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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.

Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?__NOTOC__

==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__{{newreview|author=Stephen Baker|title=They've Got Your Number|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=If you are in the slightest bit paranoid, worry that ''Big Brother'' is always watching or like to believe that you are not a number, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book for you, as it will do nothing to dispel any of those worries. If, on the other hand, you think 'the mathematical modelling of humanity' sounds like one of the sexiest things ever, and are chomping at the bit to learn more about it, then you might well be interested in what Business Week journalist Baker has to say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonukbr>}}

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca TopeGrady Hendrix|title=Fear in the CotswoldsThe Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires|rating=45|genre=CrimeHorror|summary=Thea Osborne is a house sitter Women, by professionand large, have always been the subjugated sex. When people go away she moves into their homes Throughout history, they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and looks after their animals and the propertylet nothing stand in his way. This time itGrady Hendrix's winter and shenew novel ''The Southern Book Club's spending a month in the Cotswold village of HampnettGuide to Slaying Vampires'' gives women their due. It wouldn't be a job for all of us but Thea delights in getting is an ode to know the local people and the areastrong selfless housewife. In the past she's also been involved with the police in solving various cases but it looks as though that might have come Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to an end as the relationship she had toe with DS Phil Hollis has crumbled. For the first time Thea feels like an outsider – and a foolish one - when she finds footsteps in the snow which lead to a body in a nearby field. When the police finally arrive the body has disappeared and the police obviously wonder if she's imagined it allpredatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749007478</amazonuk>1683691431

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tad Tuleja0008149089|title=A Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases|rating=3|genre=Home and Family|summary=Take a look at the cover design of this book, and you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a trivia compendium for all those foreign words that have taken part in our English language since whenever they crossed over from their original homes. But the title is definitely honest, for this is a dictionary book first, for reference, and a browser for the trivia buff second.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089562</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)|author=Anne Rice|title=Angel Time|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Toby O'Dare is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for music, history and playing his beloved lute. He's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years ago. One day while on a 'job' he is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemption. Toby agrees to become the Angel's human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian Mortimer|title=1415: Henry V's Year of GloryJane Casey

|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=The medievalIt 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 like a stick she realised it was a hand, a right hand, in fact time-honoured, view of King Henry V as one of England. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent's greatest heroes team would later find three other body parts. Identification of the body was propagated though not originated by Shakespearegoing to be easy, but eventually, it would be given a name - Paige Hargreaves, and again more recently to some extent by Olivier's portrayal in filma twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. At least one historian has called him 'Her friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, said that she was working on a story which she reckoned would be explosive - and she hadn't been willing to share any of the greatest man that ever ruled England''details with Bianca.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah GregoryJenny Valentine|title=Dancing With The DeadHello Now|rating=34.5|genre=Literary FictionTeens|summary=I wanted 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 read ''Dancing with contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted in the Deadhouse like a ghost that just won't leave – or can't. As Jude settles into this new, because I'm interested seemingly mundane, reality she is consumed by a longing for her old life in family history. The blurb on the back of the book also mentioned Gill London and anger at another forced change – our heroine of but this will be the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born last time, she swears. This world is quiet, dull and brought up)yet suffocating for Jude. I felt with all these linksThat is until the day Novo arrives, and her entire concept of the novel could not fail to interest me – but this was not the caseworld changes forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>0007466498

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Miss ReadB0867X8NW7|title=Christmas at Thrush GreenAccess Point|author=T R Gabbay

|genre=Women's FictionThrillers|summary=Set in the rural village When we first meet Ula Mishkin she's having something of a professional success: using a device of Thrush Green, this book is the latest in her own invention she's helped a series surrounding familiar characters. There is the feisty Ella Bembridge, man who is finally having has been blind for decades to admit that see an image of a hummingbird. She's thirty-six years old age and her life is creeping up about to change radically as , cycling home, she's involved in an accident with a bus. It's two years before we meet her eyesight fails. Friends such as Dimity again and Charles Henstock are concerned about herin the meantime, but she refuses to accept any help. Albert Piggott has decided it's time to retire spent 392 days in a coma and now walks with a stick. A professional colleague persuades Ula that his wife, Nelly, is she should let out a successful cafe owner and can afford spare bedroom to take care of him! And relative newcomer Phil Hurst and her husband are arranging the local nativity play, despite a number of set-backsbring in some income. 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 DaveBen Oliver|title=Yuck's Robotic BottomThe Loop|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=It's concerned me Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a while that it's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls – princesseshorrific level by machines, magic soft toysThe Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, mermaids he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access to his memories and pets abound – but there's relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a much smaller choice risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for boysAlts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. It's important too with early readers that His prison is based on the content is ''interesting'' and reading becomes more than just something which you ''have'' model of an infinity loop designed to do at school and moves into make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being fun. Matt the rumours of rebellion outside and Dave have found the answer in Yuck.visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>1912626551

