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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=P J ParrishGrady Hendrix|title= The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Women, by and large, have always been the subjugated sex. Throughout history, they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix's new novel ''The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires'' gives women their due. It is an ode to the strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to toe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac.|isbn=1683691431}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008149089|title=Dead of WinterThe Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45

|summary=Loon Lake, Michigan is pictureIt was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body -postcard pretty – an idyll that sits serenely and snugly in she was a mudlarker on the midst banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked like a pine-peppered winter wonderland. Louis Kincaid needs stick she realised it was a hand, a little serenity right hand, in his life fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and on arrival in Loon Lake he feels almost as if he has come home. Life has not been easy for KincaidDI Josh Derwent's team would later find three other body parts. A troubled, unhappy child Identification of mixed race, passed around various institutions and foster homes, Louis figures that if he is the body was not going to put some integrity back into the worldbe easy, but eventually, he will need to wear a badge to do it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391346</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Russell Celyn Jones|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules would be given a medievalname -style fiefdom in Paige Hargreaves, a posttwenty-climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways eight- there's a new-butyear-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower is the main means of transportfreelance journalist. But in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one Her friend, Bianca Drummond, anotherjournalist, towns still have sink estates, rich boys still have too much time said that she was working on their hands a story which she reckoned would be explosive - and precious little meaning in their livesshe hadn't been willing to share any of the details with Bianca. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen SheersJenny Valentine|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Hello Now

|genre=Literary FictionTeens|summary=In the old tale, Branwen is the sister of Bendigeidfran - the giant King of Britain. She marries the King of Ireland, who doesn't treat her well. She manages Jude reluctantly moves to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling and war and killings ensue. In this new talesmall, a young girl has just walked away from quiet seaside town after her brothers who, in the wake of the devastating foot Mum and mouth outbreak, are despoiling her most recent boyfriend split (making this their heritage by rustling 13th post-breakup move) and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an settle into a big, old man who tells her a story involving house overlooking the superstitions about the ravens in the Tower of London, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affair. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennifer Bohnet|title=Follow Your Star|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=It's three years since Nanette Weston left Monaco. She'd been engaged sea - which happens to contain a Formula 1 racing driver and had lived the life of the wealthy but a serious car accident had ended all that. The accident could have killed her fiancé and she lost her driving licence because of the alcohol she'd consumed. Her slow recovery was hindered by the end of her engagement but she's found some contentment in being a nanny to two young children. When her friend and employerstrange, Vanessaold sitting tenant named Henry, remarries and takes an extended honeymoon who stays rooted in the Amazon Nanette is asked to take the children back to Monaco where their father lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089090</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=J R Stephenson|title=Crooked Justice|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounce. Just donhouse like a ghost that just won't ever lend him money - he wonleave – or can't pay it back. A businessman with a share of a nightclub on CyprusAs Jude settles into this new, he goes there for a customary breakseemingly mundane, and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancer. He manages to tread both on the toes of his local colleague and some Greek rivals. And when reality she is consumed by a rival longing for her old life in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut up. It's a big stone that hides him, anger at another forced change – but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revenge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen Baker|title=They've Got Your Number|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=If you are in this will be the slightest bit paranoidlast time, worry that ''Big Brother'' she swears. This world is always watching or like to believe that you are not a numberquiet, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book dull and yet suffocating for you, as it will do nothing to dispel any of those worriesJude. If, on That is until the other handday Novo arrives, you think 'the mathematical modelling of humanity' sounds like one and her entire concept 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 sayworld changes forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonuk>0007466498

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca TopeB0867X8NW7|title=Fear in the CotswoldsAccess Point|author=T R Gabbay

|genre=CrimeThrillers|summary=Thea Osborne is a house sitter by profession. When people go away we first meet Ula Mishkin she moves into their homes and looks after their animals and the property. This time it's winter and having something of a professional success: using a device of her own invention she's spending helped a month in the Cotswold village man who has been blind for decades to see an image of Hampnetta hummingbird. It wouldnShe't be a job for all of us but Thea delights in getting s thirty-six years old and her life is about to know the local people and the area. In the past change radically as, cycling home, she's also been involved with the police in solving various cases but it looks as though that might have come to an end as the relationship she had accident with DS Phil Hollis has crumbleda bus. For It's two years before we meet her again and in the first time Thea feels like an outsider – and a foolish one - when meantime, she finds footsteps 's spent 392 days in the snow which lead to a body in coma and now walks with a nearby fieldstick. When the police finally arrive the body has disappeared and the police obviously wonder if A professional colleague persuades Ula that she's imagined it allshould let out a spare bedroom to bring in some income.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007478</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tad TulejaBen Oliver|title=A Dictionary of Foreign Words and PhrasesThe Loop|rating=3.5|genre=Home and FamilyTeens|summary=Take Set during the aftermath of a look at Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the cover design precarious existence of this book, adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a trivia compendium for all those foreign words that Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have taken part in our English language since whenever they crossed power over from their original homesRegulars, he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. But A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the title guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is definitely honest, for this taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a dictionary book first, guinea pig for referenceAlts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, and a browser can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the trivia buff second.loop?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709089562</amazonuk>1912626551

