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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=Bonnie Greer=The Best New Books==|title=Obama Music'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|rating=3new reviews by category]]. '''<br>|genre=History'''Read [[:Category:Features|summary=This is an interesting read, but unless I'm missing something, the focus of the book seems a little difficult to grasplatest features]]. It's best if I start with the author's intentions as set out in her Prologue. It is a mixture of tales of her own life growing up on the South Side, she writes, interspersed with stories and observations about Obama, linking it with the music, musicians and music scene, past and present, including hip hop, country, classical, and rock'n ''roll. All of these, she notes, were heard on the President's Inauguration Day. To them she adds the blues, gospel, soul and jazz Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of the South Side, when the people began to build the great institutions and great solidarity that enabled him books about to become the most powerful man on the planetbe published]].|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906558248</amazonuk>}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=P J Parrish0008517061|title=Dead of WinterDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loon LakeFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Michigan is picture-postcard pretty – an idyll that sits serenely and snugly in the midst of a pine-peppered winter wonderlandJake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Louis Kincaid needs There’s perhaps a little serenity 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 and on arrival to move in Loon Lake he feels almost as if he has come home. Life has with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not been easy this is the future she wants for Kincaid. herself and her daughter? A troubled, unhappy child of mixed race, passed around various institutions For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and foster homes, Louis figures that if he is going to put some integrity putting the future on the back into the world, he will need to wear a badge to do itburner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391346</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Russell Celyn Jones1786482126|title=The Ninth Wave Janus Stone (New Stories from the MabinogionDr Ruth Galloway) |author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom Builders were demolishing an old house in a postNorwich -climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways the site was going to hold seventy- therefive 's a newluxury' apartments -but-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower is when they discovered the main means bones of transporta 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. But in many ways it It's much difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the same - people still fight one anothernight they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, towns still have sink estates, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning in their livesnot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Owen Sheers0008551324|title=White Ravens The Devil You Know (New Stories from the MabinogionD S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=In It's unusual for anyone from the old tale, Branwen 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 sister police where the body of Bendigeidfran - 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 giant King of Britainpolice doing what he wants. She marries And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the King remainder of Irelandhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, who is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't treat 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 wellbed one summer night. She manages was never found and the investigation ground to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling and war and killings ensuehaltIn this new tale Now, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers whomother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the wake positioning of the devastating foot bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and mouth outbreak, are despoiling their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheepher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. She meets What looked as though it was going to be an old man who tells her open-and-shut case is now a story involving complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the superstitions about the ravens explanation lies in the Tower of LondonRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affairUna Burt) are less convinced. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Bohnet0571379877|title=Follow Your StarThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=ItEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's three years since Nanette Weston left Monacoa theatre director. SheHe'd been engaged s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to a Formula 1 racing driver and had lived the life of the wealthy but a serious car accident had ended all thatrun errands for him. The accident could have killed her fiancé Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and she lost her driving licence because of the alcohol shehe'd consumeds drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Her slow recovery was hindered by the end of her engagement Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but shehe's found some contentment in being a nanny not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two young children. When her friend and employer, Vanessa, remarries and takes an extended honeymoon of them kissing in the Amazon Nanette is asked to take the children back to Monaco where their father livesa dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089090</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=J R StephensonJo Callaghan|title=Crooked JusticeLeave No Trace|rating=2.54|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Meet Barry JohnsWhen 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. You'll see him coming - heIt's five hundred pounds if he's an ouncetheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back. A businessman with But when there is a share of second body found crucified a nightclub on Cyprusfew days later, he goes there for Kat is suddenly struggling with a customary break, potential serial killer and finds his sort-a very high profile case that draws a lot of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancerunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. He manages Will they be able to tread both 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=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the toes first day of his local colleague medical school and some Greek rivalstheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. And Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a rival in London chases him up for thousands trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of pounds owed he decides to pack up the group and shut upshe becomes a GP. ItWhen we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's a big stone going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that hides himwill impact the three friends. This time, but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get 's their revengeteenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Baker0241636604|title=They've Got Your NumberThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceAutobiography|summary=If you are in the slightest bit paranoid, worry that ''Big Brother'' is always watching or like were to believe that you are not bring up an image of a numbercity banker in your mind, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book for you, as it will do nothing 're unlikely to dispel any think of those worriessomeone like Gary Stevenson. If A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the other hand, you think 'the mathematical modelling London School of humanity' sounds like one Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of the sexiest things ever, and are chomping at the bit us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to learn more about it, then you might well be interested in stupid. It was his ability at what Business Week journalist Baker has to saywas, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Tope1035021803|title=Fear in the CotswoldsThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Thea Osborne is a house sitter by professionIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. When people go away she moves into their homes and looks after their animals and the propertyShe's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. This time itFreya's winter former mentor and sheCarole's spending a month in close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the Cotswold village of Hampnett. It wouldn't be a job for all of us but Thea delights in getting circumstances seem suspicious, to know the local people and say the arealeast. In Arthur was the past she's also reason why Freya had not been involved with back to the police village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in solving various cases but it looks business together as though that might have come antique hunters, she has not felt able to an end as be near the man or pursue the relationship profession she had with DS Phil Hollis has crumbledloved. For After the first time Thea feels like an outsider – and a foolish one - when split, she finds footsteps in the snow which lead to a body worked in a nearby field. When cafe, met and married James (on the police finally arrive rebound from the body has disappeared love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and the police obviously wonder if she's imagined it allJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007478</amazonuk>
}}
{{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.''
