Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emily Critchley183885410X|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small FlowersDark Remains|author=William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= The Tiny Gestures Bobby Carter was a lawyer and consigliere to one of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something goodmajor crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgow. DC Jack Laidlaw is on the CID team charged with the investigation. I was intrigued by say ''on the plot, liked the design team'' but Laidlaw never really seems to be a part of the bookit. He does his own thing, goes his own way and thought ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers the authortruth of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one of Glasgow's work sounded interestingseedier pubs. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Langan1942410255|title=Good NeighboursTokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)|author=Michael Pronko
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= If you're of a certain vintage'Zangyo: overtime work, itoften unpaid'' It's hard to read the words culture, isn't it? The hours for which you'Good Neighbours'' without adding re paid are really just a sing-song statement of the minimum you'll be required to do: you'thatll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizuka. When he was found dead in front of Senden Central's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Streetheadquarters in Tokyo there was nothing in the way of regret or grief, thougheven from his family, Arlo and Gertie live but there was a world apart mild curiosity as to whether he'd jumped from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one roof of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved building or been assisted in a year earlierhis descent. They're not quite like all Gossip revolves around the other families (fact that he's left the roof at the exact same spot that an ex rockeremployee, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going okthree years earlier. Until it isn She't. One hot, clammy, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess d accused Onizuka of dirt bullying her and chaos, but for the residents forcing her to work an unreasonable amount of Maple Street, the worst is yet to comeovertime.|isbn=1789098211
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Thompson0241425425|title=The Small ThingsMan Who Died Twice|author=Richard Osman|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Although Anna has friends at school, Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she feels like received the letter. It came from a man whose body she never really fits in. Her family don't have enough money had helped to let her do after school activities, pull from the Thames and so she feels like her life at home who had never existed but then this is boring in comparison the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to theirsdeal with on a regular basis. When she visits the sender of the letter (he's moved into the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has a new girl joins her class, Anna is asked long professional history - and who used to partner be her, but things are complicated because the new girl, Ellie, is unwell and so canhusband. He't attend school in person. Instead, she joins in s made a bad mistake - something to do with the class by using a robot. Can Anna overcome mask being removed within the challenge range of making friends with someone through a robotCCTV camera on a raid, a missing twenty-million pounds in diamonds and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Ellie?|isbn=1781129649few death threats. He's now in hiding with a young woman called Polly, who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitress.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008350388Andrew Sharp|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirableThe Chef, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven Bird and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787631869|title=The Rising Tide|author=Sam LloydBlessing
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadn't been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in the aftermath. She's now married Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to Daniel, who cohis employer -owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beachis, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Finin his mind, the child she had with Danielhead chef of a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to his task and sohe puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-called best friendW safaris but his dream is to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American city. Nick and Daniel have Even to win a history together from the time they both spent Michelin star. He is thwarted in a children's home but it's difficult this ambition by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to think that Nick has Danielyou and me) who incurs Mozzy's best interests at heartdisapproval for his scruffy ways, particularly where Lucyhis uninterest in his guests and - shock, or money, is concernedhorror - his allowing of bush animals into the house.|isbn=B09926MK8H
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah PeckAlex Foulkes|title=Kate on the CaseRules for Vampires|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression sheEleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo'd rather be for short) is a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at thatVampire. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idolShe drinks blood, she sleeps during the day, and the author she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock of our heroine's favourite possessionbats to travel around, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''although not all of them remember to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Armed with a plucky fatherNow, that bookon the night of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her talking mouse called Rupertfirst human. However, instead she is all equipped to manage a train ride ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oops! And to make things worse, the ghosts of one of the orphans and the evil master of the Arctic, orphanage come back to see haunt her scientist mother for the first time in yonks. HoweverSo, this is a train ride not only does Leo have to team up with a differencethe friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and she has to do it all while hiding it from her cat, a thief – family. Did I mention vampires and two glowing eyesghosts hate each other? Yeah, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. Itthere's definitely a case reason why there are rules for a new young investigative journalist...vampires…|isbn=184812970X147119955X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanTori Bovalino|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3The Devil Makes Three
