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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.

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==Reviews of the Best New ReviewsBooks=='''For new reviews by genre [[:Category:New Reviews|click here]].'''

'''For new features Read [[Features:Category:New Reviews|click herenew reviews by category]].'''__NOTOC__<br>

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyGrady Hendrix|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersHorror|summary=I shall start with a word of advice. When you're being hounded Women, by a circus masterand large, and a magicianhave always been the subjugated sex. Throughout history, for they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the soul of a tiger thatpowerful man and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix's contained in a tigernew novel ''The Southern Book Club's egg thatGuide to Slaying Vampires's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - ' gives women their due. It is trying her best an ode 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 trilogystrong selfless housewife. Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to toe with 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 helppredatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>1683691431

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend0008149089|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsCutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)|author=Jane Casey

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and livingwhen she turned over what looked like a stick she realised it was a hand, quite literally, in a pigstyright hand, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshopfact. ItDS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent's not quite how life was supposed to turn outteam would later find three other body parts. 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 Identification of the provinces is body was not as bad as she would like going to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' showbe easy, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yetbut eventually, the worst is still to come. Think it would be given a crumbling economyname - Paige Hargreaves, redundancya twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. Her friend, affairsBianca Drummond, deathanother journalist, said that she was working on a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes story which she reckoned would be explosive - and a query over the big C – itshe hadn's going t been willing to be a tough year for share any of the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himdetails with Bianca.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren KateJenny Valentine|title=FallenHello Now

|summary=A 17 year old girl at Jude reluctantly moves to a new school meets small, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and settle into a mysterious and impossibly goodbig, old house overlooking the sea -looking boywhich happens to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who shestays rooted in the house like a ghost that just won't leave – or can's immediately drawn tot. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to herAs Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, until he saves reality she is consumed by a longing for her old life, in London and anger at another forced change – but this will be the two of them end up drawn togetherlast time, she swears. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight''world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating for Jude. That is until the day Novo arrives, but it certainly has striking similaritiesand her entire concept of the world changes forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>0007466498

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth HindsB0867X8NW7|title=King LearAccess Point|author=T R Gabbay|rating=34|genre=Graphic NovelsThrillers|summary=Hound me out When we first meet Ula Mishkin she's having something of a professional success: using a device of her own invention she's helped a man who has been blind for decades to see an image of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Learhummingbird. For me, even She's thirty-six years old and her life is about to change radically as a trained actor, the language is too dense and richcycling home, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy itshe's thought to beinvolved in an accident with a bus. To my mind the acclaim It's two years before we meet her again and esteem in which itthe meantime, she's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blusteringspent 392 days in a coma and now walks with a stick. A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to bring in some income.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul TherouxBen Oliver|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaThe Loop|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionTeens|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells during the story aftermath of a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a chance letter from an American ex-pathorrific level by machines, The Loop follows the mysterious Mrs Ungerprecarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, relating he is trapped inside a story living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a mystery trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through a dead body gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in a hotel leads him to release his creativity place of execution] after Delay he is in very unexpected waysdespair. The story His prison is more about obsession based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she's letting onloop?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>1912626551

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Toby LesterKirsty Applebaum|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapTroofriend|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library Are you tired of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as Americayour child's birth certificate. It is classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the sole survivor -art machines are capable of a thousand copies printed early in emulating the 16th centuryfull range of human emotions without lying, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901stealing or bullying. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that he was inspired these androids are beginning to discover more, develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and this book is the result.have absolutely no basis in reality…right?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>1788003470