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 feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I 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're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tad TulejaSunny Singh|title=A Dictionary of Foreign Words and PhrasesHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Home and FamilyThrillers |summary=Take The Hotel Arcadia is a look at the cover design of this book, and you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a trivia compendium for all those foreign words luxury hotel in an unnamed city that have has suddenly been violently taken part in our English language since whenever they crossed over from their original homesby a terrorist group. But Hiding from the title terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is definitely honestSam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for this is the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a dictionary book firstbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, for referenceand keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and a browser for they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the trivia buff secondterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709089562</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Rice1529153298|title=Angel TimeThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Toby OIt'Dare s 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for musicPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, history and playing his beloved lutehonestly... He) She's not what's worrying Miv's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years agofamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. One day while on a Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'job. When you' he re from Yorkshire, Down South is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemptionfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Toby agrees For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to become prevent that. She's not worried about the Angeldangers or that her Mum's human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment stopped talking - to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century Englandanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer1398524085|title=1415: Henry V's Year of GloryHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=The medievalCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, in fact timeEtty. are all worried but - strangely -honouredher husband, Alec, view of King Henry V as one of England's greatest heroes was propagated though is not originated by Shakespeare. Shortly afterwards, Etty and again more recently to some extent by OlivierGreg, find the body of Greg's portrayal father, Duncan Ackerley, in filmthe river. At least one historian has called him ''It was an easy assumption for the greatest man police to make that ever ruled EnglandDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Deborah Gregory1035906708|title=Dancing With The Dead|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead'', because I'm interested in family history. The blurb on the back of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine of the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up). I felt with all these links, the novel could not fail to interest me – but this was not the case.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Miss Read|title=Christmas at Thrush GreenDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Set in the rural village We tend to think of Thrush GreenMaria Callas as Greek, this book is the latest but she was born to Greek parents in a series surrounding familiar characters. There is the feisty Ella BembridgeManhattan, New York, who is finally having in December 1923 and only moved to admit that old age is creeping up as her eyesight failsAthens when she was thirteen. Friends such as Dimity and Charles Henstock are concerned about Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her, but she refuses father changed it to accept any help. Albert Piggott has decided it's time Callas' to retire now make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that his wife, Nelly, is she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a successful cafe owner mother who mercilessly exploited her and can afford to take care made no secret of him! And relative newcomer Phil Hurst and her husband are arranging the local nativity playpreference for her elder sister, despite a number of set-backsJackie. Will everything be in place for Christmas? And will independent Ella make a decision about her future?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409101592</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt and DaveChristopher Edge|title=Yuck's Robotic BottomBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's concerned me Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a while that it's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls – princesses, magic soft toysmovie marathon at their local cinema, mermaids and pets abound – but there's a much smaller choice for boys. It's important too with early readers place that has the content is nickname of 'The Black Hole'interesting'' and reading becomes more than just something which you ''have'' to do at school and moves into being fun. Matt and Dave have found the answer in Yuck.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John E Smelcer|title=The Great Death|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary='As Western Europeans settled AlaskaAll big movie fans, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning 're looking forward to lots of the twentieth centuryexciting films, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measlesand many, smallpoxmany snacks! However, and influenza. No community was spared. In most casesas the movie starts, half of a village's population died within a week. In some casesthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, there were no survivors. It was the end of and they are swept up into an ancient way of lifeadventure they couldn't even imagine. Natives still refer But as they lurch from one film genre to the dreadful period as next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the Great Death.'cinema, and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maxine BarryRachel Greenlaw|title=River DeepCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionTeens|summary=Two young women both have a love of the Thames. Melisande Ray's beloved hotel, 'I can hear the Ray song of Sunshine is on the river banksea. It's here that guests come who want to be pampered and looked after in The call of the way that only deep, the best hotels can do well, but when Wendell James checks answering beat in to the hotel it's not pampering he's looking formy heart. He's buying a piece of land not far from the Ray of Sunshine and he's sussing out the competition. There's something personal in there too – if his new hotel means that the Ray of Sunshine goes under then that would be an added bonus. There's just a slight doubt in his mind when a red-haired maid catches his eye.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Joe Gores|title=Spade Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and Archer|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Sam Spade decidesplundering the wrecks. Mira, bravelylike her mother before her, to set up his is one-man detective agency. It's of the 1920s in San Francisco so we have seven who swim out to survey the prohibition era ruins – rescuing any survivors and all any treasure that that entailslies within. Many locals, of course, choose But when the Council Watch lays a trap to disobey end the lawwrecking, stick two fingers up, so to speak they capture the island's leader and as a result thereMira's lots of bootleg liquorfather. Straight awayDesperate to save him from death, it's evident that Sam 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 man 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 few words. He has foreign islands to the mannerisms heart of a cat - stealthy, quick on his feet. Hethe smuggler's also a compulsive chain-smoker, but then againterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most people were. In that era, holding a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessory. How times have changeddear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140911323X</amazonuk>0008664730