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=The second trilogy Working all summer in Shanher boarding school's ''Merge'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the world of man who requested the Bornbooks: Mr Birch. It's not been easy, explaining to his foster parents where heThe boarding school's beenheadmaster, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and his other friends in deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the Mergebooks, but Archie has done his best.scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of.They're never meant to reach him, of course.Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. wellNo harm done… Or it would be, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Benif someone hadn's clock tower and except t delivered them for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awayher.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1789098130
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571365884B09BG8V3Q6|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in AnxietyWho Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)|author=Georgia PritchettJustine Avery and Seema Amjad|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyFor Sharing|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether ''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!'' is the monsters under latest release in the bed were comfortable: it was ''Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Avery. This series of fun picture books aims to take the sort pain out of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few potty training children and far betweenreplace it with some fun. On It's a visit to a therapistworthy aim, as an adult, any frustrated parent will tell you. when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex CotterB098FFFBH9|title=The House on the EdgeSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Faith's family home Fourteen-year-old Rachel is teetering on the edge of a cliff, literally. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faithher school's family. Her dad has disappeared, animal rights project leader and she and her mum is struggling friend are producing a competition entry to cope, barely leaving her bedhighlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. So that leaves Faith in charge, taking care She gets a great deal of support from her little brother Noahfamily: father Pip Harrison, taking care of her muma lecturer at Imperial College, feeding everyoneLondon, getting Noah to schoolmother Kate and her twin, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachersNick. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is Kate runs the family business, a ghost toy shop called Cornucopia in the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? WhatPutney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back main (if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight unsuspected) source of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping oninformation: five soft toys.|isbn=1788008626
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008269041Angharad Walker|title=Risk of Harm|author=Lucie WhitehouseThe Ash House|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=DCI Robin Lyons A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from the Met. She might have been reinstated there but he is used to the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouthsystem, used to different places and different faces. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then the man He meets Dom who had broken her heart nearly twenty years before. She names him Sol and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved sets out to teach him the rules of her parent's home into The Ash House. These rules centre on a rented house but there's still variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered by the arrival of his way to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young childthe Doctor. He's married to NatalieBy the end of the story, now lives will be changed forever and has a young child but he's still got it in for RobinThe Ash House will never be the same again.|isbn=1912626977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786332388Yancey Williams|title=The First Day Crosshairs of Spring|author=Nancy Tuckerthe Devil
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly Award- winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and , despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie''The First Day s point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Spring'' was one such occasionEden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. The Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing is superb and completely compellingthough, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work. The characterisation is excellent |isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|author=Philip Reeve|title=Utterly Dark and the plot grips you and won't let go. So, what's Face of the problem? WellDeep|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=In a word, the problem rich. There is Chrissiecertainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the main characterScillies. When we first meet her she's just eight years oldThere are troll people on it, and sea-witches, small and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for her age magical islands and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boytheir monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. She's completely cold The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about what shesuch local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized foundling daughter, who washed upout of the sea one day eleven years ago. There's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the book: when will Steven come backworld of protecting their island, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?like it or not.|isbn=1788452372
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Catherine SteadmanErling Kagge|title=The Disappearing ActWalking: One Step At A Time|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLifestyle|summary= British actress Mia Eliot Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is on evidenced by the cusp number of success. Great successpages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. If the rumours are trueIn my defence, award season I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is going to treat her wellsubtle – I'll allow creased corners, acknowledging her but not scribbles – for her latest, critically acclaimed productionthe latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why). She's going places but so, unfortunately,  Erligg Kagge is her partner. And a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the places he's going take him towards liesSouth Pole, deceit the North Pole and the summit of Everest. He knows a pretty young thing in the form or two about walking. However, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of his new co-starwhat it means to walk. Itis a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and I haven's t counted. In small format paperback, each essay is only a good time for Mia to escapefew pages long. Perhaps then, and pilot season in LA provides just the excusebetter thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|isbn=14711897830241357705