 {{newreviewFrontpage |authorisbn=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur 1529123941 |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryThe Silent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves |rating=34.5 |genre=HumourGeneral Fiction |summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floorWhen we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfully.'' Surely that is Maggie, on the wackiestother hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, most inappropriate simile for in fact - and before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the credit crunch and all it emergency services in Oxford he has done for the worlda bit of a problem. You wonHe has to admit that he and Maggie haven't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite actually spoken for a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern worldwhile. How long? Well, the entire banking system, all those who failed it's about six months since he spoke to see Maggie and he can't really say if it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all 's likely that Maggie has tried to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich liststake her own life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy StantonRob Harrell|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?Wink

|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her backWhen Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to just be 'normal' become impossible. Suddenly he is the cancer kid, and leaves everything he does, how he looks, and how he behaves falls under the town scrutiny of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seasideother kids in school. Ross is, understandably, Mr Gum falls out angry. He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a permanent wink. He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with his best friendthe pain, causing carnivorous carnage plus the need to wear a hat at all over times to protect his face due to the placeongoing treatment. Meat is getting thrown around like it's going out With the sudden ghosting by one of fashionhis best friends, and we have to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise the power a series of love horrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about his life is normal any more, and put things he has to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabethfind new ways to deal with his feelings, and survive.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>1471409147

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Loose Women1786485575|title=Here Come the GirlsMagpie Lane|author=Lucy Atkins|rating=45|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=This is When we first meet Dee she's talking to Nick Law, the second volume by new college master. Law's lately of the panelists from that nice ITV series, ''Loose WomenBBC and he doesn't come with an entirely good reputation: he's a bit of a bully and Dee can sense something of that in their first conversation. Just She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new job as promised on a nanny, but somehow she finds herself going to see Mariah, the cover, this book is an entertaining night with Danish wife of the girlsmaster. It turns out that theyShe're just like us. The faces are already familiar s pregnant and even if you donlooking for help, not with the new baby but with the master't know them yets daughter by his first wife, with nine contributorsAna. Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk to her father, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind but to no one of the celebrity faceselse. The women are universally warmeight-year-hearted and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book old is grieving for her dead mother and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningstruggling at school.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreSally Magnusson|title=Fortune CookieThe Sealwoman's Gift

|genre=Confident ReadersHistorical Fiction|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of There is a certain film then you'd be spot on as legend that's where Fudge's father got God came to visit Adam & Eve in the idea fromGarden. They're actually chalk Eve had not finished bathing her children and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from 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 are becoming eyes of God, denying that she had more obviouschildren that those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. Add God was not to this be deceived, however, and decreed that her father couldn't cope with what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the problems eyes of man, and he now has another familyso the Elves were born: the hidden folk. It's just CupcakeThey can see man, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of moneybut man can only see them if they so choose.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>1473638984

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsWendy Cheyne |title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalFrom the Auld Rock to a Hard Place|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, After the Jacobite defeat at that time the richest and most opulent city in EuropeBattle of Culloden, Maria was destined many Scottish estates were given to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historyEnglish lords. Married They were not kind to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious womanwhile this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, she had the misfortune new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to be born in during leave - to port cities on the 'age of reason'mainland, when church to North America and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach even to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, Australia and wore her crown rather reluctantlyNew Zealand.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>1838591753

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David HughesEle Fountain|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadLost

|summary=Trevor's troublesome dogLola lives in an Indian city with her father, Streakerand her brother, has had three puppiesAmit. They were fathered She lives with them in a nice apartment, and although they are not rich like some of the girls at school, according they have enough money to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one of his Alsatiansbe comfortable. Trevor would ideally like Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and trying to keep fit in with them, at least until Christmasone day, suddenly, but his parents have other ideas and put them up for saleeverything in her life changes. Charlie Smugg declares that heAfter taking a work trip away, Lola's entitled father doesn't come home. They have nobody else to half help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become of the money them until, finally, they are evicted from the sale of the puppiestheir flat, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing in the park and it's up to Trevor she and his best friend Tina her brother find themselves forced to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!live on the streets.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>178269255X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Beth DurstN K Jemisin|title=IceThe City We Became|rating=3.54|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves New York is being born, the ice city has reached critical mass and the wilderness of her remote home has matured into a living almost-breathing entity and she'd definitely prefer is ready to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanksmake its way out into the world. HoweverBefore it can be established, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just a baby as it destroyed Atlantis and she can't help feeling a huge hole in her heartother forgotten places. Her scientist father The city is remote and unloving and her grandmother left not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very young. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry|title=The Wide-Mouthed Frog|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Do you know values are selected to become the joke about living embodiment of the wide-mouthed frog? You must city, some cities have heard it. It's a classic. It's one that you really need to tell in person, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide open, but to hopefully spark your memory, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, woman in white and the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''Ooh, you save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see many of those round hereeye to eye, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy a personality clash on an epic scale and funny. Anyway, this unity is a book of that jokeboth critical and not remotely guaranteed.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>0356512665

