradi
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionPets|summary=It I struggle to resist a book about dogs, but I did wonder why this one was so ''thin'': given that I've never encountered a dog who wasn't interesting or important - and probably both, I was coming up to Halloween in 1987 expecting a massive tome. But ''A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs'' is actually ''a group rich compendium of sixth-form schoolgirls wondered what they would be doing when they were fiftythe world's most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's certainly a rich treasure trove. We begin with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudy, Sky. Bradley and Max. When youThey're only seventeen that seems positively ancientconsecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but Liz what comes over is Conradi's love for each and every one of them. I knew that I was convinced in safe hands.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785769294|title=Man at the Window (Detective Cardilini)|author=Robert Jeffreys|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's when we read that a young boy is creeping reluctantly to a teacher's bedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrong. Nowadays you ''your entire life depends on who you marrymight''hope that something would be done about it fairly quickly but this was 1965 and child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on the part of the child. The only eligible boys were boy would be safe that night though - albeit in the Young Farmers and most horrific fashion. When he reached Captain Edmund's bedroom he found the man dead on the floor, the idea top of living in his skull missing. The school's initial reaction was that this was a farmhouse and having dreadful accident: there had been a couple cull of children called Will kangaroos in some nearby fields and Olly appealed to Charlotte, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who it was determined to marry obviously a stray bullet which had killed the rather superior Patrick Shepley-BothamCaptain.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786695227|title=Invisible in a Bright Light|author=Sally Gardner|rating=4. 5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=The beginning of this excellent story will leave the reader more than a little confused: who is the man in the green suit, what is the Reckoning, and why are rows of people in a cave? The place to start their search was obviously But stick with it – Ms Gardner is very cleverly letting us experience the Young Farmers' Halloween disco that weekendsame disorientation as our heroine. There was just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths We watch in dismay as the classstrange man, who seems to have no eyes, does his best to persuade her to answer his questions. But for some reason Celeste, despite her bewilderment, remains wary and gives nothing away.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Michael J Malone1912374854|title=In The Absence of MiraclesViolet|author=S J I Holliday|rating=43.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=John DochertyI've never been but understand that travelling is all about meeting new people and forming instantaneous bonds with people in often chance situations. Well that's mother has been taken into exactly what happens when the two main/only characters meet in a nursing home following a massive stroke. It travel agency in Beijing - Carrie is thought unlikely that she will ever be able unsuccessfully trying to live independently again. Faced with having to sell get a refund on an extra ticket for the family home in order Trans-Siberian train and Violet is trying to pay unsuccessfully buy a ticket for her nursing care, Docherty starts the clear same sold-outjourney. In As the attic he finds a childhood picture two team up, travelling through Mongolia, Serbia and into Russia, it could've been the start of himself, holding a toddler – beautiful friendship but this a toddler he knows nothing about. He also finds thriller after all so it quickly becomes a blood-stained shoetale of obsession, manipulation and toxic friendships.|isbn=191237479X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=06928535451912374838|title=The Things We DoNothing Important Happened Today|author=Kay PfaltzWill Carver
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=ItNothing Important Happened Today is a dark, twisted, difficult read. Stories about cults often are, but this is different; it's 2015 and Dr Eleanor Hartley is written with a prison psychologist at the state penitentiary and she knows sense of style that her next patient is not going to be easyquite unlike anything I've read before. I can'Jane Doe' has been convicted t remember ever having read a novel with such an odd, distinctive narrative voice. While a slim and relatively small book, the slow-moving nature of the plot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= williamabbey|title=The Pursuit of William Abbey|author=Claire North|rating=3.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=When William Abbey fails to prevent the murder lynching of two men - one a police officer. She pleaded guilty and since then has been silent: even her identity is young boy in doubt1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving mother. She was carrying identification A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon him, as Jane Dunlap when she was arrestedthe shadow of the dead boy begins to follow him across the world. Never stopping, but always growing – it's been proved to be falsecrosses oceans and mountains in pursuit of William. There seem As he finds himself unable to be no family or friends who are missing her. Eleanor's task resist speaking the truths that he hears in others, he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – and seeks to get Jane talking, to find out why a seemingly normal young woman would murder two men.kill the one he loves the most…
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Patti Smith1643785036|title=Year of the MonkeyThe Wondrous Apothecary|author=Mary E Martin