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Christophe MedlerIan Mark and Louis Ghibault|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretMonster Hunting For Beginners|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= Set against the backdrop of the English Civil WarMeet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer slight boy, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out of 1642his sight. As a loyal servant of the KingThat's because Jack's mother knew all about monsters, and Head look what happened to her – she died. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point of the Secret Serviceview, it is Roberta giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's duty to uncover father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the details of the plan ogre's death, a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and follow the clues he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to uncover one of know about the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the Kingperils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''...|isbn=B095HY8SXQ0755501942
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tasha SuriKeith Gray|title=The Jasmine ThroneClimbers
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary= On Sully is the night of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step on to best tree climber in the pyrevillage. She is immediately sent to be imprisoned on He has what's known amongst the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once filled with kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a community new kid shows up in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers up some of people who got powers from the mysterious deathless waters. But now the temple hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is nothing more than an overgrownbeing threatened, decaying ruin. One dayand not only that, Malini witnesses a girl kill someone with magic. Instead of reporting her for such a gruesome crimethat his chance to name the final, Malini claims that unnamed big tree in the girl saved her from an attacker and begs for park by being the girl first to become her own personal maidservantconquer it, might be snatched from his hands.How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, to do so?|isbn=03565156481781129991
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B088YWF5BCEmma Carroll|title=The Lies We Tell|author=Jane CorryWeek at World's End
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate First, the title. We're in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters. It seemed to have been World's End Close, a lovingmediocre set of houses, stable where Stevie (Vie to her friends) finds fun only with the familydog and with the boy over the road. When But we first meet hercould also be at World's End, she can't sleep because her sonsomething taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore, Freddieand not much else is able to make the news. That said, who's nearly sixteenVie has news of her own – Anna, hasn't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be a secretive young woman hiding in bytheir coal shed. Her husbandAnna has, Tomin no short time, is fast asleep: they're moving house taken a strong interest in the morning but heAmerican airforce base behind the Close, said she's still going to be going to work d locate something she wanted and he needs his sleep. He wakesleave, thoughfailed to leave, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someoneimplied her life was at risk.But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=0571364438
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Joseph KnoxKiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston|title=True Crime StoryJulia and the Shark
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary= Joseph KnoxJulia, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waitsour pre-teen heroine, has created been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a new genre with his latest novelsummer, "True Crime Story". The story follows in the disappearance far NE of Zoe Nolan from her university halls the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of residenceScottish island. Split into four parts, the reader Dad is taken through the life and disappearance of Zoe through going to be automating the eyes of her twin sisterlantern, other familywhich is his specialist thing, friends and professionals, such as the police. The various accounts help the reader get while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to know Zoe, or at least hunt the Zoe she presented to otherselusive Greenland shark. However And Julia, the twists and turns at the end of each chapter leave you shockedwell, confused she will be homesick and unsure of what is true or fabricatedalone – until she suddenly finds company one night. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=08575277031510107789
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaFreya Sampson|title=No, No, No!The Last Library
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=They say I am always a little nervous to start a story about a library, since I am a librarian. I always grit my teeth slightly at the best picture books are thought of the simplest ones. And nothing could be truer of incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this latest from Justine Averystory, the main character, June, does put her hair in a Bookbag favourite. ''Nobun, Noand she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), Noand she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone!But I didn'' is based around t immediately throw the book out of the simplest text imaginablewindow, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she did''NoHer mum used to be a librarian at the village library, nobut when she got sick, no! OkayJune gave up on going to University and stayed at home to take care of her mum, okayas well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local library. YesAnd even though her mum sadly died some years ago, you may.she is still working there, still eating her mum'' Thats favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum's it! Butold books. June is stuck, like all the best picture booksbut little does she know, this tiny snippet of text everything in her life is a veritable tardis - so much bigger on the inside that it appears on about the outsidechange.