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Hello from The Bookbag<metadesc>Expert, a full book review site, featuring books reviews from all the many most walks of literary life ; fiction, non- [[: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. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library 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 & self-published 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 plus author [[:Category:Interviews|interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[Features]] page.</metadesc>
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{{newreview|author=Amanda Downum|title=The Drowning City|ratingBest New Books=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=In a nutshell, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latter. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelings. I started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|author=Tove Jansson|title=The True Deceiver|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Janssonnew reviews by category]]. 's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonukbr>}}
{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:Features|author=Daniel Kehlmann |title=Me and Kaminski|rating=4the latest features]].5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski and Me'. In it, Sebastian Zollner, the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art critic. Kaminski, the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general public.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Louis Barfe|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down upon, as if it's a bit naff, tepid and ignorable. What's often forgotten is that it's hugely popular, enjoyable and much of it is of the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of British light entertainmentbooks about to be published]].|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall0008517061|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-OffFormer Metropolitan Police detective, but just like himJake Johnson, has settled into his tomatoes aren't growing very bigrustic life at Little Sky. He takes There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the only sensible course future of actionhis life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: he sings does Jake give up his tomatoes a song. The results are spectacular. Victory 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 surely within his graspthe 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Delaney 1786482126|title=The Spook's Stories: WitchesJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'Warning: Not to be read after dark,luxury' are apartments - when they discovered the only words on the back bones of ''The Spooka 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 Storiesdifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn'', and on the inside flapt, 'The Times' warns us that this book she is 'seriously scary'...  The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, pregnant with his child as a story about a young Spook (a sort result of monster-hunter) who falls in love with a witch and the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is forced prone to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-childrensudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Unger0008551324|title=Die For The Devil YouKnow (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to successful video game designer Marcus Raineapproach the police. Or so she thinks Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But when her husband fails Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to return from work, she realises something tell the police where the body of a missing person is wrong. Going to his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked buried and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse who was responsible for herdeath. This person, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several yearshe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the man she married was using a false identitypolice doing what he wants. Infuriated by And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the betrayalremainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and the realisation that she's been living a lie for even prepared to do the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so long. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novelsanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa McMann0008405026|title=WakeA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Janie is seventeen 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 studying hard for collegeher father are dead in their bed. She Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's also working lots something about the positioning of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is was going to provide much in the way of resourcesbe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. College Kerrigan is Janieconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's only chance at a life better than the one shedisappearance: others (such as Derwent's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her wayboss, Una Burt) are less convinced...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jaclyn Moriarty 0571379877|title=The Spell Book of Listen TaylorKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing familyupper-class friends, with all of its delightful eccentricities Robert and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the Stanza. Robert'Zing Family Secrets a theatre director. He'. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and losing Nathaniel entitled and Listenuses Edward to run errands for him. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned Edward has been in love with her home life, Stanza since their university days - and her daughterhe's year two teacher is coming drunkenly confided how he feels to terms with Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a break up. The stories of these people come together relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to create a tale of life, love, and ultimately, what being part stumble upon the two of them kissing in a family meansdark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G CottamJo Callaghan|title=The Magdalena CurseLeave No Trace|rating=2.54|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Mark Hunter When a man is found crucified on the sort top of father who would do anything for his sona hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident It's their first live case together, his surviving son Adam has become his whole worldhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. And Adam But when there is an exceptional child – beautifula second body found crucified a few days later, incredibly smart Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices a very high profile case that draws a lot of the deadunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Plagued by horrific dreams, Will they be able to speak Russian solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the hours after he wakescase and, drawing occult symbols when he doodlespotentially, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself.out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon Berkeley1399613073|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=I shall start with a word of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus masterOlivia, Laura and a magician, for Anjali met on the soul first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a tiger that's contained in quarter of a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bearcentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, and your best friend - a fallen angel - which is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then bonus when you're probably living the third book in aim to be a fantasy trilogycardiothoracic surgeon. Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering Laura is a dream world of flight perfectionist and cloud cities, a trauma doctor. Anjali is the chase after your enemies will take you across free spirit of the world to desert oases group and back, and friends new and old will be on board to helpshe becomes a GP.