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester ClarkJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Best of TimesPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most children enjoy Things have been a good traditional tale bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to automation have all the right ingredients – a handsome prince and a beautiful princess who fall in lovebeen proceeding apace, get married often replacing jobs they're paid to do and live happily ever afterother tasks that took time to accomplish. Or do Just as they? Sadly, not long after Prince Frederico marries the lovely Princess Serafina, she becomes very sad. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadness, but poor Prince Frederico is desperate were beginning to get used to find a cure for his wife's misery. He tries everything in his power all this technological change and eventually decides starting to offer his kingdom think of other, new ways to anyone who can make her happy again before she dies of a broken heartspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Lots of people come to the palace to try Life was pretty much shut down and help but in , along with it, all the end the solution is a simple one provided by some very kind travellersmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonMatthew Tree|title=We Have Always Lived In The Castle'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, is eighteenTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and lives with her older sister Constance in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always lived'. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world by a series chronic underachiever whose dreams of matter being exceptional at any of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister his artistic passions all failed miserably and death cap mushrooms, and everyone else in her family is deadwho had endless crises of self confidence. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against the world', shutting out other peopleSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and they live near a village. Merricat believes that 'The people of the village have always hated us', and tells us that she hates them tooset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191457</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=Simon Weston|title=Nelson to Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the Rescue|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike the Milk's milk floatworld, but he has now retired. He lives in lies Silverton; a town under the stable at the back protection of the dairy along with a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri and RhysBriar's, a pigeon who has no sense family of direction, a frog witches who thinks he's a secret agent spy protect the town and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleepingthe wider world from the Darklands. Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mike's fridge and the animals believe that Mike Though she has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE. Somehow our heroalways wished for magic, Nelson, finds himself travelling down Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to London, pulling a ceremonial coach be born into her family for Prince Charles generations and as well such since she was young, her training as giving a TV interview about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situation, steward revolved around letters and fear administration rather than spells and trepidation can be become your constant companionspotions. In this novellaWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their childrenthe town's futures on a scientific basisleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, growing their own fruit right and vegetablescentre, giving their children nothing sugaryEllie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, eating no eggs for putting her at the heart of a whole year until any adverse affects maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins one family secret to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with himanother, begins Ellie must decide who to let things slip at home trust and with determine what to do as the childrenBriar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present dangerunder threat.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>1803364548
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine May1529900360|title=Burning OutThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Violet has it all – a wellIt 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-paid job, and -shut cases which didn't need the help of a luxurious apartment all to herselfpsychologist only worked for a while. Everything is catered for; her meals Finally, it was Robin, her clothesDelaware's partner, and her health are all how she would like them to bewho nudged Milo into asking for help again. But She knew that the involvement was something that the life man she is leading is beginning to take its tollloved needed. The next case did look simple, though. On Two lovers were murdered in the verge swimming pool of snapping, a drained remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home town. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used is married to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isnan extremely rich man and it't a ghost, but a girl living s not the life Violet once lived – exactly the sameItalian. Haunted by But which of them was the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girl.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Downum1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Drowning CitySecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=In Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a nutshellGP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, youparticularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocres life. You've probably glanced at When he was seventeen he took the rating opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and guessed was convinced this was the latterjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. IIt hadn'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelingschild. I started off convinced that I was going If anything, he'd wanted 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 evocativebe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson0861541774|title=The True Deceiver|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daniel Kehlmann |title=Me and Kaminski|rating=4.5|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 Nye 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 of British light entertainment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPheasants|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Off, but just like him, his tomatoes aren't growing very big. He takes the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes a song. The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Delaney |title=The Spook's Stories: WitchesSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book is 'seriously scary'...