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne RiceKirsty Applebaum|title=Angel TimeTroofriend|rating=24.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Toby OAre you tired of your child'Dare is an extremely efficient hit man s classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with a passion for musicpeople? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lying, history and playing his beloved lutestealing or bullying. HeThey'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 re the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to become the Angel's develop real human instrument feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder have absolutely no basis in 13th Century England.reality…right?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>1788003470

 {{newreviewFrontpage |authorisbn=Ian Mortimer1529123941 |title=1415: Henry V's Year of GloryThe Silent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves |rating=4.5|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction |summary=The medievalWhen 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 taken some pills - eight of them, in fact time-honoured, view of King Henry V as one of England's greatest heroes was propagated though not originated by Shakespeare, and again more recently to some extent by Olivier's portrayal before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the emergency services in filmOxford he has a bit of a problem. At least one historian He has called him to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long? Well, it'the greatest man that ever ruled Englands about six months since he spoke to Maggie and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah GregoryRob Harrell|title=Dancing With The Dead|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead'', because I'm interested in family history. The blurb on the back of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine of the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up). I felt with all these links, the novel could not fail to interest me – but this was not the case.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Miss Read|title=Christmas at Thrush GreenWink|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Set in the rural village of Thrush Green, this book is the latest in a series surrounding familiar characters. There is the feisty Ella Bembridge, who is finally having to admit that old age is creeping up as her eyesight fails. Friends such as Dimity and Charles Henstock are concerned about her, but she refuses to accept any help. Albert Piggott has decided it's time to retire now that his wife, Nelly, is a successful cafe owner and can afford to take care of him! And relative newcomer Phil Hurst and her husband are arranging the local nativity play, despite a number of set-backs. Will everything be in place for Christmas? And will independent Ella make a decision about her future?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409101592</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt and Dave|title=Yuck's Robotic Bottom|rating=45

|summary=ItWhen Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to just be 's concerned me for a while that itnormal's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls – princessesbecome impossible. Suddenly he is the cancer kid, and everything he does, magic soft toyshow he looks, mermaids and pets abound – but there's how he behaves falls under the scrutiny of the other kids in school. Ross is, understandably, angry. He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a much smaller choice for boyspermanent wink. It's important too He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with early readers that the content is ''interesting'' pain, plus the need to wear a hat at all times to protect his face due to the ongoing treatment. With the sudden ghosting by one of his best friends, and reading becomes more than just something which you ''have'' to do a series of horrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about his life is normal any more, and moves into being fun. Matt he has to find new ways to deal with his feelings, and Dave have found the answer in Yucksurvive.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>1471409147

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John E Smelcer1786485575|title=The Great DeathMagpie Lane|author=Lucy Atkins|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet Dee she'As Western Europeans settled Alaskas talking to Nick Law, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunitynew college master. At the beginning Law's lately of the twentieth century, fully two thirds BBC and he doesn't come with an entirely good reputation: he's a bit of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic bully and Dee can sense something of measlesthat in their first conversation. She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new job as a nanny, smallpoxbut somehow she finds herself going to see Mariah, the Danish wife of the master. She's pregnant and influenza. No community was spared. In most caseslooking for help, half of a villagenot with the new baby but with the master's population died within a weekdaughter by his first wife, Ana. In some cases Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk to her father, there were but to no survivorsone else. It was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Death The eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother and struggling at school.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maxine BarrySally Magnusson|title=River DeepThe Sealwoman's Gift|rating=34.5|genre=Women's Historical Fiction|summary=Two young women both have There is a love of legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the ThamesGarden. Melisande Ray's beloved hotelEve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the Ray eyes of Sunshine is on the river bankGod, denying that she had more children that those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. It's here that guests come who want God was not to be pampered deceived, however, and looked after in the way decreed that only the best hotels can do well, but when Wendell James checks in what was sought to be hidden from the hotel it's not pampering he's looking for. He's buying a piece eyes of land not far God would henceforth be hidden from the Ray eyes of Sunshine man, and he's sussing out so the Elves were born: the competitionhidden folk. There's something personal in there too – They can see man, but man can only see them if his new hotel means that 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 eyethey so choose.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>1473638984

