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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=Miss ReadGrady Hendrix|title=Christmas at Thrush GreenThe Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires|rating=45|genre=Women's FictionHorror|summary=Set in Women, by and large, have always been the rural village of Thrush Greensubjugated sex. Throughout history, this book is they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the latest powerful man and let nothing stand in a series surrounding familiar charactershis way. Grady Hendrix's new novel ''The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires'' gives women their due. There It is an ode to the feisty Ella Bembridge, who is finally strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to admit that old age is creeping up as her eyesight failstoe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac. Friends such as Dimity |isbn=1683691431}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008149089|title=The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and Charles Henstock are concerned about herwhen she turned over what looked like a stick she realised it was a hand, but she refuses to accept any helpa right hand, in fact. Albert Piggott has decided itDS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent's time team would later find three other body parts. Identification of the body was not going to retire now that his wifebe easy, but eventually, it would be given a name - Paige Hargreaves, a twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. Her friend, Bianca Drummond, Nellyanother journalist, is said that she was working on a successful cafe owner story which she reckoned would be explosive - and can afford she hadn't been willing to take care share any of him! And relative newcomer Phil Hurst and her husband are arranging the local nativity play, despite a number of set-backsdetails with Bianca. Will everything be in place for Christmas? And will independent Ella make a decision about her future?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409101592</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt and DaveJenny Valentine|title=Yuck's Robotic BottomHello Now|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=It's concerned me for 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 sea - which happens to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted in the house like a while ghost that itjust won's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls t leave – princessesor can't. As Jude settles into this new, magic soft toysseemingly mundane, mermaids reality she is consumed by a longing for her old life in London and pets abound anger at another forced change – but there's a much smaller choice for boysthis will be the last time, she swears. It's important too with early readers that the content This world is ''interesting'' quiet, dull and reading becomes more than just something which you ''have'' to do at school and moves into being funyet suffocating for Jude. Matt That is until the day Novo arrives, and Dave have found her entire concept of the answer in Yuckworld changes forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>0007466498

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John E SmelcerB0867X8NW7|title=The Great DeathAccess Point|author=T R Gabbay

|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=When we first meet Ula Mishkin she'As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning s having something of the twentieth century, fully two thirds a professional success: using a device of all Alaska natives perished from her own invention she's helped a pandemic man who has been blind for decades to see an image of measlesa hummingbird. She's thirty-six years old and her life is about to change radically as, smallpoxcycling home, and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a villageshe's population died within involved in an accident with a week. In some cases, there were no survivorsbus. It was 's two years before we meet her again and in the end of an ancient way of lifemeantime, she's spent 392 days in a coma and now walks with a stick. Natives still refer A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to the dreadful period as the Great Deathbring in some income.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maxine BarryBen Oliver|title=River DeepThe Loop|rating=3.5|genre=Women's FictionTeens|summary=Two young women both Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a love horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the precarious existence of the Thamesadolescent Luka Kane. Melisande Ray's beloved hotelIn a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, the Ray he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of Sunshine is on escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the river bankguards who can end his life with one squeeze. It's here that guests come who want Luka is taunted by limited access to be pampered his memories and looked relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the way that only the best hotels can do well, but when Wendell James checks in model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the hotel it's not pampering he's looking for. He's buying a piece only glimmers of land not far from hope being the Ray rumours of Sunshine rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he's sussing out the competition. There's something personal in there too – been imprisoned? What waits for him if his new hotel means that he can break the Ray of Sunshine goes under then that would be an added bonus. There's just a slight doubt in his mind when a red-haired maid catches his eye.loop?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>1912626551

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe GoresKirsty Applebaum|title=Spade and ArcherTroofriend|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Sam Spade decides, bravely, to set up his one-man detective agency. ItAre you tired of your child's the 1920s in San Francisco so we classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the prohibition era and all that that entails. Many locals, new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of course, choose to disobey -the law, stick two fingers up, so to speak and as a result there's lots of bootleg liquor. Straight away, it's evident that Sam is a man -art machines are capable of few words. He has emulating the mannerisms full range of a cat - stealthyhuman emotions without lying, quick on his feetstealing or bullying. HeThey's also a compulsive chain-smoker, but then again, most people were. In re the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that era, holding a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessory. How times these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have changed.absolutely no basis in reality…right?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140911323X</amazonuk>1788003470

