Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''], [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''] and , [[File:instagram_classic_logo.png|link=https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/|alt=Follow us on Instagram]] [https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/ '''Instagram'''] and [[File:LinkedIn.png|link=https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-bookbag-1b12a264/|alt=LinkedIn]]
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews ]] at TheBookbag.
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
 
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08KKQ85FN0241636604|title=But Never For LunchThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Sandra AragonaGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened you were to bring up an image of a Rottweiler city banker in lipstickyour mind, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about you're unlikely to be released into the company think of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas billssomeone like Gary Stevenson.'' You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency A hoodie and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting jeans replaces the Priorities: Ambassadress pin-stripe suit and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting his background is the Priorities]] East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and we learned what it injustice. There was like no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife a facility with numbers which most of Former Ambassador..us can only envy. They have left The Career and settled in RomeHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dogIt was his ability at what was, Beagleessentially, has no intention of slowing down any time soona card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, despite being sixteen and deafthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Susi Holliday 1035021803|title= The Last Resort Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating= 3.5 |genre= ThrillersCrime|summary=A group of strangers gather on a private island. They have It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been invited to an all-expenses paid retreat back to test a brand-new product from the mysterious Timeo Technology companyEnglish country village where she grew up. The group includes She's back now because of a games designer, social media influencerrequest for help from her beloved aunt, gossip columnist and hedge fund managerCarole. Everyone seems to have an area of expertise that makes their attendance necessary. All except Amelia whose presence is a mystery. We follow the group as they explore the island, Freya's former mentor and each otherCarole's histories and it becomes clear that they all have a dark secret they would rather keep hidden. As the clock ticks downclose friend, these well-kept secrets are revealedArthur Crockleford, and it soon becomes clear that this luxury retreat is really a gilded cage. In a race against time, Amelia must struggle to uncover the reason for her attendance dead and protect the rest of the guests from the increasingly sinister accidents that befall them. |isbn=1542020018}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|title=The Karma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=George Jackson is thirty-three years oldcircumstances seem suspicious, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and singlesay the least. She's Arthur was the reason why Freya had not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in been back to the karma trapvillage: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on Arthur, she feels, let her and she has a real talent for attracting dramadown badly. Her life's chaotic: Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs has not felt able to absorb be near the water - then man or pursue the shower fell through profession she loved. After the roof whilst split, she was worked in it a cafe, met and left married James (on the rebound from the love of herlife, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - who was murdered) and Freya and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the officeJames have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008333173AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=HungryAll Tomorrow's Futures: A Memoir of Wanting MoreFictions that Disrupt|author=Grace DentBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyScience Fiction|summary=I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the judges on shape of things to come.'I'Masterchefve heard it said that 'technology'is what happens after you're eighteen. You know Well, I must confess that you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather there have been more than fine dining most a few decades of the timetechnology in my lifetime. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all that good food in front getting away from me. Some of herit is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I've often wondered about could research the woman behind possibilities and the media image probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they'Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and break your heart who could deliver information in equal measuresa way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838773169Sunny Singh|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: The Windsor Knot|author=S J BennettHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=It's early 2016 and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II The Hotel Arcadia is at Windsor for the Easter Courta luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. She's having Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a dine wartime photographer and sleep at Abhi, the request of Prince Charles, who's attempting hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to raise money from some rich Russians care remotely for one of his pet projects. There'd been the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a distinctly Russian flavour bond with Sam who refuses to the evening be cowed by events, and one keeps on venturing out of the performers brought in her room to try to play the piano has been found dead in capture what can only be called embarrassing circumstances's happened through her photography. The immediate reaction is that one