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe GoresWendy Cheyne |title=Spade and ArcherFrom the Auld Rock to a Hard Place

|genre=CrimeHistorical Fiction|summary=Sam Spade decides, bravelyAfter the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given to set up his one-man detective agencyEnglish lords. It's the 1920s in San Francisco so we have the prohibition era and all that that entailsThey were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many locals, of course, choose to disobey on the law, stick two fingers up, so to speak mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on the islands such as a result there's lots of bootleg liquor. Straight awayShetland, it's evident that Sam is a man of few words. He has the mannerisms of a cat new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - stealthy, quick to port cities on his feet. He's also a compulsive chain-smokerthe mainland, but then again, most people were. In that era, holding a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessory. How times have changedto North America and even to Australia and New Zealand.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140911323X</amazonuk>1838591753

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester ClarkEle Fountain|title=The Best of TimesLost

|summary=Most children enjoy a good traditional tale and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to have all the right ingredients – a handsome prince Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and her brother, Amit. She lives with them in a beautiful princess who fall in lovenice apartment, get married and live happily ever after. Or do although they? Sadly, are not long after Prince Frederico marries rich like some of the lovely Princess Serafinagirls at school, she becomes very sadthey have enough money to be comfortable. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadness Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, but poor Prince Frederico is desperate to find a cure for his wife's misery. He tries everything in his power and eventually decides to offer his kingdom to anyone who can make her happy again before she dies of a broken heart. Lots of people come trying to the palace to try and help but fit in the end the solution is a simple with them, until one provided by some very kind travellers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shirley Jackson|title=We Have Always Lived In The Castle|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwoodday, also known as Merricatsuddenly, is eighteen, and lives with everything in her older sister Constance in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always lived'life changes. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world by After taking a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister and death cap mushroomswork trip away, and everyone else in her family is dead. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house Lola'steady against the worlds father doesn', shutting out other peoplet come home. They have nobody else to help, and as they live near a village. Merricat believes that 'The people wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become of the village have always hated us'them until, finally, they are evicted from their flat, and tells us that she hates them tooand her brother find themselves forced to live on the streets.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>178269255X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon WestonN K Jemisin|title=Nelson to the RescueThe City We Became|rating=4|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike New York is being born, the Milk's milk float, but he city has now retired. He lives in the stable at the back of the dairy along with a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri reached critical mass and Rhys, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, matured into a frog who thinks he's a secret agent spy living almost-breathing entity and is ready to make its way out into the world. Before it can be established, 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 ancient evil appears to Buckingham Palace attempt to receive an MBEdestroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and other forgotten places. Somehow our heroThe city is not alone through the birthing process, Nelsonpeople who embody the values are selected to become the living embodiment of the city, finds himself travelling down to Londonsome cities have one, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about his experiencesome have twelve and New York has six.|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 life. Suddenly you see Together these human-embodiments must defeat the danger woman in every situation, white and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companionssave New York from very real destruction. In this novellaBut these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eye, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their childrenit's futures a personality clash 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 to let things slip at home epic scale and with the children, yet finds she unity is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present dangerboth critical and not remotely guaranteed.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>0356512665

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine May0241446732|title=Burning OutOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid job, and a luxurious apartment all to herselfThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, Malena Ernman was an opera singer and her health are all how she would like them to be. But Svante Thunberg took on most of the life she is leading is beginning to take its tollparenting of their two daughters. On the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out Then eleven-ofyear-sorts Violet, withdraws back to old Greta stopped eating and talking and her home town. Theresister, she meets someone familiarBeata, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten then nine years earlier – a young carefree girlold, full of lifestruggled with what was happening. Only this isn In such circumstances, it't s natural to seek a ghostsolution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the sameburned-out planet''. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen If they were to find a way to live happily againtheir solution would need to be radical. Events that will in turn haunt the girl.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Downum178730101X|title=The Drowning CityKeep Him Close|author=Emily Koch

|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=In a nutshellAlice had two children: Benny (well, Benoît, youactually) and Louis. Lou're reading this because yous seventeen and he're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocres just got his A level results and he and his brother are going out to celebrate. You've probably glanced at Someone has to find something to celebrate in the rating letters, D, D and guessed the latterE. IAlice has always had a good relationship with nineteen-year-old Benny but it'm afraid its a touch problematic with Lou and being honest, he's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelingsterribly likeable. I started off convinced that I was going The letters which kept coming 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 evocativemy mind were ADHD.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson0241396840|title=The True Deceiver|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewKeeper|author=Daniel Kehlmann |title=Me and KaminskiJessica Moor

|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=After reviewing several long books, itKatie Straw worked in the women's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski refuge and the women who lived there liked and Me'respected her. In it, Sebastian Zollner, the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt She treated them well and seemed to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as have an art criticunderstanding of what they were going through. Kaminski, Why then did she jump from the local suicide spot into the proposed subject, 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 fashionable painter long agodecent alibi for the time when she died, but nowwhat other explanation could there be for her death? The police are convinced that it's suicide, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook but the art world and general publicwomen who knew her believed otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis Barfe1838880658|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentMurder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay)|author=Helena Dixon