|isbn=1638820457183877369X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Monica Connell0008370982|title=Against a Peacock SkyRock Paper Scissors|author=Alice Feeney|rating=4.5|genre=TravelThrillers|summary= Monica Connell went to Nepal to do Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was the fieldwork for staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her Ph.D. a weekend away in a converted chapel in social anthropologyScotland. I think it is important to know that. She went on a grant-supported trip Her husband, Adam, with a relatively specific objective. She wasnisn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-laso keen on the idea. She wasn Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he't s a mere tourist passing throughscreenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with her. She went with a fundamental aim of learning Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about these people how her day has been - and how they lived. She also went, presumably, working with the academic discipline dogs, many of how to find these things outwhom have been abused, how to organise them in her mindis never easy. Still - she's won the weekend away, how to "understand" them even if it does mean driving for eight hours in the context of her own paradigms, and how to keep enough notes and files and photos to help 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her create some greater sense of the experience after in the event. Fortunately, she also went with a sense of openpassenger seat -ness and curiosity and then doing the same thing to come back a willingness to muck-in, to break her own rules and to truly connect with the people couple of the village where she hauled updays later.|isbn=1780600429
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1409181669Doug Johnstone|title=The Maidens|author=Alex MichaelidesGreat Silence|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away with them both. She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed. Everything - or so she thought - had begun with For those who, like me, haven't come across the death Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of Tara Hampton on who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the Paradise nature reserve backstory in Cambridgewithout being heavy handed about it. SheSkelf isn'd been brutally stabbed and Mariana's niecet some fantastic creature, Zoethough it sounds as though it ought to be, had telephoned her in distressit is merely the surname of a family of undertakers. Tara had been her best friend Undertakers and she was struggling to copeprivate investigators. Mariana wasn't ''entirely'' happy about having to go to CambridgeDorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, but she caught married a scot and ended up helping to run the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana and Zoe were close and Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been made all in the more so family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by the death of Mariana's husbandnationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, Sebastian46, in is haunted by her still-living husband – a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlierviolent escaped prisoner. Zoe had been their surrogate And grand-daughter after is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join the death of Zoe's mother and Mariana's sister, Elizaacademic staff next term.|isbn=1913193837
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Maisie Chan1901514978|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do MathsThere's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos Alba
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Danny Life is eleven years old, different for George Lovelace and what he can't really, really loves to do is drawunderstand why. He creates fantastical comics, whilst his best friend Ravi adds the words. Danny's dad, however, wants Danny always done everything he ought to concentrate on his maths: steady worker, husband and father - and forget about the drawing, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing! father who was always there for school plays and sports days. At least Danny has his own room, where So why is he can draw never quite in secret and in peace. tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? But then one day his parents tell him they have Why is someone with such a surprise for him, and this surprise turns out ''good'' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to be his grandmother who has come over from China colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? It's almost become a cliche these days to live with them, and suggest that someone who will not only be sharing Dannyis a little different is 's bedroom but she will also be sleeping on the top bunk of his bunk bed! Danny is horrified! His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no Englishspectrum', and Danny finds himself forced into being her babysitter, and showing her around but George Lovelace has all the town. Poor Danny, stuck on a maths project, frustrated with his bedroom situation, and then he even has a falling out with Ravi..symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome: high-functioning autism.how on earth will things ever get better?!|isbn=180078001X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Terry MilesLouise Candlish|title=RabbitsThe Heights
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionThrillers|summary=Welcome Ellen doesn't expect to the world of The Game. Or should see Kieran that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this bookday. ItShe's also called Rabbitson site, although only as visiting a slangy term client for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the average person no obvious entry pointway. A bit like the game There are lots of life then. Yesthings, this is the game of life for a certain tribe lots of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer gameyou might see when you look out across London, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in the least Kafkaesque manner possiblefact any other day. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, Why? Because Kieran has been dead for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar placesover two years, and are still very short. However Ellen knows this time it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for Ka fact, because she had a hand in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed..murder.