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Townsend|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ When we first meet them they're at a drug and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin alcohol-fuelled party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. Itit's not quite how life was supposed going to turn outend in tragedy. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile We don''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to t know who suffered the toilet is really tragedy or the last thing he needsconsequences. And yet, Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the worst is still to comethree friends. Think a crumbling economy This time, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himtheir teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Kate0241636604|title=FallenThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=A 17 year old girl at If you were to bring up an image of a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boycity banker in your mind, who sheyou's immediately drawn re unlikely tothink of someone like Gary Stevenson. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, until where he saves her lifewas familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the two London School of them end up drawn togetherEconomics. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has striking similarities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gareth Hinds|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town in a facility with numbers which most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Learof us can only envy. For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and He also realised that most rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought people expect poor people to bestupid. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-longgot him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, over-blown blusteringthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Theroux1035021803|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She'A Dead Hand'' tells the story s back now because of a travel writer suffering request for help from writerher beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's block (also known as former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, and the mysterious Mrs Ungercircumstances seem suspicious, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected wayssay the least. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about Arthur was the mystery itself as reason why Freya had not been back to the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charmsvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. But does Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she have more has not felt able to hide than be near the man or pursue the profession she's letting loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
{{newreview|author=Toby Lester|title=The Fourth Part I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the World: The Epic Story of Historyfeeling that it's Greatest Map|rating=4all getting away from me.5|genre=History|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library Some of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display- frankly - quite frightening. No ordinary mapOf course, this is sometimes described as AmericaI could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they's birth certificatere talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, I needed people I knew I could trust and was discovered by accident in some archives who could deliver information in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the resultway I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur Sunny Singh|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=HumourThrillers |summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a wet kitchen floorterrorist group.'' Surely that Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is the wackiestSam, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch a wartime photographer and all it has done for Abhi, the worldhotel manager. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the modern world, residents who are still alive in the entire banking systemhotel, all those he forms a bond with Sam who failed refuses to see it comingbe cowed by events, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all keeps on venturing out of her room to revert try to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so capture what's happened through her photography. Although they can get back on only ever talk over the expenses trainphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and back up they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the rich liststerrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton1529153298|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, It's 1979 and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seasideMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the placehonestly... ) Meat is getting thrown around like itShe's not what's worrying Miv's going out of fashionfamily, and we though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to doubt whether Polly and have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her companions can ever utilise father wants to move the power of love family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and put things she'll do anything to rightsprevent that. Especially as this book does She's not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabethworried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Loose Women1398524085|title=Here Come the GirlsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=This is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband''Loose Women''. Just as promised on the cover, this book is an entertaining night with the girlss fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yetHer children, with nine contributorssons Niall, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity faces. The women are universally warm-hearted Paul and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book Ollie and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the evening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Fortune Cookie|rating=4her daughter, Etty.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friendsall worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. If Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the names remind you body of a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where FudgeGreg's father got , Duncan Ackerley, in the idea fromriver. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but It was an easy assumption for the combination works. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add police to this make that her father Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't cope with stand the problems and he now has another familyguilt. It's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six Salter children (outliving all are not convinced but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the there'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, s little else they can do but get on with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, their lives and wore her crown rather reluctantlywonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Hughes1035906708|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Well, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Dave Eggers
|title=The Wild Things