|genre=EntertainmentCrime|summary=Light entertainment It's the summer of 1933 and Kitty Underhay is often looked down uponon her way to visit the family which she never knew she had, at Enderley Hall. Her grandmother, as if it's a bit naffMrs Treadwell, tepid and ignorableGreat Aunt Livvy are back at the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth. What's often forgotten Kitty gets easily bored working at the Dolphin - every day is much the same - but her real reason for going away is that it's hugely popularshe needs a break after her recent adventures, which involved three vicious murders, enjoyable an arson attack and much of it is of the highest qualityan attempt on her life. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall1788638026|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!Where the Innocent Die (D I Ridpath)|author=M J Lee

|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Marvin is entering It was easy to assume that the death of the young Chinese girl at the Great Grislygust Grow-OffImmigrant Removal Centre was suicide. Her throat was cut, but just like himthere was a lot of blood and the knife was on the floor at the side of the bed, his tomatoes aren She was due to be deported that day. But... how did the knife get into the secure centre and why was the girl't growing very big. He takes s room the only sensible course of actionone which was unlocked? DI Thomas Ridpath, the coroner's officer, is sent to investigate and he quickly becomes suspicious, There's a snag though: he sings his tomatoes the inquest is due to open in a songcouple of days' time, the girl'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 results are spectacular. Victory coroner is surely within his graspdisinclined to delay the inquest: for her, it's about giving closure to the parents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Delaney 1471166023|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 Burnt Island (a sort of monster-hunterBen Kitto) 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 YouKate Rhodes|rating=34.5

|summary=BestThe 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-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 fifth birthday and ends up in hospitalthe occasion for the usual bonfire celebrations, while his co-workers are killedbut it would be marred this year by the discovery of Professor Alex Rogan's body on a bonfire. Things get worse for her, however, He'd obviously been alive when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, he was put on the fire and the man she married was using can only have died a false identityterrible death. Infuriated The body was first discovered by Jimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes as the betrayal, Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing and his only concern is the realisation that shewelfare of the birds he looks after. His instinct is to cover Rogan's been living a lie for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands body and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied uses his sheepskin coat to her for so long. Ignoring police warningsdo this, 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 novelswith the result that he's the prime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa McMannElliot Reed|title=WakeA Key to Treehouse Living

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Janie This is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots the story of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother young boy, William Tyce, who is going to provide much in being raised by his uncle after the way death of resources. College is Janiehis mother and his father's only chance at a life better than the one she's lived so far and so you canabandonment. However, it isn't blame her for being so single-minded told in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her usual narrative 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 Instead, 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 book is coming to terms with a break made up. The stories of these people come together to create a tale of lifeglossary entries, lovewritten by William, and ultimately, what being part of as 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 way of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accidentdescribing certain events, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart situations and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the deademotions. Plagued by horrific dreams It runs alphabetically, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakesstarting with ABSENCE, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam then moving to be possessedALPHABETICAL ORDER. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herselfwas instead caught up in William's story.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>1911545418

 {{newreview|author=Jon Berkeley|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=I shall start with a word of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus master, and a magician, for the soul of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best 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 trilogy. Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud cities, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and back, and friends new and old will be on board to help.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendWill Dean |title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsBlack River

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ Tuva Moodyson returns - and living, quite literally, this third book in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her school uniformpersonal life, trying returning her to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, isolated town of Gavrik and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of into a desperate search for her quest to appear on missing best friend. With the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to Midsommar sun blocked out by the toilet is really dark pines of the last thing he needs. And yetforest, the worst is still Tuva fights to comesave her friend. 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 But who’ll 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 him.to save Tuva?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>1786077116

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Kate1782407480|title=FallenBird Love: The Family Life of Birds|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster

|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary=A 17 year old girl I was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly goodcouple of on-looking boyline booksellers: ''exploring the sex life of birds'' it said. I very nearly passed over the book, who shebut a closer examination suggested that the book is about the 's immediately drawn to'family life'' of birds, which is rather different. He seems determined If the book was confined to either ignore her or the sex life of birds, you would be outright rude missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to her, until he saves her life-day, bring up their families and cope in the two of them end up drawn togetherwild. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'' Not only that, but it certainly has striking similaritiesyou have 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>0385738935</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gareth HindsCamilla Bruce|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>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in India, 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 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 Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Toby Lester|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest Map|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=You Let Me In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|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. 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 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 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 Girls|rating=4|genre=Home and Family|summary=This is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised on the cover, this book is an entertaining night with the girls. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yet, with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity faces. The women are universally warm-hearted 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 evening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Fortune Cookie|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|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 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 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 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 Things

|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