|isbn=15290169321471183483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=C J Carey0008421714|title=WidowlandMrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=ItThe problem began just after the publication of George March's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going most successful novel to Moscow to attend date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming last page) seemed to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Walliseither be reading it or had already done so. For yes, Britain caved in Every day Mrs March went to the lead-up local patisserie to the World War Two buy olive bread but on that certainly didn't happen as we know itparticular morning, and we are now a protectorate – wellPatricia asked, we share enough of the same blood as she was wrapping the Germanic peoples on bread, ''but isn't this the mainlandfirst time he's based a character on you?''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of She mentioned that gender into a caste systemJohanna, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down to the childless, the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouragedprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. And in Perhaps this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransomwould not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is employed with the task whore of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after allNantes - ''a weak, not every book can be bannedplain, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisationdetestable, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. That is her jobpathetic, at leastunloved, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitlerunloveable wretch.''s visit.|isbn=152941198X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Louise BeechJohn Boyne|title=This Is How We Are HumanThe Echo Chamber|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Veronica Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a devoted single mother to bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her sonwith. They have three children, Sebastian who are a sad- but she cansack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world't give him everything he wantss homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Sebastian has decided Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that it's time for him all have two very different connections to his life, and you have sexsomething that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. But as an autistic 20 year-oldWhat suggests the farcical approach even more, however, that's easier said than done. And it's starting to cause them both problemsis the fact this is bloody funny. |isbn=19131937130857526219
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B093VPBL5L0241989094|title=Cape Henry HouseThe Perfect Life|author=Jolly Walker BittickNuala Ellwood
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Meet Bosner, or, to give him his full title, Petty Officer Third Class Bosner. We never really find out if he has In August 2018 we meet a first name: thereyoung woman called Imogen and she's merely viewing a hint that he had house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the nickname 'Secretary' at one point. He's simply Bosner to one estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and allBarclay. When we first encounter him heThe boys are a bit of a handful which is why she's exploring his memories of 2008 when he was a greaser making this trip on helicopters (or helos, as they were called) at a naval establishmenther own. The hours could house would be long perfect for them. It's the same month but now we're in Wimbledon and he was often working nights but at we encounter the age of twenty-onesame young woman, there was always a way to work some fun (think drinking only this time she's job hunting and eating) into his dayliving in her sister, Georgie's, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connor.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah WhittenDarren Shan|title=For Archibald Lox and the WolfSlides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=In Red's family, So. Having done the first daughter becomes queen, impossible and unpicked the lock to the second daughter becomes a sacrifice. To Red's misfortuneForgotten Crypt, she is from which the second daughter. Sent alone into the woods Departed communicate with nothing but the cape on her backMerge, Red knows what Archie now has ''grop'' to expect: within the woods is a wolfthink about. But before that, and he is the one who will decide the fate of their kingdomsoirees. If she is not a worthy sacrificeSoirees! Archie, the monsters he keeps contained much to the woods will be releasedInez's amusement, and the fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so the stories godoesn't even know what one of those is. But when Red enters he manages to come through the woodsfancy party unscathed, expecting nothing more than to be killed within the houreven after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, she finds that whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the legends are lies. The wolf is not a monster—he's a manfirst volume of this series.|isbn=0356516369B093J9TF73
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=M G LeonardB07GZ81J7C|title=TwitchWhen Fred the Snake Got Squished and Mended|author=Peter Cotton|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersFor Sharing|summary=Twitch is a boy who loves birdsMeet Fred. He keeps pigeons at homeWell, and chickensactually, and even has swallows nesting in his bedroom! you're going to be meeting Fred-Fred for reasons which will become all too obvious very quickly. His time spent watching and helping birds is easy compared to that But I'm getting ahead of his time in schoolmyself: I'd better tell you a bit more about Fred. But things Fred is a snake and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes are about going to warm to change for Twitch him. He arrived as a present in all aspects of his life as there is a dangerous bank robber on the run, box with holes so that he could breathe and it's possible that immediately became part of the missing bank haul is hidden somewhere in Aves Woodfamily, to the place extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for a walk. And that was where Twitch has his secret hide and that he knows like the back of his hand! problem started. Fred didn't have any road sense. Can Twitch solve the mystery, and find the missing millions?|isbn=1406389374Or brakes.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838853804Justine Avery and Naday Meldova|title=The Cursed Girls|author=Caro RamsayEverybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isn't, as any parent will tell you. But really, why shouldn't it be? We all have to learn about our bodily functions just as we have to learn about everything else when we are small. Why shouldn't potty training be as much fun as, say, learning about why the sun and the moon take turns in the sky?