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=0241446732|title=Dr Aaron Carroll Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and Dr Rachel Vreemana Planet in Crisis|titleauthor=Don't Swallow Your GumMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society|summary='''BANG'''The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. That's Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the sound parenting of copious urban myths being shot downtheir two daughters. '''BANG'''. That's the sound of the Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old wives slamming the door, as their tales get revealed as baselessstruggled with what was happening. '''CLICK'''. ThatIn such circumstances, it's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make as they get closed down. All noises come due natural to this brilliant book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Annie Taylor|title=Violet|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Violet is seek a very special hippo. She is extremely small solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that does not make her adoptive parents Albert and Mavis love her any the less. However, they are slightly worried that Violet has were ''burned-out people on a very unusual habit of turning pink without warning and for no explicable reason.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hilary Dixon|title=When Rooks Speak of Love|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Arthur Transcombe is a middleburned-aged, grey-haired, self-effacing poetout planet''. Unremarkable really - on the outside. He has, however, managed If they were to achieve some success with his poems. (Being find a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A J Healy178730101X|title=Tommy Storm and the Galactic KnightsKeep Him Close|author=Emily Koch

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Tommy StormAlice had two children: Benny (well, Benoît, actually) and Louis. HeLou's seventeen and he's one of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe just got his A level results and he and his brother are going out to be a gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destructioncelebrate. Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHING. Nobody seems Someone has to know what's going find something to cause this destructioncelebrate in the letters, or whenD, but he D and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the dayE. So Alice has always had a good relationship with nineteen-year-old Benny but it's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who touch problematic with Lou and being honest, he's about not terribly likeable. The letters which kept coming to kill themmy mind were ADHD.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann0241396840|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasKeeper|author=Jessica Moor

|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoying, but most of us will have had to deal with them. Fortunately, 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 is supposed to become if I don't. But I wonder how many of us would react if a spam E-Mail actually was a matter of life and death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeanette Winterson|title=The Battle of the Sun|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on Katie Straw worked in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because itwomen's his birthday refuge and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, the women who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>}}  {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Love and Kisses|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 lived there liked and were the good girls. Neither missed school, skipped respected her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically She treated them well and looking forward seemed to have an understanding of what they were going on to universitythrough. All that seemed to change when Why then did she met Alex. Well, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow jump from the local suicide spot into her, from the building site where he worked. river below? Oh, and did I mention There had been no signs that he she was seventeen, Polish unhappy and she and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Henry Mintzberg|title=Managing|rating=5|genre=Business her boyfriend seemed to have been content together - and Finance|summary=''Study after study Noah has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as a resultdecent alibi for the time when she died, but what other explanation could there's such a market be for bulky management and leadership and general business books like this one. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find the time to do soher death? This title actually has an answer to this, by providing two books in one, and The police are convinced that it is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book in one of two ways. Option one is to read every word's suicide, chapter by chapter, cover to cover. If you have but the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provokingwomen who knew her believed otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox1838880658|title=Blood BornMurder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay)|author=Helena Dixon

