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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.
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br> '''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph Delaney Mark Lingane|title=The Spook's Stories: WitchesDegrade (Tesla Expansion)
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary='Warning: Not 'Degrade'' opens as it means to be read after darkgo on - with inyerface, banging action. Poor Arid, alone in the desert since his parents were killed,' are has a narrow escape as two mega-rigs fight it out and his is pretty much destroyed. He finds himself rescued by the only words on mysterious-but-fascinating Ella and onboard the back of ''The SpookMoonlight's Stories'', and on under the inside flapsuspicious eyes of its leader, Queen Bea. Bea'The Times' warns us s eyes flash with recognition when he tells her his name - Arid Geiger - but before he can find out why that this book is , there'seriously scarys an assassination attempt and Arid is under suspicion and imprisoned. An escape facilitated by Ella - Queen Bea'... The whole thing kickss daughter -off relatively tamelysees Arid and her other daughter, thoughFrey, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls stranded in love with a witch and is forced to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-childrendesert...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>099461649X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa UngerB07XLM3SM6|title=Die For YouMurder at the Dolphin Hotel|author=Helena Dixon|rating=3.54|genre=Crime(Historical)|summary=BestElowed Underhay was just twenty-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so seven when she thinks. But when disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her husband fails to return from workdaughter, Kitty, she realises something is wrongin the care of her grandmother. Going to his office to try A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happens happened to him, she gets attacked her and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals the conclusion was that Marcus Raine has been she was dead for several years, and the man she married mainly because there was using a false identityno evidence to suggest otherwise. Infuriated by the betrayal, Kitty has come to terms with this and the realisation that in 1933 she's been living a lie for was running the past five years, Izzy takes matters into Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her own hands and sets out grandmother had to leave to find look after her husband sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and work out Kitty could not understand why he lied to her for so long. Ignoring police warnings She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, she delves deeper boating people and deeper into a nasty underworld, the naval college on the edge of town before - and finds a tale which has its roots she's done every job in Prague and rivals anything the hotel. And she could particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have plotted been roped in one to keep an eye on things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of her novelssecurity at the hotel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa McMannSeishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=WakeThe Honjin Murders
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. SheTo many readers, the phrase 's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as itlocked room murder mystery's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going enough to make the book one to provide much in read; preferably quantified by the way of resourceswords 'clever' or 'good'. College For those who need more, here is Janie's only chance at a life better than the one sheextra background – we's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded re in rural Japan in the pursuit 1930s. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. She only has an uncle representing her goal. Only family, for one thing stands . Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in her way.their private annex before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>1782275002
}}
|rating=5
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and livingIf I'd been paying more attention when I picked this book up, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshopI would have put it back on the shelf. It Not because I didn's not quite how life was supposed t want to turn read it, but because I'd have figured out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in it was the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out final part of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet a trilogy. Coming in partway through a saga is really never the last easiest thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes do and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for particularly true in science fiction because without knowing the Moles, and back-story thereare not just people whose names mean nothing to you (when it's little assumed they will) but there are whole concepts that olyou won' Adrian can do except sit back and watch t understand. This latter is particularly true of Cixin Liu's work – his life spin out of control around himrange is phenomenal.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lauren Kate|title=Fallen|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=A 17 year old girl at George R R Martin, who knows a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly goodthing or two about world-looking boycreation, who shedescribed it as ''s immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves her lifea unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, conspiracy theory and the two of them end up drawn together. This isncosmology't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities. All of that and more.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>1784971650
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth Hinds1780894511|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear. For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought to be. To my mind the acclaim 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 in Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected ways. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDie Alone|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 display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the world. You won'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 of fashion, 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 Elizabeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Loose Women|title=Here Come the GirlsSimon Kernick
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyThrillers|summary=This Ray Mason is in prison awaiting trial for murder and he's in the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV seriesvulnerable 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'Loose Women's broken free by armed men and an offer is made to him. He'. Just as promised on s to assassinate the cover, this book man who is an entertaining night with likely to become the girlscountry's next prime minister and he'll then be given a new identity so that he can start afresh abroad. It turns out His captors say that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yet, with nine contributorsMI6, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity facesbut Mason has his doubts. The women His choices are universally warm-hearted limited though and supportive: there will he has personal reasons to believe that it would be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as better if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningAlastair Sheridan was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreAkwaeke Emezi|title=Fortune CookiePet
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=Fudge Cassidy and The people of the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on as town Lucille believe that's where Fudge's father got all the idea frommonsters are gone. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge 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 a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems Their children are becoming more obvious. Add raised to this understand that her father couldn't cope with they were saved by the angels, those who rid the problems town of evil, and he now has another familythere are no monsters anymore. It's just CupcakeBut one day, Joey Jam accidentally cuts herself and bleeds a little onto one of her mother – and not a lot of money's paintings.|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 Lisbonblood awakens a bizarre, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europeterrifying-looking creature named Pet, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married who somehow comes to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), life and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune declares that it is here to be born in during hunt the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacymonster. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach Though Jam tries to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine convince it that all the Greatmonsters are gone, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan Pet is Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Well, with a title like certain thatthere is one, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambestill, then and that the next thing he knows he's monster is hiding in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array home of animals (a bather best friend, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, 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 their 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 occurred 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 fatheredended''<br>''Hasn't it been splendid?'' <br>''But now, 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 heit's entitled time, 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 itsure''s up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!|amazonuk=<amazonukbr>0141327243''For an entirely different adventure'' </amazonukbr>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain Smyth and Michael TerryHarris|title=The Wide-Mouthed FrogSolitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingLifestyle|summary=Do you know This is not the joke about 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 wide-mouthed frog? You must have heard mainstream, but itis not that at all. It Instead of telling us how it is more about the ''why''s a classic. It Harries examines how we's one that you really need to tell in person, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide open, but to hopefully spark your memoryre eroding solitude, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself which used to be a number natural part of animals until our human life, and why that matters. Of course, he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogstalks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of that, and eventually in the frog does final chapter he talks about his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''Ooh, you don't see many own experience of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing having deliberately sought it justiceout, but it's very cheesy mostly he wanders down the alleys and funny. Anyway, by-ways that his thinking about this is a book of that jokelost art led him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>1847947662
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel VreemanAndy Briggs|title=Don't Swallow Your GumCtrl+S
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary=Life in the near future'''BANG'''s not all bad. ThatWe's ve reversed global warming and fixed the sound of copious urban myths being shot downcollapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, a virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire. '''BANG''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: police, 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.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1785769294|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasMan at the Window (Detective Cardellini)|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 that 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 school, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Wellgreen suit, that what isthe Reckoning, not so farand why are rows of people in a cave? But stick with it – Ms. Up until then Tamsin had been 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 herto answer his questions. But for some reason, from the building site where he worked. OhCeleste, 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.