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E SmelcerKirsty Applebaum|title=The Great DeathTroofriend|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measles, smallpox, and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village's population died within a week. In some cases, there were no survivors. It was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Death.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Maxine Barry|title=River Deep|rating=3.5|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=Two young women both have a love Are you tired of the Thames. Melisande Rayyour child's beloved hotel, the Ray of Sunshine is on the river bank. It's here that guests come who classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to be pampered and looked after in have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the way that only the best hotels can do well, but when Wendell James checks in to the hotel it's not pampering he's looking for. He's buying a piece new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of land not far from -the Ray -art machines are capable of Sunshine and he's sussing out the competition. There's something personal in there too – if his new hotel means that emulating the Ray full range 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joe Gores|title=Spade and Archer|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Sam Spade decides, bravelyhuman emotions without lying, to set up his one-man detective agencystealing or bullying. ItThey's re the 1920s in San Francisco so we have the prohibition era and all perfect companion for any child! Any mention that that entails. Many locals, of course, choose these androids are beginning to disobey the law, stick two fingers up, so to speak develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and as a result there's lots of bootleg liquor. Straight away, it's evident that Sam is a man of few words. He has the mannerisms of a cat - stealthy, quick on his feet. He's also a compulsive chain-smoker, but then again, most people were. In that era, holding a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessory. How times 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 to pull Mike the Milk's milk float, but he has now retired. He lives in the stable at the back of the dairy along When Ross is diagnosed with a couple rare form of tricky ratscancer, Rhodri and Rhysaged 12, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, a frog who thinks hehis desperate attempts at school to just be 'normal's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleepingbecome impossible. Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mike's fridge and Suddenly he is the animals believe that Mike has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE. Somehow our herocancer kid, Nelsonand everything he does, finds himself travelling down to Londonhow he looks, pulling 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 and how he behaves falls under the scrutiny of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger other kids in every situation, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companionsschool. In this novella, we meet a young mother who Ross is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetablesunderstandably, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disprovedangry. But after meeting He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her worldeye sealed in a permanent wink. She begins an affair with him, begins He has gloopy eye medicine to try to let things slip at home and help with the childrenpain, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by plus the sense of an ever-present danger.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning Out|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Violet has it all – need to wear a well-paid job, and a luxurious apartment hat at all times to herself. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them protect his face due to be. But the life she is leading is beginning to take its tollongoing treatment. On With the verge sudden ghosting by one of snappinghis best friends, and a drained and somewhat out-series of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home town. There, she meets horrible memes that someone familiarat school creates about Ross, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of nothing about his 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>}} {{newreview|author=Amanda Downum|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 goodnormal any more, 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 he has to find new ways to deal with his 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 evocativesurvive.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>1471409147

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson1786485575|title=The True DeceiverMagpie Lane|author=Lucy 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 visit Adam & Eve in the Garden. Eve had not finished bathing her children and Me'. In it, Sebastian Zollnerashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the obnoxious main charactereyes of God, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art critic. Kaminskidenying that she had more children that those, the proposed subjectalready bathed, that she willing paraded for him. God was a fashionable painter long agonot to be deceived, but nowhowever, ancient and chronically illdecreed that what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, has virtually slid into oblivionand so the Elves were born: the hidden folk. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he They can see man, but man can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general publiconly see them if they so choose.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>1473638984

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Louis BarfeWendy Cheyne |title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentFrom the Auld Rock to a Hard Place

|genre=EntertainmentHistorical Fiction|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down uponAfter the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, as if it's a bit naff, tepid and ignorablemany Scottish estates were given to English lords. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. What's often forgotten is that it's hugely popular, enjoyable Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much of it is of on the islands such as Shetland, the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to port cities on the complete story of British light entertainmentmainland, to North America and even to Australia and New Zealand.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>1838591753