|isbn= B098BJZYHH
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787634493
|title=All Her Fault
|author=Andrea Mara
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Megan Melvick's earliest memory is It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happen. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down to the pondson, Milo, only to find go on a play date. She was concerned that hedidn'd hanged himselft have any friends at his new school. Twenty years later she's back Milo would go home again from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - and this time the occasion is no less sadMarissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little later. SheWhat could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at the house, expecting to meet Jacob's there to say her final farewells to her sistermother, Jenny, Melissathe door was answered by Esther, who is dying of anorexiadidn't know Jenny or Jacob. As The phone number she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean? There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have d been sorry - or was it even a question? Was she asking if Megan was sorry given for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of the County and money Jenny was never in short supply - but there did seem to be a cursenot recognised. In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, Milo had left suddenly three years beforedisappeared. Would she come back for her elder daughterAnd so had Jenny's funeral?nanny.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241400120Claire North|title=The Girl Who Died|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria CribbNotes from the Burning Age
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=Una was not thriving in Reykjavik: it was some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then sheAt its core ''Notes From the Burning Age''d given up her medical studies by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and retrained night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a teacher. She was thirty years old new and money was tight. Her friendtimely genre, Saracli-fi, showed her an advert for or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a job in Skalar on world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the Langanes Peninsulamodern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There were only ten people in the village but is a teacher was required for two children: a salary would be paid growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and accommodation provided. Una was one group, the only applicant and Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the job meant that she could let her flat in Reykjavik and, hopefully, save some money over cost to the winter which her contract coveredEarth.|isbn=0356514757
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846975719|title=For Any Other Truth Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (DCI Jim Daleytranslator)|authortitle=Denzil MeyrickGirls Who Lie|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeThrillers|summary=We learn You might be forgiven for thinking that MI5 is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves to awkward placesall the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and crime books before now. But You think, seeing on the map thatwe're set in Akranes, and finding it's Londononly twenty kilometres from the capital city, that this author is clutching at the few final straws left. However just because the book aims for the usual small-town feel, isn't it? What's happening not just in Kinloch? When Akranes that our interests lie. Six months ago a light aircraft crash lands at Machrie airportwoman failed to turn up for her date evening, DCI Jim Daley and his colleague, Acting DI Brian Scott, head off for the airport straight awaywas never seen again. It soon becomes evident though This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that both occupants of she could now live permanently with the plane were dead couple who had given her foster care before take offher mother had asked for the girl back, and a couple of delighted adopters. How could that be? The sort But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of tech which would make that possible isna sudden, in one place, the woman't available to s car was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six months, the paying publicbody has been discovered, in a third, even more remote place. And why have the man no identification on them Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post- or even labels natal depression, and very little maternal feeling in their clothesher body. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?|isbn=191319373X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Richard BrookB0925KS87N|title=Understanding Human Nature: A UserDead Man's Guide to LifeGrave (DS Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary= I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, Tam Hardie had been determined to find the grave - and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found took some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' finding - in the way that it does nowan overgrown old cemetery. I believe it came to me not just because I It was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbagstrange thing for Scotland's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than premier criminal to do, but Tam was getting them randomly, so old and there is a predisposition towards expecting were things he wanted to like the bookdo. Only, even if it doesnhis family didn't always turn out hear from him again after he'd said that wayhe'd found the grave - the one which said that it shouldn' ] – but also because it is a book I needed t be opened - and his three sons began to readworry. Tam Junior, right nowFrankie and Dave wouldn't normally go to the police but they weren't certain where their father had been and they were worried.|isbn=1800461682
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B095CY7NBNEmily Critchley|title=Autumn Camp|author=Barry FowlerThe Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was to be Brian's last camp. He'd founded the organisation some four years ago and The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had done all the organisation since but he hallmarks of something good. I was leaving school and the time had come to hand intrigued by the reins to someone else. The obvious person was Garyplot, who'd always been liked the fun element design of the camps book, and Brian had said that on this camp, Gary should act as thought the leader and heauthor'd just be there to observes work sounded interesting. The problem with this was that Gary wasn't really an organiser, an administrator if you like. He was the entertainer, the person who basked in From the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in and did the organising. He handed the camp over - and then took outset it back. And Gary determined to have his revenge. This should have been ''his'' campall looked incredibly promising.So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091
}}

Navigation menu