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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.

There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews on the siteat TheBookbag.

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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=Daniel Kehlmann Grady Hendrix|title=Me and KaminskiThe Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=After reviewing several long books Women, by and large, have always been the subjugated sex. Throughout history, itthey have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as new novel ''The Southern Book Club'Kaminski and Mes Guide to Slaying Vampires''gives women their due. In it, Sebastian Zollner, It is an ode to the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to research toe with a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art critic. Kaminski, the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid predatory male vampire who moves into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general publictheir quiet cul de sac.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>1683691431

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis Barfe0008149089|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentCutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=EntertainmentCrime|summary=Light entertainment is often It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked down uponlike a stick she realised it was a hand, as if it's a bit naffright hand, tepid in fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and ignorable. WhatDI Josh Derwent's often forgotten is that team would later find three other body parts. Identification of the body was not going to be easy, but eventually, it's hugely popularwould be given a name - Paige Hargreaves, a twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. Her friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, enjoyable said that she was working on a story which she reckoned would be explosive - and much of it is she hadn't been willing to share any of the highest qualitydetails with Bianca. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jim Helmore and Karen WallJenny Valentine|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!Hello Now|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=Marvin is entering Jude reluctantly moves to a small, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and settle into a big, old house overlooking the Great Grislygust Growsea -Offwhich happens to contain a strange, but old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted in the house like a ghost that just like him, his tomatoes arenwon't leave – or can't growing very big. He takes As Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, reality she is consumed by a longing for her old life in London and anger at another forced change – but this will be the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes a songlast time, she swears. The results are spectacularThis world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating for Jude. Victory That is surely within his graspuntil the day Novo arrives, and her entire concept of the world changes forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>0007466498

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Delaney B0867X8NW7|title=The Spook's Stories: WitchesAccess Point|author=T R Gabbay

|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=When we first meet Ula Mishkin she'Warnings having something of a professional success: Not using a device of her own invention she's helped a man who has been blind for decades to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back see an image of ''The Spooka hummingbird. She's Stories'', thirty-six years old and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book her life is 'seriously scary'...  The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamelyabout to change radically as, thoughcycling home, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls she's involved in love an accident with a witch bus. It's two years before we meet her again and is forced to bear in the consequences when the witchmeantime, she's sister comes to stay spent 392 days in a coma and exhibits now walks with a stick. A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a taste for the neighbor-childrenspare bedroom to bring in some income.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa UngerBen Oliver|title=Die For YouThe Loop|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to successful video game designer Marcus Rainea horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from workIn a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, she realises something he is wrongtrapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. Going A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the guards who can end his office to try life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access 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, memories and the man she married was using relentlessly drained of energy through a false identitygruelling daily torture ritual. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that she's been living Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a lie guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out model of an infinity loop designed to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so longmake its inmates suffer. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and deeper into a nasty underworldthe visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, and finds a tale which can Luka ever be free? Why has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novels.he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>1912626551

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa McMannKirsty Applebaum|title=WakeTroofriend|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. SheAre you tired of your child's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home classmates constantly being horrible to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going them? Do you want your child to provide much in have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the way new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of resources. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than -the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in art machines are capable of emulating the pursuit full range of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way..human emotions without lying, stealing or bullying.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen TaylorThey's father has just moved in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing family, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – re the Zings meet every Friday night perfect companion for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'. 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 with a break up. The stories of any child! Any mention that these people come together androids are beginning to create a tale of life, love, develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and ultimately, what being part of a family means.have absolutely no basis in reality…right?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>1788003470

 {{newreviewFrontpage |authorisbn=F G Cottam1529123941 |title=The Magdalena CurseSilent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves |rating=24.5|genre=HorrorGeneral Fiction |summary=Mark Hunter When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is the sort of father who would do anything for playing chess against his soncomputer, although not very successfully. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident Maggie, on the other hand, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautifuljust taken some pills - eight of them, incredibly smart in fact - and mature beyond his ten years – only recently before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he's been channelling the voices has a bit of the deada problem. Plagued by horrific dreams, able He has to speak Russian in the hours after admit that he wakesand Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long? Well, drawing occult symbols when it's about six months since he doodles, Hunter believes Adam spoke to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, Maggie and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herselfhe can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyRob Harrell|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Wink

|summary=I shall start When Ross is diagnosed with a word rare form of advicecancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to just be 'normal' become impossible. When you're being hounded by a circus masterSuddenly he is the cancer kid, and a magicianeverything he does, how he looks, for and how he behaves falls under the soul scrutiny of a tiger that's contained the other kids in school. Ross is, understandably, angry. He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a tiger's egg that's contained in permanent wink. He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with the brain of your teddy bearpain, and your best friend - plus the need to wear a fallen angel - is trying her best hat at all times to protect his face due 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 trilogyongoing treatment. Still - never mindWith the sudden ghosting by one of his best friends, the angel's efforts will involve you entering and a dream world series of flight and cloud citieshorrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and backnothing about his life is normal any more, and friends he has to find new ways to deal with his feelings, and old will be on board to helpsurvive.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>1471409147