 {{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 grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Delaney |title=The Spook's Stories: Witches|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us 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 to bear 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 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 man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that she's been living a lie for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for 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 novels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa McMann|title=Wake|rating=4|genre=Teens|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 the way 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 the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...|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 and they are adopted into the Zing family, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night 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 these people come together to create a tale of life, love, and ultimately, what being part of a family means.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>}} {{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 a word of adviceher father, and her brother, Amit. When you're being hounded by She lives with them in a circus masternice apartment, and a magician, for the soul although they are not rich like some of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy beargirls at school, they have enough money to be comfortable. Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you fit in a big way - then you're probably living the third book with them, until one day, suddenly, everything in a fantasy trilogyher life changes. Still - never mindAfter taking a work trip away, the angelLola's efforts father doesn't come home. They have nobody else to help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will involve you entering a dream world become of flight and cloud citiesthem until, finally, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and backthey are evicted from their flat, and friends new she and old will be her brother find themselves forced to live on board to helpthe streets.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>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 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. The city is not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the values are selected to become the living embodiment of the city, some cities have one, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the woman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eye, it's a personality clash on an epic scale and unity is both critical and not remotely guaranteed.|isbn=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|isbn=1838880658|title=Murder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay)|author=Steven Lowe Helena Dixon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=It's the summer of 1933 and Alan McArthur Kitty Underhay is on her way to visit the family which she never knew she had, at Enderley Hall. Her grandmother, Mrs Treadwell, and Great Aunt Livvy are back at the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth. Kitty gets easily bored working at the Dolphin - every day is much the same - but her real reason for going away is that she needs a break after her recent adventures, which involved three vicious murders, an arson attack and an attempt on her life.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788638026|title=Is it Just Me or Has Where the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryInnocent Die (D I Ridpath)|author=M J Lee|rating=34|genre=HumourCrime|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over It was easy to assume that the death of the young Chinese girl at the Immigrant Removal Centre was suicide. Her throat was cut, there was a wet kitchen lot of blood and the knife was on the floorat the side of the bed, She was due to be deported that day.'' Surely that is But... how did the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for knife get into the credit crunch secure centre and all it has done for why was the girl's room the world. only one which was unlocked? You wonDI Thomas Ridpath, the coroner't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authorss officer, is sent to investigate and he quickly becomes suspicious, instead with quite There's a potty mouth on them they will lambast snag though: the modern worldinquest is due to open in a couple of days' time, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it girl's parents are coming, over from China and those millions they want to take their daughter's body home with them. Ridpath has just seemingly waiting for us all five days to revert solve the case. The coroner is disinclined to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on delay the expenses traininquest: for her, and back up it's about giving closure to the rich listsparents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton1471166023|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?Burnt Island (Ben Kitto)|author=Kate Rhodes

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, The 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-fifth birthday and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber occasion for a day at the seasideusual bonfire celebrations, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over but it would be marred this year by the placediscovery of Professor Alex Rogan's body on a bonfire. Meat is getting thrown around like itHe's going out of fashion, d obviously been alive when he was put on the fire and we can only have to doubt whether Polly 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 and her companions can ever utilise his only concern is the power welfare of love the birds he looks after. His instinct is to cover Rogan's body and put things he uses his sheepskin coat to rights. Especially as do this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth, with the result that he's the prime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Loose WomenElliot Reed|title=Here Come the GirlsA Key to Treehouse Living

|genre=Home and FamilyGeneral Fiction|summary=This is the second volume story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the panelists from that nice ITV seriesdeath of his mother and his father's abandonment. However, it isn''Loose Women''t told in the usual narrative way. Just as promised on Instead, the cover, this book is an entertaining night with the girlsmade up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yetruns alphabetically, starting with nine contributorsABSENCE, youthen moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'll what on earth?!' but I soon find a like-minded woman behind one of grew used to the celebrity faces. The women are universally warm-hearted style, and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningwas instead caught up in William's story.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>1911545418

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreWill Dean |title=Fortune CookieBlack River |rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|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 father got the idea from. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet Tuva Moodyson returns - 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. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with the problems and he now has another family. It's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot 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 third book 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 Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her uncle Infante Pedropersonal life, seventeen years returning her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age isolated town of reason', when church Gavrik and state were vying into a desperate search for supremacyher missing best friend. Instinctively a supporter With the Midsommar sun blocked out by the dark pines of the old religionforest, with a humanitarian approach Tuva fights to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore save her crown rather reluctantlyfriend.But who’ll be there to save Tuva?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>1786077116

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Hughes1782407480|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadBird Love: The Family Life of Birds|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster

|genre=Graphic NovelsAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Well, with I was a title like that, need little perturbed when I bother with looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then couple of on-line booksellers: ''exploring the next thing he knows hesex life of birds''s in it said. I very nearly passed over the ultimate waiting roombook, with but a strange array closer examination suggested that the book is about the ''family life'' of animals (a bat, a toadbirds, a sea urchinwhich is rather different...) If the book was confined to the sex life of birds, all waiting for... wellyou would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, somethingbring up their families and cope in the wild. YupNot only that, as you didn't need telling, he's deadhave missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a wide variety of birds which run through this book from the first page to the last.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersCamilla Bruce|title=The Wild ThingsYou Let Me In

|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adultsEccentric, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriend, or gets isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factsyear and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. He is a bit of a rascal Her will instructs her niece and nephew to say enter her home and find the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling key to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kinginheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: the last story she'll ever tell.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>1787633179