of Although they only ever talk over the guests is responsible. The Queen mentally rules out her racing managerphone, an ex-ambassador their friendship grows as Abhi tries to Moscow, the Archbishop of Canterbury help her keep safe and Sir David Attenborough. One couldn't bear they both wait to go down any of ''those'' roadssee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Matt Haig1529153298|title=The Midnight LibraryList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Between life It's 1979 and death there Margaret Thatcher is a libraryPrime Minister. And so (A woman? I mean, 38 minutes after Nora decided to die, she finds herself in the Midnight Libraryhonestly... Everything that could) She's not what've gone wrong in Noras worrying Miv's life hasfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Her cat died Well, she lost her jobthey've been murdered, her brother wonbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't speak sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to hermove the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, her parents are deadDown South is a frightening, the boy she teaches piano to no longer cares about pianoforeign place, she called off her weddingbest avoided. For Miv, and old Mr Banerjee next door no longer needs her help. She gave up on all the things that move would've let mean leaving her escape the wetbest friend, Sharon, cold town of Bedford and given her life some purposeful direction. So at 23:22, she realises that she isn't made for life and decides ll do anything to dieprevent that. But instead of death, she finds She's not worried about the library. Each infinite shelf is filled with books, each book providing a chance to try another life she could have lived, in a parallel time. And so, just after midnight on Tuesday the 18th of April, Nora Seed begins dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to live every life she could'veanyone.|isbn=1786892731
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=03494230831398524085|title=Death and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Frances BrodyNicci French|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Kate Shackleton runs Charlotte Salter was expected at her investigation agency from Batswing Cottagehusband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, ably assisted by Jim Sykessons Niall, who lives in Woodhouse Paul and Ollie and her housekeeperdaughter, Mrs SugdenEtty. She's been approached by William Lofthouse of the Barleycorn Brewery in Mashamare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Something is going wrong with his business Shortly afterwards, Etty and he'd like Kate to look into it discreetly: heGreg, find the body of Greg's hoping that his nephew and right-hand manfather, James LofthouseDuncan Ackerley, will be back from a trip to Germany before longin the river. James went to see what It was an easy assumption for the continental brewers were doing and what changes Barleycorn might need police to makethat Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a The Salter children are not convinced but there's little bit ''too'' much or is going to bring back a German bride else they can do but he'd like the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returnsget on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Caroline Scott1035906708|title=When I Come Home AgainDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=1918 and a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedral. He refuses We tend to give a namethink of Maria Callas as Greek, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he is. Eventuallybut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, they determine this isn't willful obstinanceNew York, he doesn't answer because he doesn't know. He remembers being on the road for a long time in December 1923 and being frightened, and some of the faces from the road, but other than that – everything that came before has goneonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. They need a name for the forms and so they call him Adam and, because he Her original surname was found Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the Galilee Chapel, it becomes Adam GalileeStates. A fanciful name When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a tired young man in a dishevelled uniform mother who doesn't know who he ismercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, where he is or how he got thereJackie.|isbn=1471192172
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529410347Christopher Edge|title=Death Awaits in Durham (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)|author=Helen CoxBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Kitt Hartley's assistant, Grace EdwardsLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, has left her library job and taken a place on that has the Venerable Bede Academynickname of 'The Black Hole's vocational library studies course in Durham. ItAll big movie fans, they's an unusual place re looking forward to study as students with government grants are not accepted, so most lots of the people attending are scions of the seriously richexciting films, scholarship students - or they've managedand many, somehowmany snacks! However, to scrape together as the money. Gracemovie starts, who's 22they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, comes and they are swept up into the last categoryan adventure they couldn't even imagine. Her parents agreed But as they lurch from one film genre to fund the course but told her that if that was next, can they figure out what she chose on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to do then they were finished with her. Not long after she started the coursecinema, Kitt Hartley came for a visit - and immediately discovered an unsolved disappearance of a student from a year ago.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Vincent PanettiereRachel Greenlaw|title=These Thy GiftsCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionTeens|summary=''2006 is a tumultuous year for I can hear the Catholic Churchsong of the sea. Reports The call of horrific sexual abuse are becoming widespread. Monsignor Steven Trimboli is troubled. He worries for the future of deep, the church—and rightly so. A new crime will soon reverberate throughout his church and hit closer to home than he ever imaginedanswering beat in my heart.''
As ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins to try to make sense of the child sexual abuse scandal that is rocking his beloved Catholic churchRosevear, he discovers that one child in his own parish has been abused by a priest sent by his bishopremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. And this isn't just any boy: this is Steve's grandson whose Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the offspring of ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a long past relationship between Steve trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and a gangsterMira's widowfather. Steve Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is determined as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to seek justice for this boy and all children victimised by priests who have been protected by his churchguide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. But he With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must also face up be determined to his own failings, going right back stop at nothing to his breaking save the future of her home and the celibacy vowsones she holds most dear.|isbn=15031998860008664730}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800321104James Sherwood Metts|title=The Body on the Island|author=Nick LouthPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=A prison transport left HMP Wakefield, heading Things have been a bit sticky for HMP Spring Hillthe Earthlings. Steve AI and Aaron were accompanying Neil Wright who was 67 years old automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and had served six years for the manslaughter of his wife. Only other tasks that wasn't who he wastook time to accomplish. Sixty-three-years-old Neville Rollaston had served thirty years for the murder Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of five boys between the ages of ten and seventeenother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. He Life was being ghosted out of Wakefield pretty much shut down and into a new identity set up in a deal whereby he divulged the whereabouts of , along with it, all the body of one of his victims. The Bogeyman was going to be set free many daily social interactions on 2 July 2019. He appeared to be a reformed character but he had a list of people upon whom he wished to exact revengewhich they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1473692407Matthew Tree|title=The Book of Two Ways|author=Jodi PicoultWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Dawn Edelstein is Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a death doula: that's someone drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who is there for the person who is dying, to make their passage to whatever they believe in as easy as possible and had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to support their carers. It's a rewardinghis studies, caring occupation cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and Dawn puts her heart and soul into it set himself high but this wasn't always her life. Some fifteen years ago she was a graduate student at Yale working towards her doctorate: as an Egyptologist, she was working with her supervisor, Professor Ian Dumphries, on the Djehutyakht tombs at Deir el-Bersha on the Nile in Middle Egypt. Then she was Dawn McDowell: that was her maiden name, the name she published underachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Delia OwensA G Slatter|title=Where The Crawdads SingBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary= In 1952, Kya'' There's mother disappeared up the dirt track a part of me that wants to keep this just to townmyself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, wearing her alligator heelsall mine, and never came homeat last. I just want to enjoy it for a while. Then one by one her siblings left'' Within a remote mountain pass, ran far away from the shack on world, lies Silverton; a town under the North Carolina marsh that served as home protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the life that would lead to nothing but sufferingwider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, leaving 7Ellie Briar is the first non-year-old Kya with witch to be born into her drunken father. Years pass family for generations and Kya - now nicknamed 'Marsh-Girl' – still yearns for as such since she was young, her training as a mother that would never return steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and grew up far too fast for a girl who can neither read nor writepotions. Finally, one night When her father never came home leaving Kya completely alone to survive on the marsh. Eventuallygrandmother suddenly dies, as Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the years drift painfully byBriar Witch, the time comes when Kyatown's leader, now an emotional and vastly intelligent young womanEllie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, yearns for company besides the gulls right and centre, Ellie uncovers the land, yearning rare ability to be loved and to be held. Socommunicate with the dead, when 2 boys from putting her at the town heart of Barkley Cove find their way to her, she finds a new way maelstrom of lifechaos. But in 1969Reeling from one family secret to another, the body of former star quarterback Ellie must decide who to trust and new husband Chase Andrews is found lying in determine what to do as the mud of the marshBriar witches' legacy, and everyone in town immediately suspects the mysteriouseverything they have sacrificed to survive, run-down Marsh-Girlis under threat. Who is Kya now, after years of isolation and a broken, hardened heart? Is she really capable of murder?|isbn=14721546651803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David C Mason1529900360|title=Pandora's GardenerThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=34
|genre=Crime