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1786485575|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsMagpie Lane|author=Lucy Atkins

|genre=General FictionCrime|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. ItWhen we first meet Dee she's not quite how life was supposed talking to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniformNick Law, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out new college master. Law's lately of her quest to appear on the vile BBC and he doesn''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing t come with an entirely good reputation: 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 and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, bit of a bully and there's little that ol' Adrian Dee can do except sit back and watch his life spin out sense something of control around himthat in their first conversation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lauren Kate|title=Fallen|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=A 17 year old girl at She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new school meets job as a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boynanny, who but somehow she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude finds herself going to hersee Mariah, until he saves her life, and the two Danish wife of them end up drawn togetherthe master. This isn't Stephenie Meyer She's ''Twilight''pregnant and looking for help, 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 in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear. For me, even as a trained actor, with the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create new baby but with the great tragedy itmaster's thought to bedaughter by his first wife, Ana. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which it's held Felicity is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Handselectively mute: A Crime in Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in Indiashe does talk to her father, 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 but to release his creativity in very unexpected waysno one else. The story eight-year-old is more about obsession grieving for her dead mother and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charmsstruggling at school. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Toby LesterSally Magnusson|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of HistorySealwoman's Greatest MapGift

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=In 2003 There is a map was bought for $10 million, legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical documentGarden. Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, by she attempted to hide them from the Library eyes of CongressGod, where it is now on permanent public displaydenying that she had more children that those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. No ordinary mapGod was not to be deceived, however, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate. It is and decreed that what was sought to be hidden from the sole survivor eyes of a thousand copies printed early in God would henceforth be hidden from the 16th centuryeyes of man, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901so the Elves were born: the hidden folk. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester They can see man, but man can only see them if they so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the resultchoose.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>1473638984

 {{newreviewFrontpage|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. Wendy Cheyne 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 From 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 Auld Rock 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 GirlsHard Place

|genre=Home and FamilyHistorical Fiction|summary=This is After the second volume by Jacobite defeat at the panelists from that nice ITV seriesBattle of Culloden, ''Loose Women''many Scottish estates were given to English lords. Just as promised They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the cover, mainland were cleared and while this book is an entertaining night with did not happen much on the girls. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yetislands such as Shetland, with nine contributors, you'll soon find a likethe new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave -minded woman behind one of to port cities on the celebrity faces. The women are universally warm-hearted mainland, to North America and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book even to Australia and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningNew Zealand.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>1838591753

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreEle Fountain|title=Fortune CookieLost

|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 as that's where Fudge's Lola lives in an Indian city with her father got the idea from. 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 are becoming more obvious, Amit. Add to this that her father couldn't cope She lives with the problems and he now has another family. It's just Cupcakethem in a nice apartment, Joey and her mother – and although they are not a lot rich like some 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, the girls at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europeschool, Maria was destined they have enough money to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historybe comfortable. Married to Lola spends her time thinking about her uncle Infante Pedroschool friends, seventeen years her seniorand trying to fit in with them, she had six children (outliving all but until one of them)day, suddenly, and became Queen everything in 1777her life changes. A conscientious womanAfter taking a work trip away, she had the misfortune to be born in during the Lola'age of reasons father doesn', when church and state were vying for supremacyt come home. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach They have nobody else to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Greathelp, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Well, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a as they wait day after day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array Lola wonders what will become of animals (a batthem until, a toadfinally, a sea urchin...)they are evicted from their flat, all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's deadand she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the streets.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>178269255X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersN K Jemisin|title=The Wild ThingsCity We Became|rating=4|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Meet MaxNew York is being born, the city has reached critical mass and has matured into a living almost-breathing entity and is ready to make its way out into the world. Before it can be established, an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and other forgotten places. When I say he sometimes gets The city is not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the values are selected to become the wrong end living embodiment of the stick about adultscity, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendsome cities have one, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factssome have twelve and New York has six. He is a bit of a rascal to say Together these human-embodiments must defeat the leastwoman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eye, it's a strange land of roisterous animals, personality clash on an epic scale and unity is both critical and ends up installed as their kingnot remotely guaranteed.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>0356512665