|summary=To give support to a vulnerable gang-rape victim, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to It's the courthouse summer of 1933 and Kitty Underhay is on her way to visit the day family which she never knew she is due to testify against had, at Enderley Hall. Her grandmother, Mrs Treadwell, and Great Aunt Livvy are back at the notorious Harbourn brothersDolphin Hotel in Dartmouth. But when Anya arrives Kitty gets easily bored working at the house Dolphin - every day is much the same - but her real reason for going away is that she finds Giverny close to death and faces needs a battle against time to save break after her. In the panicrecent adventures, Anya fails to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse stillinvolved three vicious murders, in trying to save the girl's life, Anya has interfered 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 is news of another an arson attack. A pair of sisters have been stabbed and raped resulting in the death of one, while the other clings to an attempt on her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leah Fleming1788638026|title=Remembrance DayWhere the Innocent Die (D I Ridpath)|author=M J Lee

|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=In It was easy to assume that the year 2000 an old lady in death of the young Chinese girl at the Immigrant Removal Centre was suicide. Her throat was cut, there was a wheelchair watches lot of blood and the knife was on the floor at the unveiling side of the new war memorial in bed, She was due to be deported that day. But... how did the knife get into the secure centre and why was the girl's room the only one which was unlocked? DI Thomas Ridpath, the village square. coroner's officer, is sent to investigate and he quickly becomes suspicious, There's pride a snag though: the inquest is due to open in what has been achieveda couple of days' time, in the family who girl's parents are gathered around her coming over from China and there are memories toothey want to take their daughter's body home with them. Ridpath has just five days to solve the case. Some are good but many are notThe coroner is disinclined to delay the inquest: for her, it's about giving closure to the parents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Layton1471166023|title=Surf's Up Burnt Island (Mammoth AcademyBen Kitto)|author=Kate Rhodes|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Having successfully seen off The 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-fifth birthday and the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumesoccasion for the usual bonfire celebrations, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar but it would be marred this year by the discovery of Professor Alex Rogan's body on a bonfire. He'd obviously been alive when he was put on the fire and Arabella can only have died a terrible death. The body was first discovered by Jimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes as the Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing much else to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods and his only concern is the welfare of Difficult Sumsthe birds he looks after. They're supposed His instinct is to be making presentations about what they did during the holidays too, but Oscar hasncover Rogan't done any preparation s body and, frankly, he can't really remember what he actually did uses his sheepskin coat to do this, with all the result that free time other than no Difficult Sumshe's the prime suspect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbElliot Reed|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomA Key to Treehouse Living

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in This is the story of a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very politeyoung boy, friendlyWilliam Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and kind-hearted, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesnhis father't have a kingdom of her owns abandonment. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough However, but there's always a feeling that she's not quite as good as them because she it isn't the princess of anywhere.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mij Kelly and Louise Nisbet|title=The Happiest Man told in the World or the Mouse Who Made Christmas|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone and keeps herself to herselfusual narrative way. Her things are her things and she is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One day Instead, an old man moves in to Mouse's house. He used to be the happiest man in the world, but now he's sad. He's fed book is made up of having given, given, given all his life and never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserableglossary entries, so one day she decides to cheer him up written by giving him a clementine...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Bland|title=The Very Cranky Bear|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=MooseWilliam, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head into as a cave to get out way of the raindescribing certain events, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep in theresituations and emotions. When they wake him up It runs alphabetically, he roars at themstarting with ABSENCE, chasing them outside, so they decide then moving to cheer him up somehowALPHABETICAL ORDER. Zebra paints stripes As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on himearth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, Moose fashions antlers for him and Lion sticks a mane of straw on him. Unsurprisingly, this makes Bear even crankier, so itwas instead caught up in William's down to Sheep to save the day..story.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>1911545418

