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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, biographynon-fiction, crime, cookery and children's books & self-published books plus author interviews and & top tens.</metadesc><h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>Hello from The Bookbag, a 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 [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.

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'''], [[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.

==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].

|isbn=147117316X0008517061|title=Guilty Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not Guiltymuch to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jo Callaghan|title=Leave No Trace|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Felix FrancisChristie Watson

|summary=The Honourable William Herbert Millgate Gordon-Russell (Bill Russell to those who knew him well) was acting as Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a volunteer steward at Warwick Racecourse when he was told quarter of the violent death of his much-loved wifea century. It would get worse though: the successful insurance actuary would Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be accused of killing her a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and hounded by the mediaa trauma doctor. Then he would lose his job Anjali is the free spirit of the group and his homeshe becomes a GP. His best friends would turn against him, as When we first meet them they came 're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to believe him guilty of end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the murderconsequences. Yet Twenty-five years later there was no really compelling evidence will be an eerily similar event that he was guiltywill impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.

|isbn=19087458191398524085|title=SurfacingHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Kathleen JamieNicci French

|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain bookCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''Etty. Mostly we take them at their wordare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, or is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, but rarely do we ask them why they thought sofind the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, unless it turns out in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that we didnDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't like stand the bookguilt. That The Salter children are not convinced but there's a rare experiencelittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4. People who are sensitive 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to hearing a book calling your nameGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, rarely get it wrongin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. In this case I Her original surname was told whyKalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. The blurb speaks 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 mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author considering ''an older=Christopher Edge|title=Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, less tethered sense a place that has the nickname of herself.'The Black Hole' . Older. Less tethered. ThatAll big movie fans, they's not a bad description re looking forward to lots of where I am. exciting films, and many, many snacks! Add to that my love of However, as the natural worldmovie starts, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical they very quickly realise that are something about style not formthis new film format is very different, and substance most of allthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, about connection. Of course this book had my name can they figure out what on earth is going on it. ? It was written for me. It would have found its way Will they ever get back to me eventually. I am pleased the cinema, and to have it fall onto my path so quickly.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738

Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. 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 be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{Frontpage|author=James Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=A G Slatter|title=The Briar Book of the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingsummary="15" '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''

<!Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529900360|title=The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=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 while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, 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 look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on- Adele Parks call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't -as with so many students ->been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0861541774|title=A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has 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 he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction| stylesummary="width: 10%; verticalThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and 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 take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. 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 charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-align: top; textmedia-align: center;"worthy projects' but that's me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal[[image:0008284660|summary=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 his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it 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 good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.jpg|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Adam Stower|title=Murray and Bun|linkrating=http://www4.amazon5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=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 two.co But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs.uk/dp/0008284660/ref This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=nosim0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke?tag=thebookbag-21]]And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

 | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Lies Lies Lies by Adele Parks]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]] Simon Barnes had his first taste of beer in 1976 when he was just six years old. Over the years it would become a habit and then a need. By 2016 and with a wife and child of his own he was a functioning alcoholic - a fact known by everybody except Simon. He's concentrating on wanting another child to complete his family. His wife, Daisy, isn't worried. They took a long time to conceive Millie, who's perfect in every way, so why tempt fate? Simon's not inclined to let matters rest though and itFragility's at a fertility clinic that he receives the news that will change all their lives: he's sterile. [[Lies Lies Lies by Adele Parks|Full Review]] <!-- Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:099334030X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/099334030X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Can You Draw the Dragosaur? by Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crafts|Crafts]], [[:Category:Emerging Readers|Emerging Readers]] You're going to get a hint of what this book's about very quickly. When you see the title page, you'll find out what the book's called and that it's been written by Peter Lynas. Then we move on to who has done the illustration - and there's a gap. ''You'' are going to put your name there. It's ''your'' responsibility to provide the pictures for this book about one of the largest creatures ever to roam the earth. There's some help available, but your name is on the title page - and you have work to do! [[Can You Draw the Dragosaur? by Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts|Full Review]] <!-- Abercrombie -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0575095865.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0575095865/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]] The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep set as ever. On the blood-soaked borders city of AnglandPortland, Leo dan Brock struggles Oregon, cautiously begins to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help emerge from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specialises in disappointments. Savine dan Glokta - socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union - plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control. The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of restrictions imposed during the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another . . .[[A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie|Full Review]]covid pandemic}}<!-- Peter Lynas and Clare Lindley -->{{Frontpage|-| styleisbn="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|1529431735[[image:0993340334.jpg|linktitle=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993340334/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] The Winter Visitor| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Bunny by Peter Lynas and Clare Lindley]]==author=James Henry [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]] You might have seen Bunny on the beach where he lived. Like many beaches it was full of sand and Bunny didn't like sand, not least because it got between his toes and ''scratched''. What he really liked was juicy green grass. All the other rabbits lived on the top of the cliff, where Bunny could see a lot of tasty-looking grass. But the cliff was very high. [[Bunny by Peter Lynas and Clare Lindley|Full Review]] <!-- Thomas Knauer -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|4[[image:1635860334.jpg|linkgenre=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1635860334/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Crime| stylesummary="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Why We Quilt by Thomas Knauer]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crafts|Crafts]] IIt've often wondered about the story that patchwork quilting began as a way for women (s February 1991 and myth would have it that it was always women) to make an extra blanket out of material Essex is bitingly cold, which would otherwise go to waste. This undoubtedly made Bruce Hopkins''did'' happen but when you think about it, you need an awful lot of material to make a quilt and the time could have been better spent if return all that was required was bedding. Like Thomas Knauer I've come to the conclusion that it began as an art and has largely continued down that same road with fluctuations in popularity over the years. [[Why We Quilt by Thomas Knauer|Full Review]] <!-- Nicci French -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1471179230.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1471179230/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Lying Room by Nicci French]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]] When we meet Neve Connolly it's pretty obvious that she has something to hidemore surprising. She crept into the house after midnight, carefully putting her clothes into the washing machine and she canHe't wait to get husband Fletcher and children Mabel, Connor and Rory off d been exiled on their various ways the next morning when she gets Costa del Sol as a text telling her to come to the flat. He has wanted drug smuggler for a few hours to spare and can't wait to see her. Only, when she gets to the flat she finds Saul Stevenson, her boss and lover, dead on the floordecade. The hammer thatreturn has come about because he's been used on his brain is at had a letter from his side. [[The Lying Room by Nicci French|Full Review]] <!ex-- Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0993340342.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993340342/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Madeleine Goes to the Moon by Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]] Madeleine is a very lucky girl: in her room she has all a girl could ask for in the way of toyswife, books, games and dollies. She's a very lucky girl in another way too: she has imagination and everything in her room can be used to take her on adventures. She spends all day there: Dad thinks saying that she likes to be alone, but Madeleine's not alone on all the trips she takes. Weill and hasn'll find out that yesterday she was told t long to tidy her room, but instead of doing that she went to the moon. [[Madeleine Goes to the Moon by Peter Lynas and Charlie Roberts|Full Review]] <!-- Ann Patchett -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1526614960.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526614960/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the wallslive. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and the closest Danny seems hard to come to him is feel any sympathy when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family owns. Elna Conroy Hopkins is lovingabducted, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve stripped to his underwear and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each other. It's sent to a bond which only death will break. [[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett|Full Review]] <!-- Peter Lynas and Andy S Gray -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0993340350.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993340350/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Very Rude Toytoise by Peter Lynas and Andy S Gray]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]] It was one of those blissful days watery grave in the forestboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Mrs Rabbit was collecting carrots because she wanted to make Is it a cake. Mrs Blue Bird was gathering twigs to build warning from a nest. Mrs Spider was busily spinning Spanish gang or a web problem closer to catch juicy flies. Mrs Squirrel was piling up acorns. And Mr Bear sat comfortably in a chair, fishing for lunch. What could be betterhome? And then... [[The Very Rude Toytoise by Peter Lynas and Andy S Gray|Full Review]]}}<!