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Strong0241446732|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog |rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Trevor's troublesome dog, Streaker, 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 he'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=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Beth Durst|title=Ice|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Cassie lives Our House is on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness Fire: Scenes of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer 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 Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby Family and she can't help feeling a huge hole Planet in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very young. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCrisis|author=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry|title=The Wide-Mouthed Frog|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Do you know the joke about the wide-mouthed frog? You must 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, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, and the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''OohMalena Ernman, you don't see many of those round hereGreta Thunberg, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funny. Anyway, this is a book of that joke.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dr Aaron Carroll Beata Thunberg and Dr Rachel Vreeman|title=Don't Swallow Your GumSvante 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'''Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. ThatIn such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the sound of the old wives slamming the door, as their tales get revealed as baseless. family that they were '''CLICK'burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. That's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make as If they get closed down. All noises come due were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to this brilliant bookbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Annie Taylor|title=Violet|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Violet is a very special hippo. She is extremely small but that does not make her adoptive parents Albert and Mavis love her any the less. However, they are slightly worried that Violet has a very unusual habit of turning pink without warning and for no explicable reason.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary Dixon178730101X|title=When Rooks Speak of Love|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Arthur Transcombe is a middle-aged, grey-haired, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - on the outside. He has, however, managed to achieve some success with his poems. (Being a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat). He is also a babe magnet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewKeep Him Close|author=A J Healy|title=Tommy Storm and the Galactic KnightsEmily 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 themKatie Straw worked in the women's refuge and the women who lived there liked and respected her. Fortunately, we can hit the delete button She treated them well and forget about them as quickly as seemed to have an understanding of what they camewere going through. I certainly prefer not to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, Why then did she jump from the local suicide spot into the river below? There had been no matter how bad my luck is supposed signs that she was unhappy and she and her boyfriend seemed to become if I don't. But I wonder how many of us would react if a spam Ehave been content together -Mail actually was and Noah has a matter of life and deathdecent alibi for the time when she died, rather than just claiming to but what other explanation could there befor her death?|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 in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because police are convinced that it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Maxsuicide, but 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''knew her believed otherwise. |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 and were the good girls. Neither missed school, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to university. All that seemed to change when she met Alex. Well, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into her, from the building site where he worked. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Mintzberg1838880658|title=Managing|rating=5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=''Study after study has shown that managers work Murder at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as a result, there's such a market 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 so? This title actually has an answer to this, by providing two books in one, and 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, chapter by chapter, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provoking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEnderley Hall (Miss Underhay)|author=Kathryn Fox|title=Blood BornHelena 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 occasion for the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumesusual bonfire celebrations, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods but it would be marred this year by the discovery of Difficult SumsProfessor Alex Rogan's body on a bonfire. They He're supposed to be making presentations about what they did during d obviously been alive when he was put on the holidays too, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation fire and, frankly, he can't really remember what he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sumsonly have died a terrible death. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb|title=The Princess Who Had No Kingdom|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary= The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled body was first discovered by her horse Pretty. She's very polite, friendlyJimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes as the Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing and kind-hearted, but she feels like something his only concern is lacking because she doesn't have a kingdom the welfare of her ownthe birds he looks after. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but there His instinct is to cover Rogan's always a feeling body and he uses his sheepskin coat to do this, with the result that shehe's not quite as good as them because she isn't the princess of anywhereprime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mij Kelly and Louise NisbetElliot Reed|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasA Key to Treehouse Living

|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone and keeps herself to herself. Her things are her things and she This is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One daythe story of a young boy, William Tyce, an old man moves in to Mousewho is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his father's houseabandonment. He used to be the happiest man However, it isn't told in the worldusual narrative way. Instead, but now he's sad. He's fed the book is made up of having givenglossary entries, givenwritten by William, given all his life as a way of describing certain events, situations and never got anything backemotions. He just sits quietly and mopes It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. This makes Mouse miserable As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, so one day she decides to cheer him and was instead caught up by giving him a clementine..in William's story.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>1911545418

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick BlandWill Dean |title=The Very Cranky BearBlack River |rating=45|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=MooseTuva Moodyson returns - and this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal life, Lion, Zebra returning her to the isolated town of Gavrik and Sheep head into a cave to get desperate search for her missing best friend. With the Midsommar sun blocked out by the dark pines of the rainforest, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep in there. When they wake him up, he roars at them, chasing them outside, so they decide Tuva fights to cheer him up somehowsave her friend. Zebra paints stripes on him, Moose fashions antlers for him and Lion sticks a mane of straw on him. Unsurprisingly, this makes Bear even crankier, so it's down to Sheep But who’ll be there to save the day...Tuva?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>1786077116

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish1782407480|title=Mum Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds|author=Wenfei Tong and Dad GlueMike Webster|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingAnimals and Wildlife|summary=A young boyI was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a couple of on-line booksellers: 's parents are splitting up'exploring the sex life of birds'' it said. He's going through I very nearly passed over the usual emotions book, but a closer examination suggested that children the book is about the ''family life'' of divorce go through: worrybirds, feeling unsurewhich is rather different. If the book was confined to the sex life of birds, blaming himself, anger, denialyou would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, bring up their families and then trying to get them to stay togethercope in the wild. His method for Not only that, you have missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a wide variety of birds which run through this isn't book from the usual response though: he looks for glue first page to stick his mum and dad together. Thankfully, he finds some wise and kindly advice in the processlast.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clara VulliamyCamilla Bruce|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedYou Let Me In

|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=It's Pearl's bedtimeEccentric, but she says she's really busy isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year and isn't going to sleephas been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. She just wants Her will instructs her niece and nephew to play enter her home and play and play. When find the bear with sticky paws rings the doorbell, he whisks key to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her away on an amazing adventure - although as you might expect, office: the bear has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually last story she does get a little sleepy'll ever tell.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>1787633179