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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and children's books plus author interviews and top tens.</metadesc><h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>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 , 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 author [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[Featuresfeatures]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from workTo many readers, she realises something the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is wrong. Going enough to his office make the book one to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and read; preferably quantified by the man she married was using a false identitywords 'clever' or 'good'. Infuriated by the betrayal For those who need more, and here is the realisation that sheextra background – we's been living a lie for re in rural Japan in the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so long1930s. Ignoring police warnings The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa McMann|title=Wake|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Janie although the whole affair is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college really not as ostentatious as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in the way of resourcesmight be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. College is Janie's She only chance at a life better than the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame has an uncle representing her family, for being so single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her . Either way...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into , the Zing familycelebrations have gone ahead as planned, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night only for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed wedded couple to work be slashed to death in their private annex before the sun rises on the 'Zing Family Secret'their marriage. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her home life, and her daughter's year two teacher is coming to terms What with a break up. The stories man missing parts of these people come together to create a tale of life, lovehis fingers being in the neighbourhood, and ultimately, what being part some mysterious use of a family means.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=F G Cottam|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is traditional musical instrument at the sort time of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accidentthe crime, his surviving son Adam this case has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices a lot of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herselfpeculiar about it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>1782275002
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyCixin Liu|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=I shall start with a word of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus master, and a magician, for the soul of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogy. Still - never mind, the angelDeath's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud cities, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and back, and friends new and old will be on board to help.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Townsend|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsEnd
|rating=5
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. ItIf I's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniformd been paying more attention when I picked this book up, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she I would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear have put it back on the vile shelf. Not because I didn''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still t want to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – read it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and therebut because I's little d have figured out that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out it was the final part of control around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lauren Kate|title=Fallen|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn totrilogy. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gareth Hinds|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town Coming in part way through a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear. For me, even as a trained actor, the language saga is too dense and rich, never the set-up too archly unfeasible easiest thing to create the great tragedy it's thought to be. To my mind the acclaim do and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime particularly true in Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells science fiction because without knowing the story of a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American exback-pat, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him there are not just people whose names mean nothing to release his creativity in very unexpected ways. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than you (when it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than sheassumed they will) but there are whole concepts that you won's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Toby Lester|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest Map|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public displayt understand. No ordinary map, this This latter is sometimes described as Americaparticularly true of Cixin Liu's birth certificatework – his range is phenomenal. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th centuryGeorge R R Martin, and was discovered by accident in some archives in who knows a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover morething or two about world-creation, and this book is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is described it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=as ''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is the wackiestunique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch conspiracy theory and all it has done for the world. You woncosmology't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andy Stanton|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the place. Meat is getting thrown around like it's going out All of fashion, that and we have to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise the power of love and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabethmore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>1784971650
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Loose Women1780894511|title=Here Come the GirlsDie Alone|author=Simon Kernick
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyThrillers|summary=This Ray Mason is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised on the cover, this book is an entertaining night with the girls. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar in prison awaiting trial for murder and even if you donhe't know them yet, with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of s in the celebrity faces. The women are universally warm-hearted and supportivevulnerable prisoner unit: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group cop he's something of friends for a target, but the evening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Fortune Cookie|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on unit is not as secure as that's where Fudge's father got the idea from. They're actually chalk inmates would have hoped and cheese – Fudge Mason is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination works. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather injured in a lot on her plateriot. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and On his problems are becoming more obvious. Add way to this that her father couldnhospital he't cope with the problems s broken free by armed men and he now has another familyan offer is made to him. ItHe's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time to assassinate the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined man who is likely to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historycountry's next prime minister and he'll then be given a new identity so that he can start afresh abroad. Married to her uncle Infante PedroHis captors say that they're MI6, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777Mason has his doubts. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune His choices are limited though and he has personal reasons to believe that it would be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she better if Alastair Sheridan was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantlydead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David HughesAkwaeke Emezi|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadPet
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic NovelsTeens|summary=WellThe people of the town Lucille believe that all the monsters are gone. Their children are raised to understand that they were saved by the angels, with a title like thatthose who rid the town of evil, need I bother with a plot summary? and there are no monsters anymore. A man has a But one day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in the ultimate waiting roomJam accidentally cuts herself, with and bleeds a strange array little onto one of animals (her mother's paintings. The blood awakens a batbizarre, a toadterrifying-looking creature named Pet, a sea urchinwho somehow comes to life and declares that it is here to hunt the monster...) Though Jam tries to convince it that all the monsters are gone, all waiting for... wellPet is certain that there is one, something. Yupstill, as you didn't need tellingand that the monster is hiding in the home of her best friend, he's deadRedemption.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>0571355110
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Eggers1686751680|title=The Wild ThingsMy Mummy does weird things / Maman fait des choses bizarres|author=Amelie Julien and Gustyawan
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionFor Sharing|summary=Meet Max. Which child doesn't think that there mother is, well, ''weird''? When I It might be that in the morning their mother doesn't like speaking much, when every self-respecting child knows that that is when you're at your brightest with lots to say he sometimes gets the wrong end ? ''Why'' then does Mummy stick her fingers in her ears? Then there's doing yoga in front of the stick about adultstelevision, or dislikes his motherwhich could be worrying if it wasn't so funny. We won's new boyfriendt go into too much detail about what goes on in the bathroom and the colour changes which have occured when Mummy emerges and frankly, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating less said the facts. He is a bit of a rascal better about her reactions to say your artistic efforts on the leastwall. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animalsI mean, and ends up installed as their king.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>what else would you use paint for?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy StrongJustine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog What Wonders Do You See... When You Dream?