|summary= John Cranston is It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a gardenerwhile. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, although what he who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did before he became look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a gardener, he claims, is classifiedremote property in Bel Air. That He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is just as well because he is about married to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save an extremely rich man and it's not the dayItalian. |isbn=0956180523 But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=03565124791529395224|authortitle= Alix E HarrowLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|titleauthor= The Once and Future WitchesSion Rowlands|rating= 3.5|genre= FantasyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn''Theret want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's no such thing as witches, but there used to belife.'' In 1893, after When he was seventeen he took the purges opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the burningsjob for him. Before long, witching has he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been reduced to little more than weak charms and simple spellshis dream since he was a child. If women want to hold power in their handsanything, he'd wanted to have their voices heard, it is now through women's suffragebe a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Onjali Q Rauf0861541774|title=The Night Bus HeroA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Hector is a bully. Egged on by his two 'friends', he takes other childrenDCI Domenic Jejeune's sweetsclose friend and former colleague, harasses and threatensDanny Maik, plays pranks at schoolhas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and gets into trouble at every turnhe killed a Ghurka. Yet Initially, he finds himself frustrated when something actually isn't his fault, faced a charge of manslaughter but then evidence came to light that suggested that he isn't believed as everyone expects him might have planned to be telling liesmurder the man. Nothing seems fairNow he could be facing the death penalty. His parents are barely home, and seem Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to only care about his perfect sister and his annoying little brother when they are, and his teachers have abandoned him help as any interference from another police force could provoke a lost causediplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. So what happens when, in trying to tell the truth & fight to be believed, Hector finds himself embroiled with the police; first trying to accuse, and then trying to save a homeless man from his local park?|isbn=1510106774
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1849767343Alexander McCall Smith|title=Count on Me|author=Miguel TancoThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-General Fiction|summary=The title Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and format of this book might lead you operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to think that it's either about responsibility - or it's take a basic 1-2-3 book trip to Canada to get away for those just starting a while. Katie is coming out on of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the numbers journeychance to come home to Edinburgh. It isn't: it's a hymn of praise And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to mathscharm. ItKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's about why maths is so wonderful always her very helpful (and how you meet it in everyday life.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18497669200811771741|title=Everything is MINEInstaKnits for Baby|author=Andrea D'AquinoMelissa Leapman|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrafts|summary=Marcello Von Cauliflower Bonaparte Jackson is a schnauzer: what else could you be with a name like that? He knows that you'll realise that heMelissa Leapman's kind, clever and loyal. You'll also need to know that everything is '''MINE'InstaKnits for Baby''gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. And he means ''everythingSome will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire'variety. It begins with The projects are divided by the slipper: mum still has one. Why would she need time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more? You sense that Marcello feels that he's being generous in allowing thatthan twenty hours. Then it was All the pork chopprojects are attractive, modern and useable. Well, did you see anyone's name on it? I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'And'' he left the carrots for Leo. Thatbut that's another example of Marcello's generosityme being picky. There was the acorn which squirrel was gnawing at: there was no documentation to prove ownership. And talking of ownership the tree would provide all the sticks he could ever want to chew. There's nothing unreasonable in any of that, is there?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1849767009Dean Koontz|title=It Isn't Rude to be Nude|author=Rosie HaineThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingParanormal|summary=This could have been one of those books which 'preaches Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to the choirhis home, and it': the only people who'll buy it are the people who know s possible that nudity whoever or whatever was inside is OK and the ones who ''know'' thing that it's shameful will avoid it like they avoid has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the hot-and-bothered very last person in the supermarket who is coughing fit to bustdeserve all this bad luck. ButHe is a nice person. A really nice person.. Rosie Haines makes So fortunately for Benny it into something so much more than turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a book about not wearing clothesgood person. It's a celebration Spike is going to take care of bodies: bodies large and small Benny, and will certainly take care of every possible hue. Bodies with disabilities Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and markings. TheyHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny're fine. In fact, s wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they're wonderfulare.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241295955Adam Stower|title=Trio|author=William BoydMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=It was 1968: Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the year when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinatedtwo. ItBut he's also the year when YSK Films are making a movie in Brighton. Itbad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called ''Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to Bun, and the Moon''catflap they both use can chuck them out, or ''Ladder not into the Moon'' as it's known on setregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. Anny Viklund is the female star in This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a production which troll hunter is proving expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be just a little bit rackety. There are odd pressures on the producerhonest, Talbot Kydd, to employ this old actor friend for a couple of days because but he's turned up and he needs the money, allow a fading star 'll have to use his catchphrase, or include a song from the leading man, whose musical star is fading.do…|isbn=0008561249
}}
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08B39QNRHB0C47LV1PC|title=The Curious History of Writer's Cramp: Solving an age-old problemFragility|author=Michael PritchardMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Society Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is based on speech but civilisation requires that the written word''answer for both could well be.... no.