 {{newreviewFrontpage |authorisbn=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark1529123941 |title=The Best of TimesSilent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves |rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction |summary=Most children enjoy a good traditional tale When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to have all the right ingredients – a handsome prince and a beautiful princess who fall in lovehis wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, get married and live happily ever afteralthough not very successfully. Or do they? Sadly Maggie, not long after Prince Frederico marries on the lovely Princess Serafinaother hand, she becomes very sad. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadnessjust taken some pills - eight of them, but poor Prince Frederico is desperate to find a cure for his wife's misery. He tries everything in his power fact - and eventually decides to offer his kingdom to anyone who can make her happy again before long she dies will collapse. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has a bit of a broken heartproblem. Lots of people come He has to the palace admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long? Well, it's about six months since he spoke to try Maggie and help but in the end the solution is a simple one provided by some very kind travellershe can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonRob Harrell|title=We Have Always Lived In The CastleWink

|summary=Nelson used When Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to pull Mike the Milkjust be 'normal's milk float, but he has now retiredbecome impossible. He lives in the stable at Suddenly he is the back of the dairy along with a couple of tricky ratscancer kid, Rhodri and Rhyseverything he does, a pigeon who has no sense of directionhow he looks, a frog who thinks and how he's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most behaves falls under the scrutiny 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 MBEother kids in school. Somehow our heroRoss is, Nelsonunderstandably, finds himself travelling down to Londonangry. He is facing potential blindness, pulling whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your lifepermanent wink. Suddenly you see He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with the danger in every situationpain, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companions. In this novella, we meet plus the need to wear a young mother who is married hat at all times to protect his face due to a logical scientistthe ongoing treatment. They attempt to control their children's futures on a scientific basisWith the sudden ghosting by one of his best friends, growing their own fruit and vegetablesa series of horrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, giving their children nothing sugaryabout his life is normal any more, 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 and he has to find new ways to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair deal with himhis feelings, begins to let things slip at home and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present dangersurvive.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>1471409147

 {{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning Out|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid job, and a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But the life she is leading is beginning to take its toll. On the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back 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 the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girl.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Downum1786485575|title=The Drowning City|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=In a nutshell, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latter. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelings. I started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMagpie Lane|author=Tove Jansson|title=The True DeceiverLucy Atkins

|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Most people of my age will have come across JanssonWhen we first meet Dee she's work unwittinglytalking to Nick Law, via the televised renditions new college master. Law's lately of the Moomin talesBBC 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. The readers amongst us would then have She had been entranced planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a few years ago new job as a nanny, but somehow she finds herself going to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about see Mariah, the Danish wife of the translation into Englishmaster. She's pregnant and looking for help, not with the new baby but with the master's daughter by his first of wife, Ana. Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk to her father, but to no one else. The Summer Book eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'struggling at school. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel Kehlmann Sally Magnusson|title=Me and KaminskiThe Sealwoman's Gift

|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing There is a legend that God came to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski and Me'. In it, Sebastian Zollner, visit Adam & Eve in the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art criticGarden. Kaminski, the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient Eve had not finished bathing her children and chronically illashamed of those still not cleansed, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details she attempted to hook hide them from the art world and general public.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Louis Barfe|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story eyes of British Light Entertainment|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down uponGod, as if it's a bit naff, tepid and ignorable. What's often forgotten is denying that she had more children that it's hugely popularthose, enjoyable and much of it is 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 Noalready bathed, Monster Tomato!|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Off, but just like that she willing paraded for 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 grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Delaney |title=The Spook's Stories: Witches|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary='Warning: Not God was not to be read after darkdeceived,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories''however, and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us decreed that this book is 'seriously scary'...  The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls in love with a witch and is forced what was sought to bear be hidden from the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-children.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa Unger|title=Die For You|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from work, she realises something is wrong. Going to his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the eyes of man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by the betrayal, and so the realisation that she's been living a lie for Elves were born: the past five yearshidden folk. They can see man, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for but man can only see them if they so long. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novelschoose.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>1473638984

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa McMannWendy Cheyne |title=WakeFrom the Auld Rock to a Hard Place

|genre=TeensHistorical Fiction|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in After the way of resources. College is Janie's only chance Jacobite defeat 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 the pursuit Battle of her goalCulloden, many Scottish estates were given to English lords. Only one thing stands in her wayThey were not kind to their crofting tenants...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in with his girlfriend Many on the mainland were cleared and they are adopted into while this did not happen much on the Zing familyislands such as Shetland, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to work port cities 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 lifemainland, to North America and her daughter's year two teacher is coming to terms with a break up. The stories of these people come together even to create a tale of life, love, Australia and ultimately, what being part of a family meansNew Zealand.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>1838591753