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersFor Sharing|summary=Trevor's troublesome dog, Streaker, 'The day has had three puppies. They were fathered, according to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one of his Alsatians. Trevor would ideally like to keep them, at least until Christmas, but his parents have other ideas and put them up for sale. Charlie Smugg declares that heended's entitled to half of the money from the sale of the puppies, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing in the park and it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!|amazonuk=<amazonukbr>0141327243''Hasn't it been splendid?'' </amazonukbr>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Beth Durst|title=Ice|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer to spend her 'But now, it's time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things arento be sure't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she can<br>''t help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left the station after For an argument with him when Cassie was still very young. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571entirely different adventure'' </amazonukbr>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel VreemanMichael Harris|title=Don't Swallow Your GumSolitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=This is not the book I was expecting it to be. For 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. Instead of telling us how, it is more about the '''BANG'why''. ThatHarries examines how we's re eroding solitude, which used to be a natural part of our human life, and why that matters. Of course he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of that, and eventually in the sound final chapter he talks about his own experience of copious urban myths being shot having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders downthe alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led him. '''BANG|isbn=1847947662}}{{Frontpage|author=Andy Briggs|title=Ctrl+S|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= Life in the near future's not all bad. We've reversed global warming and fixed the collapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, a virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire. But almost anything isn't enough for some. That's the sound of the old wives slamming the doorEvery day, normal people are being taken, as their tales get revealed as baselessemotions harvested - and lives traded - to create death-defying thrills for the rich and twisted. '''CLICK'''Now Theo’s mother has disappeared. ThatAnd as he follows her breadcrumb trail of clues, he's ll come up against the noise lots of illmost dangerous SPACE has to offer: vPolice, AI Bots and anarchists -informed websites make as they get closed downwell as a criminal empire that will kill to stop him finding her . . All noises come due to this brilliant book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>1409184641
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annie Taylor1609809378|title=VioletThe Rabbits' Rebellion|author=Ariel Dorfman and Chris Riddell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet is a very special hippoWe're in the realm of the rabbits, only the foxes and wolves have taken over. She is extremely small King Wolf, His Wolfiness, has declared the rabbits don't exist, but the pesky birds have spread rumours from awing that does not make her adoptive parents Albert and Mavis love her any the lessbunnies are in fact still around. However Demanding a propaganda spree, King Wolf orders a humble monkey to be his official portrait photographer, they are slightly worried that Violet has but whatever the poor innocent monkey prints out in his darkroom there is a very unusual habit distinct leporine hint. Can King Wolf succeed in proving himself victorious, can the rabbits show their continued existence to all who need to know of turning pink without warning it – and for no explicable reason.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>what can the poor monkey caught in between do?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonInnosanto Nagara|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveM is for Movement
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionEmerging Readers|summary=Arthur Transcombe Set in Indonesia, in the not too distant past, this is a middle-agedstory about social change. Dealing with some difficult issues, grey-hairedsuch as political corruption and nepotism, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - on the outsidebook is neither boring nor preachy. He hasIt educates gently, howeverwith vibrant, managed to achieve some success with his poemschallenging illustrations, and it portrays how social movements need people who will try, even when it seems that they will fail. (Being The message is a guest speaker at positive one; that in an increasingly uncertain world, we do still have the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)power to instigate change. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>1609809351
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A J Healy1780724047|title=Tommy Storm A Dictionary of Interesting and the Galactic KnightsImportant Dogs|author=Peter J Conradi|rating=3.54|genre=Confident ReadersPets|summary=Meet Tommy StormI 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 expecting a massive tome. HeBut 's one 'A Dictionary of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to be Interesting and Important Dogs'' is actually ''a gang rich compendium of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHINGworld's most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's certainly a rich treasure trove. Nobody seems to know whatWe begin with Peter J Conradi's going to cause this destructionfour collies: Cloudy, or when, but he Sky. Bradley and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the dayMax. So itThey's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony whore consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but what comes over is Conradi's about to kill love for each and every one of them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk> I knew that I was in safe hands.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1785769294|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasMan at the Window (Detective Cardilini)|author=Robert Jeffreys