I came to Michael Pritchard's ''The Curious History of Writer's CrampFragility'' by a rather strange route. I have problems with my hands which orthopaedic surgeons refer to is set as 'interesting': I prefer the word 'painful' but I have an interest in the way that hands work. An exploration city of the history of a problem which has defeated some of the best medical minds for some three-hundred-years seemed liked excellent background reading and so it provedPortland, Oregon, with the book being as much about cautiously begins to emerge from the doctors treating the sufferers and the changing medical attitudes as restrictions imposed during the problem itself.covid pandemic
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Blake Nuto and Charlotte Ager1529431735|title=Child of Galaxies|rating=5|genre=For Sharing|summary=What does it mean to be alive? What are we made of, and where are we going? ''Child of Galaxies'' is a lovely children's picture book that deals with all the big questions. Written as a poem, the lyrical words don't shy away from darkness, nor talk down to the children you are reading to, but rather than work beautifully together with the illustrations to create a powerful, uplifting reading experience.|isbn=1912497425}}{{FrontpageThe Winter Visitor|author=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)|title=BetrayalJames Henry|rating=34
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet UrsulaIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, the stand-in minister, drafted in from outside the leading party to cover the post for a year. You might get to meet her hunky husband she canwhich made Bruce Hopkins't believe she deserves, and the children who are ignorant of just how she spent return all her empathy for them on previous jobs in the foreign aid charity sectormore surprising. YouHe'll meet her ministry's cleaner, who bizarrely has fallen into d been exiled on the task of helping Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a famous newsreader with her Tinder profiledecade. YouThe return has come about because he'll certainly meet s had a homeless tramp, who has taken one look at a newspaper image of Ursula, andletter from his ex-wife, knowing her of old, decided saying that she needs saving from the devil posing beside her. You'll meet the ministerial bodyguard s ill and driver the tramp almost immediately forces Ursula hasn't long to acceptlive. But as for the first ministerial case, of a woman demanding her daughterIt's rape get looked at hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and pronto, nobody can say, for all records sent to a watery grave in the boot of Ursula's meeting with the woman have been wiped…|isbn=1913193403a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Time Traveller and the TigerGlorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Elsie Eli is a busy lad – by day an ordinary sort of girl. The sort of small girl who often gets overlookedapprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and forgottenin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. She Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is quiet, and compliant, and makes a generation missing in the best of whatever happens to herfamily. So when her A few short years ago, Eli's parents forget that her school holidays have started before they are free were both lost to take care of herthe titular race, they a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to arrange for her to go and stay with her Great Uncle for a week. Poor Elsie, forgotten again, just decides to make navigate the world in the best company of thingsa magical beast. On investigating the house she finds that her Great Uncle had lived in India as a boy, and he This has an enormous tiger rug on made the floor of one of race anathema to the rooms. When Elsie asks him about pair – but when a bad incident at the rug he seems unhappyeatery leads to a confession from gran, and he says he has Eli knows his only hope is to dare to keep it because enter what he was most hates, with the sole aim the one who shot prize of magic at the tiger when he was 12 years old, and he says it was end – the worst only thing he ever did. So when Elsie suddenly finds herself magically transported back many, many years, to the time in India when her Great Uncle was 12 years old, she believes that she must try to stop him from killing the tiger, in order to put something right that happened a long time agopossibly save his gran.|isbn=17885417070571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1472127013178763681X|title=Agatha Raisin: Hot to TrotKnife Skills for Beginners|author=M C Beaton and R W GreenOrlando Murrin|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Raisin Investigations Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had quite a bit way of work on handgetting both men and women to do what he wanted. The chairman of Philpott Electronics was concerned about his managing director, Harold CheesemanPaul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had apparently returned from Australia because a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his wife did not like it thereown. This The one thing he hadn't expected was unusual, as his wife had died before Cheeseman went for someone to Australiaturn up dead. Then there Unfortunately, he was the Chadwick divorce: Chadwick was convinced person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that his wifeperson to be the prime suspect.