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=On the coast of Santa CruzThose who have known Alexander Wainwright, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischieflandscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The Hay Wagon'', sorrowand Rinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk and unexpected momentscheese, if not sworn enemies. In a stranger If you's wordsve watched the relationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, you''Anything is possible: after alld have said that they were magnets, it's drawing and repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at the year socially acceptable end of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitudeartistic continuum, she reflects on but with Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there was but a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss fine dividing line between conceptual art and aging are faced head public nuisance. As time has worn on, as it he's frequently been brought to the attention of the shifting political waters in Americapolice. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft of ''The Hay Wagon''. |isbn=1526614758
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{{Frontpage
|author=Margaret AtwoodMary H.K. Choi|title=The TestamentsPermanent Record|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian FictionTeens|summary= Finally! Almost forty years onPablo, a college drop-out, we have is working at a sequel to New York bodega. [[The HandmaidHe's Tale by Margaret Atwood|The Handmaidmassively in debt, he's Tale]]. I donavoiding his mother, and he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, he't want s surprised to tell you too much about discover that the plot because girl he is chatting with as he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely as it's may seem, they start a novel that relationship. With one character who is trying very hard not to be seen or noticed by anyone, and the other who is entirely plot driven. Suffice seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the world, it to say that 's an interesting clash as they come together. This isn'The Testaments'' takes place fifteen years later, fifteen years after Offred gets into t just a vanlove story though, not knowing what will happen next. Itand actually it's really just Pab's told by three narrators: Aunt Lydiastory, who is secretly writing her memoirs about the journey he takes in Ardua Hall; Agnes, a girl brought his life via his meet-up in Gilead with the expectation she will marry a commander; Daisy, a rebellious teenage girl in Canada who knows of Gilead only from school lessons and its Pearl Girl missionaries who occasionally call into the store owned by her parents..Leanna Smart.|isbn=17847423250349003459
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Anne Boden1609809319|title=The Money RevolutionLong-Haired Cat-Boy Cub|author=Etgar Keret, Aviel Basil and Sondra Silverston (translator)|rating=45|genre= Business and FinanceConfident Readers|summary= Money One day a boy is changing. It might not be in the ways you thinkzoo with his father, when the man gets called away on urgent business. We’re not suddenly getting The boy isn't hustled into a 3p or £3 coin (cab and have you ever even found a country that offers anything different to the 1taken home first, though, 2no – he's given hot dog money, 5 model?) We’re getting a lot more digital with paymentsand taxi money, which seems and told to suit most people apart from charity collectors just stick around on his own and the homeless on the streetenjoy himself. Well, but although this book has it's no surprise that the subtitle that includes orphan-for-an-afternoon sensation the word ‘’digital’’lad feels doesn't make him happy, it’s not really about this either. Instead it’s about the ‘’management’’ and so he thinks of your financesa species name for himself, and how to take controlcurls himself up into an empty cage, as if he were a new exhibit.|isbn=1789660610 And it's then the drama begins…
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=147117316X1785785516|title=Guilty Not GuiltyFucking Good Manners|author=Felix FrancisSimon Griffin|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLifestyle|summary=The Honourable William Herbert Millgate Gordon-Russell (Bill Russell to those who knew him well) was acting as Manners maketh man, they say. It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a volunteer steward at Warwick Racecourse when he was told set of the violent death conventions, some of his much-loved wifewhich are ages old and other which have evolved over time. It would Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get worse thoughan invitation to Buckingham Palace, they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they're about getting the successful insurance actuary would be accused of killing her and hounded by the mediabasics right before we try to deal with more difficult matters. Then he would lose his job Of course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and his home. His best friends would turn against him, as they came but it's best if we learn to distinguish between our public and private lives and to believe him guilty of the murderact appropriately. Yet there was no really compelling evidence that he was guilty''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to help us on the way.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19087458190008324859|title=SurfacingFowl Twins|author=Kathleen JamieEoin Colfer
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain bookRelax, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or noteveryone – our old friend Artemis may be off planet, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didnthe baddies aren't like getting away with skulduggery any time soon because they now have not one but two members of the book. That's a rare experienceFowl family to contend with. People who Those cute little twins are sensitive to hearing a book calling your namenow eleven (and, frankly, rarely get it wrong. In cute no longer) and in this case I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not their first independent adventure, they meet a bad description of where I am. Add troll and without even trying manage to that my love of make two deadly enemies: a nobleman obsessed with immortality whatever the natural worldcost (to other people), of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that an unusual interrogator-nun. The boys are about style chased, kidnapped, arrested and even killed (though not formfor long), and substance most all with the help of all, about connection. Of course this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quicklyone trainee fairy.
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