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoying, but most of us will have had to deal with them. Fortunately, It's when we can hit the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they came. I certainly prefer not to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck read that a young boy is supposed creeping reluctantly to become if I dona teacher'ts bedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrong. But I wonder how many of us Nowadays you ''might'' hope that something would react if a spam E-Mail actually be done about it fairly quickly but this was a matter of life 1965 and death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeanette Winterson|title=The Battle child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on the part of the Sun|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=London 1601child. Elizabeth I is getting on The boy would be safe that night though - albeit in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streetsmost horrific fashion. Jack is happy because it When he reached Captain Edmund's bedroom he found the man dead on the floor, the top of his birthday and his present is his heartskull missing. The school's desireinitial reaction was that this was a dreadful accident: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's there had been a ''licking cull of kangaroos in some nearby fields and it was obviously a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in stray bullet which had killed the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''Captain. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1786695227|title=Love and KissesInvisible in a Bright Light|author=Sally Gardner
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. They'd been best friends since forever and were The beginning of this excellent story will leave the reader more than a little confused: who is the man in the good girls. Neither missed schoolgreen suit, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that what isthe Reckoning, not so far. and why are rows of people in a cave? Up until then Tamsin had been But stick with it – Ms Gardner is very cleverly letting us experience the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to universitysame disorientation as our heroine. All that seemed We watch in dismay as the strange man, who seems to change when she met Alex. Wellhave no eyes, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed does his wheelbarrow into best to persuade her, from the building site where he workedto answer his questions. OhBut for some reason Celeste, and did I mention that he was seventeendespite her bewilderment, Polish remains wary and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>gives nothing away.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Mintzberg1912374854|title=ManagingViolet|author=S J I Holliday|rating=3.5|genre=Business and FinanceThrillers|summary=I''Study after study has shown 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 managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as s exactly what happens when the two main/only characters meet in a result, there's such travel agency in Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying to get a market refund on an extra ticket for bulky management the Trans-Siberian train and leadership and general business books like this oneViolet is trying to unsuccessfully buy a ticket for the same sold-out journey. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find As the time to do so? This title actually has an answer to thistwo team up, by providing two books in onetravelling through Mongolia, Serbia and into Russia, it is such could've been the start of a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read beautiful friendship but this book in one a thriller after all so it quickly becomes a tale of two ways. Option one is to read every word, chapter by chapter, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitiveobsession, manipulation and quite thought-provokingtoxic friendships.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox1912374838|title=Blood BornNothing Important Happened Today|author=Will Carver
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=To give support to Nothing Important Happened Today is a vulnerable gang-rape victimdark, twisted, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to the courthouse on the day she is due to testify against the notorious Harbourn brothersdifficult read. But when Anya arrives at the house she finds Giverny close to death and faces a battle against time to save her. In the panicStories about cults often are, Anya fails to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether but this is different; it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse still, in trying to save the girl's life, Anya has interfered written with a crime scene and the case falls apart. She blames herself for the Harbourn brothers being allowed to walk free and only hours later there sense of style that is news of another attackquite unlike anything I've read before. A pair of sisters have been stabbed and raped resulting in the death of oneI can't remember ever having read a novel with such an odd, while the other clings to lifedistinctive narrative voice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Leah Fleming|title=Remembrance Day|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady in While a wheelchair watches slim and relatively small book, the unveiling slow-moving nature of the new war memorial in the village squareplot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages. There's pride in what has been achieved, in the family who are gathered around her and there are memories too. Some are good but many are not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Laytonwilliamabbey|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)The Pursuit of William Abbey|author=Claire North
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Having successfully seen off When William Abbey fails to prevent the rather unpleasant humans lynching of a young boy in earlier volumes1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving mother. A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon him, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar as the shadow of the dead boy begins to follow him across the world. Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods mountains in pursuit of Difficult SumsWilliam. They're supposed As he finds himself unable to be making presentations about what they did during resist speaking the holidays tootruths that he hears in others, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – and, frankly, seeks to kill the one he can't really remember what he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sums. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>loves the most…
