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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>

{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:Features|author=Simon Weston|title=Nelson to the Rescue|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike the Milklatest features]].'s milk float, but he has now retired. He lives in the stable at the back of the dairy along with a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri and Rhys, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, a frog who thinks he's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleeping. Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mike's fridge and the animals believe that Mike has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE. Somehow our hero, Nelson, finds himself travelling down to London, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth BainesGrady Hendrix|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companions. In this novella, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their childrenThe Southern Book Club's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with him, begins Guide to let things slip at home and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present danger.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning OutSlaying Vampires|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid job Women, by and a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything is catered for; her mealslarge, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But have always been the life she is leading is beginning to take its tollsubjugated sex. On the verge of snappingThroughout history, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back they have been confined to her home town. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself powerful man and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will let nothing stand in turn haunt the girlhis way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Amanda Downum|title=The Drowning City|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=In a nutshell, youGrady Hendrix's new novel 're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. YouSouthern Book Club've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latter. Is Guide to Slaying Vampires'm afraid it's not quite that simplegives women their due. This It is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelingsan ode to the strong selfless housewife. I started off convinced that I was going Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden toe with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocativea predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>1683691431

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson0008149089|title=The True DeceiverCutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)|author=Jane Casey

|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Most people It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Moomin talesThames and when she turned over what looked like a stick she realised it was a hand, a right hand, in fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent's team would later find three other body parts. The readers amongst us Identification of the body was not going to be easy, but eventually, it would then have been entranced be given a name - Paige Hargreaves, a few years ago to discover twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. Her friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, said that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of she was working on a collection of short stories story which were published as 'A Winter Bookshe reckoned would be explosive - and she hadn't been willing to share any of the details with Bianca. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel Kehlmann Jenny Valentine|title=Me and KaminskiHello Now

|genre=Literary FictionTeens|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing Jude reluctantly moves to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski small, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and Me'. In itsettle into a big, Sebastian Zollnerold house overlooking the sea - which happens to contain a strange, the obnoxious main characterold sitting tenant named Henry, shoves himself forward who stays rooted in the house like a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art criticghost that just won't leave – or can't. KaminskiAs Jude settles into this new, the proposed subjectseemingly mundane, was reality she is consumed by a fashionable painter long ago, longing for her old life in London and anger at another forced change – but now, ancient and chronically illthis will be the last time, has virtually slid into oblivionshe swears. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art This world and general public.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Louis Barfe|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down uponquiet, as if it's a bit naff, tepid dull and ignorableyet suffocating for Jude. What's often forgotten That is that it's hugely popularuntil the day Novo arrives, enjoyable and much of it is her entire concept of the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Off, but just like him, his tomatoes aren't growing very big. He takes the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes a song. The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his graspworld 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 goalhuman emotions without lying, stealing or bullying. Only one thing stands They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have absolutely no basis in her way...reality…right?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>1788003470

 {{newreviewFrontpage |authorisbn=Jaclyn Moriarty 1529123941 |title=The Spell Book of Listen TaylorSilent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves |rating=34.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction |summary=Listen Taylor's father When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfully. Maggie, on the other hand, has just moved taken some pills - eight of them, in with his girlfriend fact - and they are adopted into before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the Zing family, with all emergency services in Oxford he has a bit of its delightful eccentricities a problem. He has to admit that he and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night Maggie haven't actually spoken for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'a while. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her home life How long? Well, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie and her daughterhe can't really say if it's year two teacher is coming likely that Maggie has tried to terms with a break up. The stories of these people come together to create a tale of take her own life, love, and ultimately, what being part of a family means.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G CottamRob Harrell|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is the sort of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jon Berkeley|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 Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and the Cupcake kid are best friendsher brother, Amit. If the names remind you of She lives with them in a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got the idea from. They're actually chalk nice apartment, and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but although they are not rich like some of the combination worksgirls at school, they have enough money to be comfortable. They've just started at secondary Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and Cupcake has rather a lot on trying to fit in with them, until one day, suddenly, everything in her platelife changes. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this that her After taking a work trip away, Lola's father couldndoesn't cope with the problems and he now has another familycome home. It's just CupcakeThey have nobody else to help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become of them until, finally, they are evicted from their flat, Joey and she and her mother – and not a lot of moneybrother find themselves forced to live on the streets.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>178269255X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsN K Jemisin|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalCity We Became|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyScience Fiction|summary=Born in 1734 in LisbonNew York is being born, at that time the richest city has reached critical mass and has matured into a living almost-breathing entity and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined is ready to become make its way out into the first female monarch in Portuguese historyworld. Married Before it can be established, an ancient evil appears to attempt to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and became Queen in 1777other forgotten places. A conscientious womanThe city is not alone through the birthing process, she had people who embody the misfortune values are selected to be born in during become the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter living embodiment of the old religioncity, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Greatsome cities have one, some have twelve and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead|rating=4New York has six.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Well, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then Together these human-embodiments must defeat the next thing he knows he's woman in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, somethingwhite and save New York from very real destruction. Yup, as you didnBut these are five different boroughs which don't need tellingalways see eye to eye, heit's deada personality clash on an epic scale and unity is both critical and not remotely guaranteed.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>0356512665

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Eggers0241446732|title=The Wild Things|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adults, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriend, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the facts. He Our House is a bit of a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their king.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeremy Strong|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 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 Beata Thunberg and funny. Anyway, this is a book of that joke.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dr Aaron Carroll 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 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 This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled is being raised by her horse Prettyhis uncle after the death of his mother and his father's abandonment. She However, it isn's very politet told in the usual narrative way. Instead, friendlythe book is made up of glossary entries, and kind-heartedwritten by William, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesn't have as a kingdom way of her owndescribing certain events, situations and emotions. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but there's always a feeling that sheI soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's not quite as good as them because she isn't the princess of anywherestory.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>1911545418

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mij Kelly and Louise NisbetWill Dean |title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasBlack River |rating=45|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone Tuva Moodyson returns - and keeps herself to herself. Her things are this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her things and she is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One daypersonal life, an old man moves in returning her to Mouse's housethe isolated town of Gavrik and into a desperate search for her missing best friend. He used to be With the happiest man in Midsommar sun blocked out by the world, but now he's sad. He's fed up dark pines of having giventhe forest, given, given all his life and never got anything backTuva fights to save her friend. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserable, so one day she decides But who’ll be there to cheer him up by giving him a clementine...save Tuva?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>1786077116

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bland1782407480|title=Bird Love: The Very Cranky BearFamily Life of Birds|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Moose, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head into I was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a cave to get out couple of on-line booksellers: ''exploring the rainsex life of birds'' it said. I very nearly passed over the book, but little do they know a closer examination suggested that Bear the book is fast asleep in thereabout the ''family life'' of birds, which is rather different. When they wake him up If the book was confined to the sex life of birds, he roars at themyou would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, chasing them outside, so they decide to cheer him bring up somehowtheir families and cope in the wild. Zebra paints stripes on him Not only that, Moose fashions antlers for him and Lion sticks you have missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a mane wide variety of straw on him. Unsurprisingly, birds which run through this makes Bear even crankier, so it's down book from the first page to Sheep to save the day.last..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kes Gray and Lee WildishCamilla Bruce|title=Mum and Dad GlueYou Let Me In

|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=A young boy's parents are splitting up. He's going through the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worryEccentric, feeling unsure, blaming himself, anger, denial, and then trying to get them to stay together. His method isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for this isn't the usual response though: he looks for glue to stick his mum a year and dad togetherhas been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. Thankfully, he finds some wise Her will instructs her niece 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 nephew to sleep. She just wants 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