-- Peter Lynas and Rosie Alabaster -->{{Frontpage|-author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts[[image:0993340318.jpg|linkrating=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993340318/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 4| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Confident Readers|summary===[[Recipe for Making Eli is a Snowman busy lad – by Peter Lynas and Rosie Alabaster]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]] Who knew it? You can even get a recipe book which tells you how to make a snowman - and there's no cooking involved! Mum, Dad and day an apprentice in the two children are absolutely meticulous though: they're going to get everything right, even down to doing some mining to get the coal for the eyeswondrous library we start by visiting with him, searching through the bits 'n bobs jar for buttons for the snowman's coat and picking out in the perfect piece of headgear. There's quite evening a choice available, but helper at the family decide on the bobble hat, presumably to keep the snowman warmdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. The moth-eaten pair of mittens simply won't do and a pair Eli lives with purple and pink stripes are chosen. [[Recipe his lovely gran, too – for Making there is a Snowman by Peter Lynas and Rosie Alabaster|Full Review]] <!-- Melanie Martin -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1789016304.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789016304/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion generation missing in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:History|History]], [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own the family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war few short yearsago, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who Eli's parents were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened both lost to escalate in the way that it didtitular race, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale, but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies. [[War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin|Full Review]] <!globe-- Sedgwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788542347.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the process of joining a community of sick people world in the curiously named town company of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard ofmagical beast. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only ''cure'' is This has made the race anathema to stay in the town away from the real world. Though it's about pair – but when a real place, bad incident at the people in it are fictional. It really is eatery leads to a place apart, quite literally cut off confession from the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflakegran, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]] <!-- Moyer -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:178747920X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178747920X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Robin Hood Eli knows his only hope is gone – denouncing both his former life and his love Marian, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite dare to enter what led him to abandon all that he had built. Marion's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dyingmost hates, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the curse surrounding them and only thing to possibly save their liveshis gran. Setting off with a soldier, a Fey Lord and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayals, complicated relationships, and a vicious struggle for the throne…[[Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer|Full Review]] <!-- Hewitt -->|-| styleisbn="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|0571382231[[image:1509896465.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509896465/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt]]===}} [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? [[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]] <!-- McGee -->Frontpage|-| styleisbn="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|178763681X[[image:0241365953.jpg|linktitle=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241365953/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Knife Skills for Beginners| styleauthor="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|Orlando Murrin===[[American Royals by Katharine McGee]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Two and a half centuries ago, America won the Revolutionary War and General George Washington was offered the crown. Today, the House of Washington still sit on the thrown with Princess Beatrice next in line. Beatrice's whole life has been building up to her ruling the United States and the time for her reign is imminent. [[American Royals by Katharine McGee|Full Review]] <!-- Nicola Monaghan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|4[[image:0857308025.jpg|linkgenre=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07VRSX3SN/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Crime| stylesummary="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Dead Flowers (Dr Sian Love) by Nicola Monaghan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] It was more than Chef Paul Delamare took a little bit of teaching job at a surprise to Dr Sian Love (and the rest of the relatives) when her uncle Bobby left her his home - a former pub called The Loggerheads residential cookery school in the Narrow Marsh area of NottinghamBelgravia. Then it was a shock when she found two bodies in the cellar before sheHe didn'd even got settled in - and managed t really want to break but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a bone in her foot in the course way of making the discoverygetting both men and women to do what he wanted. TheyPaul 'd been there for some time, but who - exactly - were 'somehow'' got the man and the woman, wrapped in each otherimpression that he's arms? Having spent ten years on d be at the Murder Squadschool to assist Paul, ending up as who had a DCI she knows what's going to happen nextbroken arm, but she's not prepared for quite how personal itdidn's all going to gett turn out that way. [[Dead Flowers (Dr Sian Love) by Nicola Monaghan|Full Review]] <!The teaching -- Renee Watson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1526613689.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526613689/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Some Places More Than Others by Renee Watson]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]  Amara's twelfth birthday is coming up and she wants nothing more for it than a trip to New York to meet her father's side of the family. But her father hasn't spoken to Amara's grandfather for many years - Amara doesn't know why problems - and both her parents are resistant to the idea. But Amara is nothing if not persistent and a school family history project provides her with the perfect wedge. Eventually, her parents give in and off she goes.all his own.. with a secret mission from her mother: to bring her father and Grandpa Earl back together again. [[Some Places More Than Others by Renee Watson|Full Review]] <!-- Graves -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:194927201X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/194927201X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Aaron Sheridan doesnThe one thing he hadn't want expected was for someone to live anymore. His entire family is turn up dead by his own hand, killed in a shuttle crash. Unable to deal with the guilt Unfortunately, he signs up for was the Fleet expecting a fatal deployment to person who discovered the Rim War, but instead ends up at their most prestigious command school, Corinth Station... [[Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves|Full Review]] <!-- Ryan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191280493X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191280493X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[Coming of Age by Danny Ryan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]  ''He began writing novels body and poetry at everyone knows that the age of twelve, but it was police consider that person to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at eitherbe the prime suspect. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he remains a shining example of hope over experience...''  ''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have.'' [[Coming of Age by Danny Ryan|Full Review]]  <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}}