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb1643785036|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomWondrous Apothecary|author=Mary E Martin
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Those who have known Alexander Wainwright, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse PrettyHay Wagon'', and Rinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk and cheese, if not sworn enemies. She If you's very politeve watched the relationship, friendlyas has our narrator, and kind-heartedart dealer Jamie Helmsworth, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesnyou't d have a kingdom said that they were magnets, drawing and repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at the socially acceptable end of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enoughthe artistic continuum, but with Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there's always was but a feeling that shefine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance. As time has worn on, he's not quite as good as them because she isn't frequently been brought to the attention of the princess police. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft of anywhere''The Hay Wagon''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mij Kelly and Louise NisbetMary H.K. Choi|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasPermanent Record
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=Mouse doesnPablo, a college drop-out, is working at a New York bodega. He's massively in debt, he't like anyone s avoiding his mother, and keeps herself he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, he's surprised to herself. Her things are her things and she discover that the girl he is too selfish to share them chatting with anyone else. One dayas he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely as it may seem, an old man moves in to Mouse's housethey start a relationship. He used With one character who is trying very hard not to be seen or noticed by anyone, and the happiest man in other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the world, but now heit's sadan interesting clash as they come together. He This isn't just a love story though, and actually it's really just Pab's fed up of having givenstory, given, given all about the journey he takes in his life and never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserable, so one day she decides to cheer him via his meet-up by giving him a clementine..with Leanna Smart.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>0349003459
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bland1609809319|title=The Very Cranky BearLong-Haired Cat-Boy Cub|author=Etgar Keret, Aviel Basil and Sondra Silverston (translator)|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=MooseOne day a boy is in the zoo with his father, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head when the man gets called away on urgent business. The boy isn't hustled into a cave to get out of the raincab and taken home first, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep in there. When they wake him upthough, no – he roars at them's given hot dog money, chasing them outsideand taxi money, so they decide and told to cheer him up somehowjust stick around on his own and enjoy himself. Zebra paints stripes on him Well, Moose fashions antlers it's no surprise that the orphan-for -an-afternoon sensation the lad feels doesn't make him happy, and Lion sticks so he thinks of a mane of straw on him. Unsurprisinglyspecies name for himself, this makes Bear even crankierand curls himself up into an empty cage, so as if he were a new exhibit. And it's down to Sheep to save then the day...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>drama begins…
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish1785785516|title=Mum and Dad GlueFucking Good Manners|author=Simon Griffin
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLifestyle|summary=A young boy's parents are splitting upManners maketh man, they say. He's going through the usual emotions that children It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, anger, denialconventions, some of which are ages old and then trying other which have evolved over time. Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get them an invitation to stay together. His method for this isnBuckingham Palace, they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they't re about getting the usual response though: he looks for glue basics right before we try to stick his mum deal with more difficult matters. Of course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and dad together. Thankfullyfriends, he finds some wise but it's best if we learn to distinguish between our public and private lives and kindly advice in to act appropriately. ''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to help us on the processway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clara Vulliamy0008324859|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedFowl Twins|author=Eoin Colfer|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It's Pearl's bedtimeRelax, everyone – our old friend Artemis may be off planet, but she says she's really busy and isnthe baddies aren't going getting away with skulduggery any time soon because they now have not one but two members of the Fowl family to sleepcontend with. She just wants to play Those cute little twins are now eleven (and play , frankly, cute no longer) and play. When the bear in this, their first independent adventure, they meet a troll and without even trying manage to make two deadly enemies: a nobleman obsessed with sticky paws rings immortality whatever the doorbellcost (to other people), he whisks her away on and an amazing adventure unusual interrogator- although as you might expectnun. The boys are chased, kidnapped, arrested and even killed (though not for long), all with the bear has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she does get a little sleepyhelp of one trainee fairy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>
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