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end We tend to think of the stick about adultsMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendNew York, or gets a bit feisty in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factsshe was thirteen. He is a bit of a rascal Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to say make it more manageable in the leastStates. But all When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that might change when he finds himself travelling to she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a strange land mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of roisterous animalsher preference for her elder sister, and ends up installed as their kingJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy StrongChristopher Edge|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Trevor's troublesome dog, StreakerLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has had three puppiesthe nickname of 'The Black Hole'. They were fathered All big movie fans, according they're looking forward to local bully Charlie Smugglots of exciting films, and many, by one of his Alsatians. many snacks! Trevor would ideally like to keep themHowever, as the movie starts, at least until Christmasthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, but his parents have other ideas and put them they are swept up for saleinto an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled But as they lurch from one film genre to half of the money from the sale of the puppiesnext, but before can they can be sold figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the three puppies go missing in the park cinema, and it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Beth DurstRachel Greenlaw|title=IceCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she I can't help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left hear the song of the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very youngsea. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry|title=The Wide-Mouthed Frog|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Do you know call of the joke about deep, the wide-mouthed frog? You must have heard itanswering beat in my heart. It's a classic. It's one that you really need to tell in person, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide open, but to hopefully spark your memory, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, and the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''Ooh, you don't see many of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funny. Anyway, this is a book of that joke.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Dr Aaron Carroll Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and Dr Rachel Vreeman|title=Don't Swallow Your Gum|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary='''BANG'''plundering the wrecks. That's Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the sound of copious urban myths being shot downruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. '''BANG'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. That's With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the sound watched streets of foreign islands to the old wives slamming heart of the door, as their tales get revealed as baseless. '''CLICK'''. Thatsmuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the noise lots future of ill-informed websites make as they get closed down. All noises come due to this brilliant bookher home and the ones she holds most dear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>0008664730
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Annie TaylorJames Sherwood Metts|title=VioletPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet is Things have been a very special hippobit sticky for the Earthlings. She is extremely small but that does not make her adoptive parents Albert AI and Mavis love her any the less. Howeverautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they are slightly worried 're paid to do and other tasks that Violet has a very unusual habit took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of turning pink without warning other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and for no explicable reason, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonMatthew Tree|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Arthur Transcombe is Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a middle-aged, grey-haired, 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-effacing poetconfidence. Unremarkable really - on the outside. He hasSo Tim applied himself to his studies, however, managed to achieve some success with cultivated his abilities rather than his poems. (Being a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' 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.''
{{newreview|author=A J Healy|title=Tommy Storm and Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Galactic Knights|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. HeBriar's one , a family of five teenagers snapped up witches who protect the town and the wider world from around the universe 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 gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destructionsteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. Not just the planetWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, or Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the solar systemBriar Witch, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHING. Nobody seems to know whattown's going to cause this destructionleader, or whenand Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, but he right and his friends and their ship seem centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to be communicate with the only people proactively going about saving dead, putting her at the dayheart of a maelstrom of chaos. So itReeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches's a pity that legacy, everything they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about have sacrificed to kill themsurvive, is under threat.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>1803364548
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1529900360|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=When I 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 in my early teensreluctant 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 sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of 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 stars swimming pool of almost every other five-star British comedy film arounda remote property in Bel Air. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and inimitable it'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best s not the Italian. But which of all, them was the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jay Parker1529395224|title=Stop MeLetting 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-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=Spam EDCI 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 -Mails can be incredibly annoyinghe 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 most of us will evidence came to light that suggested that he might have had planned to deal with themmurder the man. Fortunately, we can hit Now he could be facing the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they camedeath penalty. I certainly prefer not Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck is supposed to become if I donhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'thelp Danny at all. But I wonder how many of us would react if a spam E-Mail actually was a matter of life and death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Battle of the Sun|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>}}  {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Love and KissesPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Tamsin The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boringoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. They'd been best friends since forever Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and were look after the good girls. Neither missed schoolbusiness, skipped her homework nor had boyfriendsas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Well, that Katie iscoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, not and so far. Up until then Tamsin had been jumps at the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward chance to going on come home to universityEdinburgh. All that seemed And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to change when she met Alex. Wellan Edinburgh we already love, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify thanks to 44 Scotland Street and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into herthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, from the building site where he workedbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. OhKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, and did I mention that he was seventeenbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, Polish and spoke there's always her very little English?helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Mintzberg0811771741|title=Managing|rating=5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=''Study after study has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as a result, there's such a market InstaKnits for bulky management and leadership and general business books like this one. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find the time to do so? This title actually has an answer to this, by providing two books in one, and it is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book in one of two ways. Option one is to read every word, chapter by chapter, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provoking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBaby|author=Kathryn Fox|title=Blood BornMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=To give support Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to a vulnerable gangblankets. Some will be quick knits -rape victimothers are of the 'long, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to cosy afternoons in front of the courthouse on the day she is due to testify against the notorious Harbourn brothersfire' variety. But when Anya arrives at The projects are divided by the house she finds Giverny close to death and faces a battle against time they'll take to save her. In the paniccomplete - less than five hours, Anya fails five to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse stillten hours, in trying ten to save twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the girl's lifeprojects are attractive, Anya has interfered with a crime scene modern and the case falls apartuseable. She blames herself for the Harbourn brothers I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being allowed to walk free and only hours later there is news of another attackpicky. A pair of sisters have been stabbed and raped resulting in the death of one, while the other clings to life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leah FlemingDean Koontz|title=Remembrance DayThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady in Benny is having a wheelchair watches the unveiling of the new war memorial in the village squareterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. ThereOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's pride in what possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has been achievedtrashed his house! The thing is, in 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 family delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who are gathered around her and there are memories toohas been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Some are good but many 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 not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal LaytonAdam Stower|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Murray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumesMurray is supposed to be a humble, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar tidy and Arabella have nothing much else friendly cat, one who is able to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of Difficult Sumsthe two. They But he're supposed to be making presentations about what s a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they did during both use can chuck them out, not into the holidays tooregular back garden, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation into a world of frightening adventure andwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, franklywhere a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he can't really remember what s turned up and he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sums. 'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbB0C47LV1PC|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in Can you make a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very polite'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, friendlyis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, and kind-hearted, but she feels like something would it land? The catch is lacking because she doesn't have a kingdom of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but there's always a feeling that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't the princess of anywhereanswer for both could well be.... no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Mij Kelly and Louise Nisbet|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made Christmas|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone and keeps herself to herself. Her things are her things and she is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One day, an old man moves in to Mouse's house. He used to be the happiest man in the world, but now heFragility's sad. He's fed up is set as the city of having given, givenPortland, given all his life and never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserableOregon, so one day she decides cautiously begins to cheer him up by giving him a clementine...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bland1529431735|title=The Very Cranky BearWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Moose, Lion, Zebra It's February 1991 and Sheep head into a cave to get out of the rain, but little do they know that Bear Essex is fast asleep in there. When they wake him upbitingly cold, he roars at them, chasing them outside, so they decide to cheer him up somehowwhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Zebra paints stripes He'd been exiled on him, Moose fashions antlers the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for him and Lion sticks a mane of straw on himdecade. Unsurprisingly The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, this makes Bear even crankier, so itsaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's down hard to Sheep feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to save a watery grave in the dayboot of a stolen Ford Sierra...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kes Gray Alex Bell and Lee WildishTim McDonagh|title=Mum and Dad GlueThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A young boyfew short years ago, Eli's parents are splitting up. He's going through were both lost to the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, angertitular race, denial, and then trying a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to get them navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to stay together. His method for this isn't the usual response though: he looks for glue pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to stick a confession from gran, Eli knows his mum and dad together. Thankfullyonly hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, he finds some wise and kindly advice in with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the processonly thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clara Vulliamy178763681X|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=ItChef 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 a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow''s Pearlgot the impression that he's bedtimed be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but she says sheit didn's really busy t turn out that way. The teaching - and isnthe problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't going to sleep. She just wants expected was for someone to play and play and playturn up dead. When the bear with sticky paws rings the doorbell Unfortunately, he whisks her away on an amazing adventure - although as you might expect, was the person who discovered the bear has a little more energy than Pearl body and eventually she does get a little sleepyeveryone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>
}}

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