 {{newreview|author=F G Cottam|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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyEle Fountain|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Lost

|summary=I shall start Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and her brother, Amit. She lives with them in a word nice apartment, and although they are not rich like some of advicethe girls at school, they have enough money to be comfortable. When you're being hounded by a circus masterLola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and a magiciantrying to fit in with them, until one day, suddenly, for the soul of a tiger that's contained everything in her life changes. After taking a tigerwork trip away, Lola's egg thatfather doesn's contained in t come home. They 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, and she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the brain of your teddy bearstreets.|isbn=178269255X}}{{Frontpage|author= N K Jemisin|title= The City We Became|rating= 4|genre= Science Fiction|summary= New York is being born, the city has reached critical mass and your best friend - has matured into a fallen angel living almost- breathing entity and is trying her best ready to make sure 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 angels do forgotten places. The city is not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living alone through the third book in a fantasy trilogy. Still - never mindbirthing process, people who embody the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world values are selected to become the living embodiment of flight and cloud the city, some citieshave one, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the chase after your enemies will take you across the world woman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to desert oases and backeye, it's a personality clash on an epic scale and friends new unity is both critical and old will be on board to helpnot remotely guaranteed.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>0356512665

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend0241446732|title=Adrian MoleOur House is on Fire: The Prostrate YearsScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and livingher sister, quite literallyBeata, in a pigstythen nine years old, sharing an all too thin party wall struggled with his parents and working in a bookshopwhat was happening. It In such circumstances, it's not quite how life was supposed natural to seek a solution close to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniformhome, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believebut eventually, and desperately attempting it became clear to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile family that they were ''Jeremy Kyleburned-out people on a burned-out planet'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still If they were to come. Think find 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 way to live happily again their solution would need to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himradical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Lauren Kate|title=Fallen|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth Hinds178730101X|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear. For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought to be. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewKeep Him Close|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaEmily Koch

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Set in IndiaAlice had two children: Benny (well, familiar territory for TherouxBenoît, actually) and Louis. Lou's seventeen and he's just got his A Dead Hand'' tells level results and he and his brother are going out to celebrate. Someone has to find something to celebrate in the story of letters, D, D and E. Alice has always had a travel writer suffering from writergood relationship with nineteen-year-old Benny but it's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat touch problematic with Lou and being honest, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected ways. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Ungerhe's Tantric charmsnot terribly likeable. But does she have more The letters which kept coming to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>my mind were ADHD.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester0241396840|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapKeeper|author=Jessica Moor

|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, Katie Straw worked in the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by women's refuge and the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public displaywomen who lived there liked and respected her. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificateShe treated them well and seemed to have an understanding of what they were going through. It is Why then did she jump from the sole survivor of local suicide spot into the river below? There had been no signs that she was unhappy and she and her boyfriend seemed to have been content together - and Noah has a thousand copies printed early in decent alibi for the 16th centurytime when she died, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. but what other explanation could there be for her death? The sale and story behind police are convinced that it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more's suicide, and this book is but the resultwomen who knew her believed otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur 1838880658|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryMurder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay)|author=Helena Dixon|rating=34|genre=HumourCrime|summary=It''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is s the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch summer of 1933 and all it has done for the world. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth Kitty Underhay is on them they will lambast her way to visit the modern worldfamily which she never knew she had, the entire banking systemat Enderley Hall. Her grandmother, all those who failed to see it comingMrs Treadwell, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get Great Aunt Livvy are back on at the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth. Kitty gets easily bored working at the expenses train, and back up Dolphin - every day is much 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 same - but her back, and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber real reason for going away is that she needs a day at the seasidebreak after her recent adventures, 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 fashionwhich involved three vicious murders, an arson attack and we have to doubt whether Polly and an attempt on her companions can ever utilise the power of love and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabethlife.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Loose Women1788638026|title=Here Come Where the GirlsInnocent Die (D I Ridpath)|author=M J Lee

|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=This is It was easy to assume that the death of the second volume by young Chinese girl at the panelists from that nice ITV seriesImmigrant Removal Centre was suicide. Her throat was cut, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised there was a lot of blood and the knife was on the coverfloor at the side of the bed, this book is an entertaining night with the girls She was due to be deported that day. It turns out that they're just like usBut... The faces are already familiar how did the knife get into the secure centre and even if you donwhy was the girl't know them yets room the only one which was unlocked? DI Thomas Ridpath, the coroner's officer, with nine contributorsis sent to investigate and he quickly becomes suspicious, you There'll soon find s a snag though: the inquest is due to open in a like-minded woman behind one couple of days' time, the celebrity facesgirl's parents are coming over from China and they want to take their daughter's body home with them. Ridpath has just five days to solve the case. The women are universally warm-hearted and supportivecoroner is disinclined to delay the inquest: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for her, it's about giving closure to the eveningparents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1471166023|title=Fortune CookieBurnt Island (Ben Kitto)|author=Kate Rhodes