 {{newreview|author=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish|title=Mum and Dad Glue|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=A young boy's parents are splitting up. He's going through the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, anger, denial, and then trying to get them to stay together. His method for this isn't the usual response though: he looks for glue to stick his mum and dad together. Thankfully, he finds some wise and kindly advice in the process.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Clara Vulliamy|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To Bed|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=It's Pearl's bedtime, but she says she's really busy and isn't going to sleep. She just wants to play and play and play. When the bear with sticky paws rings the doorbell, he whisks her away 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 sleepy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen Mackey|title=Miki|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=It's cold, dark and icy, and Miki and Penguin are trudging through the snow. But it's Midwinter Eve, when wishes come true. They wish for a tree, lights, someone strong to power the lights, and finally a star that will shine brightly forever. Miki is taken deep below the ice to find the star, whilst up top Penguin and new friend Polar Bear start to worry about her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034095065X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kristin CashoreWill Dean |title=FireBlack River

|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=Possessed of great beauty, Tuva Moodyson returns - and this third book in the kind that drives men madTuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal life, Fire is used returning her to people trying to kill the isolated town of Gavrik and into a desperate search for hermissing best friend. She isn't used to them doing it With the Midsommar sun blocked out by accident. When a poacher in the woods outside her home accidentally shoots herdark pines of the forest, Fire is hard pressed Tuva fights to keep the temperamental Lord Archer from killing himsave her friend. But as sure as Fire is the man did not mean who’ll be there to cause her harm, she is made unsure by the strange fog that exists in the man's mind.save Tuva?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>1786077116

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Justin Scroggie1782407480|title=Eye SpyBird Love: Uncovering the Secrets The Family Life of the World Around YouBirds|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster|rating=4.5|genre=TriviaAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasnwas a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love''t really one on a couple of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until on-line booksellers: ''exploring the day sex life of birds'' it said. I was driven past very nearly passed over the book, but a pair closer examination suggested that the book is about the ''family life'' of speed regulation signsbirds, positioned at which is rather different. If the book was confined to the exit end sex life of a onebirds, you would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-way street but facing day, bring up their families and cope in the illegal way up itwild. Not all signsonly that, you have missed the treat of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, so many beautiful illustrations about a wide variety of birds which is where run through this pictorial guide book from the first page to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes inthe last.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994487</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jose Saramago Camilla Bruce|title=Small MemoriesYou Let Me In

|summary=I've Eccentric, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been meaning to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben's work, because if the reviews are to be believed missing for a year and you are a fan of the 'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrument' thriller, the man is quite simply not capable of turning out a duff novelhas been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. But you know how it is, what with one thing and another Her will instructs her niece and a bulging pile of books nephew to be read and reviewed, I just somehow hadn't managed to give him my full attention. Until now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft|title=Margrave of the Marshes|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=John Peel was without doubt one of the most important disc jockeys of all time. Born in Merseyside in 1939, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning enter her home to join Radio London and then become one of find the original Radio 1 team, where he stayed until his death 37 years later. I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day (even if I didn't always enjoy it myself) and his readiness to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted key to hear, and I always enjoyed reading his columns their inheritance in the music weeklies and later Radio Times. Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards the end, recall some of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come to mind), and thought his build-'em-up, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after a while. So I approached this book with an open mind as a fan, but not an uncritical one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez |title=Perfumesold manuscript left in her office: The A - Z Guide|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. The only thing that could be conceivably better than reading ''Perfumes'' would be to read it while sampling the scents it reviews, but even without the olfactory component, ''Perfumes'' is a delight: Turin (a lyrical scientist) and Sanchez (an analytically enthusiastic collector) not only treat perfume creation as high art, but turn perfume criticism into an art form (or at least a sophisticated genre of writing) too. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681278</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Malouf |title=Ransom|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Taking his theme from a small part of Homer's Iliad, Malouf tells the story of the king of Troy, Priam's grief-stricken voyage into the Greek camp to ransom Troy's wealth for the body of his fallen son, Hector, killed by the equally grief-stricken Achilles whose great friend Hector had killed in battle before Achilles took his cruel revenge. Malouf tells the last story in sparse, yet lyrical and poetic fashion suggesting the personal stories behind the epic themes that Homer related. It is an exquisitely written piece managing to be both deeply moving as well as a great piece of story telling.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184159</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven M Gillon|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the event. It's been of variable quality, but the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publicly. I'd come to the point of wondering if there was anything new to be said, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened from an unusual and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnsonshe's Presidencyll ever tell.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>1787633179