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, SheratonEllen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, was seeing another maneverything about her life changes. Mr Gutteridge wanted Raisin Investigations to instal listening devices Living in a time when the staff canteen: he wanted use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to know what the staff were saying about him and his secretarylip read, who was but physically restrained from Genevasigning. ApparentlyFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the staff deaf and using a system called her The Swiss RollVisible SpeechThen there was At the murdersame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084203861803816759|title=Failosophy: A handbook for when things go wrongThe Unravelling|author=Elizabeth DayWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary=What do Malcolm GladwellIt's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, Alain de Bottonmaking life easier for many, Phoebe Waller-Bridgeand riots start to spread. Finally, Lemn Sissay, Nigel Slater, Emeli Sandé, Meera Syal, Dame Kelly Holmes Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Andrew Scott have in common? They've all failed and - more importantly - they've been willing Joe is assigned to appear on Elizabeth Daybring her home. Joe isn's podcast t the only one trying to discuss their failures save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and how life worked out for them afterwardstech nerd, is also on the case. You'll find What went wrong? Did the results of these discussions in ''Failosophy'system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713626721529421284|title=SnowLaying Out the Bones|author=John BanvilleKate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=''Well, at least you're a Wexford man.The House of Broken Bricks'' So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957. Osborne was master is the story of the Keelmore Hounds and had done something memorable with the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirkfour people. The niceties had to Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be established even when happier there was a Catholic priest dead , but instead, she lives in the house on the library floor with some precious bits riverbank, built of his anatomy missingbroken bricks. Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody and thisInsubstantial as it might look, along with his good-but-shabby suit, marked him out as of Osborneit's class stood the passage of time, storms and obviously Protestantfloods. The dead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstown Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, who - despite to complete the different religions delivery rounds - was and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the habit of spending time at Ballyglass Houserainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. His horse was stabled People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17874776301529425867|title=The Postscript MurdersLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Elly GriffithsSimon Mason|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a 90-year-old-woman with In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. He's not any of those things. He's white, originated from a heart condition dies peacefully in her armchairtrailer park, it barely educated (reading's not ''really shouldn't be suspicious ' his thing) and that was the view taken by DS Harbinder Kaur until she spoke to Peggy Smithhis wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They's carerre usually in lime green or acid yellow. Natalka Kolisnyk was adamant that there was more You might wonder if you're being introduced to Peggya police procedural written for laughs. Well, you's death than met re not. The two men are just different sides of the eye - particularly as she knew that there was no heart condition and that Peggy had worried that she was being followedsame policing coin. Then there was Sometimes the fact that Peggy was a combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it'murder consultant' who helped authors with knotty plot lines in their books: she knew more about murder than any elderly woman should need to knows problematic.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008330131Mosby Woods|title=The Stolen Sisters|author=Louise JensenA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When we start ''The Stolen SistersWest isn'' we know that twenty-years on from a dreadful event they are all healthy adultst the dominant force it once was. Well, they're healthy Nobody in the physical senseWest is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, but Carly has trust issues, Leah has OCD and Marie drinksa push for climate action there. They're the Sinclair sisters and one day they were all stolen. Carly was thirteen-years-old and she was A feeling that nobody is in actual charge of her sisters. Imagine then, the eight-year-old twins. Much as she loved them Carly there was desperate to get a text from Dean Malden and her mobile phone held her attentionman with precognition. Leah and Marie were nattering about Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a lost ball and a fleece which had been left outsideman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. The gate wasn't shut properly and BrunoThat man would be valuable, their boxer dogright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, escapedthat this man loses this ability. As the three girls went What would governments do to chase after him they were snatched by two men.get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
}}

Navigation menu