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Fudge Cassidy The 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-fifth birthday and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If occasion for the usual bonfire celebrations, but it would be marred this year by the names remind you discovery of Professor Alex Rogan's body on a certain film then youbonfire. He'd be spot obviously been alive when he was put on as that's where Fudge's father got the idea fromfire and can only have died a terrible death. They're actually chalk The body was first discovered by Jimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes as the Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing and cheese – Fudge his only concern is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination workswelfare of the birds he looks after. TheyHis instinct is to cover Rogan've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy s body and he uses his problems are becoming more obvious. Add sheepskin coat to do this that her father couldn't cope , with the problems and result that he now has another family. It's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of moneythe prime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsElliot Reed|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune Key to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, 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 day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dave Eggers|title=The Wild ThingsTreehouse Living

|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets This is the wrong end story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the stick about adults, or dislikes death of his motherand his father's new boyfriendabandonment. However, or gets a bit feisty when he feels it isn't told in the need for revengeusual narrative way. Instead, I am certainly understating the facts. He book is a bit made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land way of roisterous animalsdescribing certain events, situations and ends up installed as their kingemotions.|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 It runs alphabetically, Streakerstarting with ABSENCE, has had three puppies. They were fathered, according then moving to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one of his AlsatiansALPHABETICAL ORDER. Trevor would ideally like As I began to keep them, at least until Christmas, read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but his parents have other ideas and put them up for sale. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled I soon grew used to half of the money from the sale of the puppiesstyle, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing in the park and it's was instead caught 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 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. CassieWilliam's mother died when she was just a baby and she can't help feeling a huge hole 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 youngstory. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>1911545418

 {{newreview|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 ''Ooh, you don't see many of those round here, 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel VreemanWill Dean |title=Don't Swallow Your GumBlack River

|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary='''BANG'''. That's Tuva Moodyson returns - and this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal life, returning her to the sound isolated town of copious urban myths being shot downGavrik and into a desperate search for her missing best friend. '''BANG'''. That's With the Midsommar sun blocked out by the sound dark pines of the old wives slamming the doorforest, as their tales get revealed as baselessTuva fights to save her friend. '''CLICK'''. That's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make as they get closed down. All noises come due But who’ll be there to this brilliant book.save Tuva?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>1786077116

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annie Taylor1782407480|title=VioletBird Love: The Family Life of Birds|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster

|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Violet is I was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a couple of on-line booksellers: ''exploring the sex life of birds'' it said. I very special hippo. She is extremely small nearly passed over the book, but a closer examination suggested that does not make her adoptive parents Albert the book is about the ''family life'' of birds, which is rather different. If the book was confined to the sex life of birds, you would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, bring up their families and Mavis love her any cope in the lesswild. However Not only that, they are slightly worried that Violet has you have missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a very unusual habit wide variety of turning pink without warning and for no explicable reasonbirds which run through this book from the first page to the last.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonCamilla Bruce|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveYou Let Me In

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Arthur Transcombe is a middle-aged, grey-hairedEccentric, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - on the outside. He isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has, however, managed to achieve some success with his poems. (Being been missing for a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat). He is also a babe magnet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=A J Healy|title=Tommy Storm year and the Galactic Knights|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. He's one of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to be a gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHING. Nobody seems to know what's going to cause this destruction, or when, but he and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the day. So it's a pity that they start this book strung up has been pronounced legally dead by a nasty loony who's about to kill themher lawyers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Graham McCann|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-Thomas|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When I was in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film around. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Jay Parker|title=Stop Me|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoying, but most of us Her will have had to deal with them. Fortunately, we can hit the delete button instructs her niece 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 nephew 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 enter her home and death, rather than just claiming find the key 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 their inheritance in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy old manuscript left in her office: the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight'last story she'll ever tell. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>1787633179