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{{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 managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How truetravelling is all about meeting new people and forming instantaneous bonds with people in often chance situations. Well, though it always makes me wonder why, as a result, therethat's such exactly what happens when the two main/only characters meet in a 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 readableobsession, not too repetitivemanipulation, and quite thought-provokingtoxic friendships.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>
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{{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>
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{{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=The princess Those who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very politehave known Alexander Wainwright, friendly, and kindthe landscape artist famous for his Turner prize-hearted, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesnwinning ''t have a kingdom of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enoughHay Wagon'', and Rinaldo, but there's always a feeling the renowned conceptual artist would say that shethey's re chalk and cheese, if not quite sworn enemies. If you've watched the relationship, as good as them because she isnhas our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, you't the princess of anywhere.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mij Kelly d have said that they were magnets, drawing and Louise Nisbet|title=The Happiest Man repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at the World or socially acceptable end of the Mouse Who Made Christmas|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone artistic continuum, but with Rinaldo, it was all too obvious that there was but a fine dividing line between conceptual art and keeps herself to herselfpublic nuisance. Her things are her things and she is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One day As time has worn on, an old man moves in to Mousehe's house. He used frequently been brought to be the happiest man in attention of the worldpolice. On this latest occasion, but now hewe see him charged with arson and theft of ''The Hay Wagon's sad. He's fed up of having given, given, given all 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 up by giving him a clementine...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick BlandMary H.K. Choi|title=The Very Cranky BearPermanent Record
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=MoosePablo, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head into a cave to get college drop-out of the rain, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep working at a New York bodega. He's massively in there. When they wake him updebt, he roars at them's avoiding his mother, chasing them outsideand he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, so they decide he's surprised to cheer him up somehow. Zebra paints stripes on himdiscover that the girl he is chatting with as he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely as it may seem, Moose fashions antlers for him and Lion sticks they start a mane of straw on himrelationship. Unsurprisingly With one character who is trying very hard not to be seen or noticed by anyone and the other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the world, this makes Bear even crankierit's an interesting clash as they come together. This isn't just a love story though, so and actually it's down to Sheep to save really just Pab's story, about the day..journey he takes in his life via his meet-up with Leanna Smart.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>0349003459
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish1609809319|title=Mum Long-Haired Cat-Boy Cub|author=Etgar Keret, Aviel Basil and Dad GlueSondra Silverston (translator)|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=A young One day a boy's parents are splitting upis in the zoo with his father when the man gets called away on urgent business. He The boy isn's going through the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worryt hustled into a cab and taken home first, feeling unsurethough, blaming himselfno – he's given hot dog money, anger, denialand taxi money, and then trying told to get them to stay togetherjust stick around on his own and enjoy himself. His method Well, it's no surprise that the orphan-for this isn-an-afternoon sensation the lad feels doesn't the usual response though: make him happy, and so he looks thinks of a species name for glue to stick his mum himself, and dad togethercurls himself up into an empty cage as if he were a new exhibit. Thankfully, he finds some wise and kindly advice in And it's then the process.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>drama begins…
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clara Vulliamy1785785516|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedFucking Good Manners|author=Simon Griffin
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLifestyle|summary=Manners maketh man, they say. Itcertainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of conventions, some of which are ages old and others which have evolved over time. Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get an invitation to Buckingham Palace, they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they's Pearlre about getting the basics right before we try to deal with more difficult matters. Of course, we all have more relaxed manners when we's bedtimere with family and friends, but she says sheit's really busy best if we learn to distinguish between our public and private lives and isn't going to sleepact appropriately. She just wants ''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to play and play and play. When the bear with sticky paws rings the doorbell, he whisks her away help us on an amazing adventure - although as you might expect, the bear has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she does get a little sleepyway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>
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