 
The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls in love with a witch and is forced to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-children.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Lisa Unger
|title=Die For You
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from work, she realises something is wrong. Going to his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that sheDCI Domenic Jejeune's been living a lie for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out to find her husband close friend and work out why he lied to her for so long. Ignoring police warningsformer colleague, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworldDanny Maik, and finds has taken a tale which has its roots short holiday in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa McMann|title=Wake|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home Singapore to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in the way of resources. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than the one she'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 way...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in meet up with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing familyan old ally, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'Guy Trueman. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her home life, and her daughter's year two teacher is coming to terms with Maik was involved in a break up. The stories of these people come together to create street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a tale of life, love, and ultimately, what being part of man armed with a family means.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=F G Cottam|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is the sort of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife knife - and daughter in he killed a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole worldGhurka. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful Initially, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the deadman. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after Now he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to could be possessedfacing the death penalty. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herselfwouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=I shall start with The Perfect Passion Company is a word of advice. When you're being hounded dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a circus mastermore 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 magician, trip to Canada to get away for the soul a while. Katie is coming out of a tiger that's contained in break up with a tiger's egg that's contained in bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the brain of your teddy bearchance 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 your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to make sure the other angels do not turn on you charm. Katie has no experience in running a big way business, or in match- then you're probably living the third book making, but Ness has full confidence in a fantasy trilogy. Still - never mindher abilities, the angeland there's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight always her very helpful (and cloud citiesrather handsome) neighbour, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and backWilliam, and friends new and old will be on board to help.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend0811771741|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. ItMelissa Leapman's not quite how life was supposed ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to turn outblankets. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life cosy afternoons in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out front of her quest to appear on the vile fire'variety. The projects are divided by the time they'Jeremy Kyle'' showll take to complete - less than five hours, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits five to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yetten hours, the worst is still ten to cometwenty hours and more than twenty hours. Think a crumbling economy All the projects are attractive, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes modern and a query over the big C – ituseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and theresocial-media-worthy projects's little but that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around hims me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren KateDean Koontz|title=FallenThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensParanormal|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets Benny is having a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn toterrifically bad day. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to herloses his job, until he saves her lifeloses his fiancee, and the two of them end up drawn togetherhis house gets trashed. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'' Oh, but it certainly and someone 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 delivered a most appropriate mannerreally weird, but I do not like King Lear. For me, even as a trained actordisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the language thing that has trashed his house! The thing is too dense and rich, Benny is the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought very last person to bedeserve all this bad luck. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which it's held He is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blusteringa nice person.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta|rating=3really nice person.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in India, familiar territory So fortunately for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells Benny it turns out that the story of delivery to his house is a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until new friend, a chance letter bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from an American ex-pat, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating nefarious forces for being a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected waysgood person. The story Spike is more about obsession going to take care of Benny, and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Ungerwill certainly take care of Benny's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than sheenemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's letting on?wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Toby LesterAdam Stower|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers |summary=In 2003 Murray is supposed to be a map was bought for $10 millionhumble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical documentwell, by whatever takes his fancy next of the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public displaytwo. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as AmericaBut he's a bad magician's birth certificate. It is cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the 16th centuryregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901whiffs. The sale and story behind This time round it intrigued Toby Lester so drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much that he bigger than Murray was inspired , to discover morebe honest, but he's turned up and this book is the result.he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''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 that the answer for both could well be.... no.
{{newreview|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.Fragility'' Surely that is set as the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the world. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authorscity of Portland, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern worldOregon, the entire banking system, all those who failed cautiously begins to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on emerge from the expenses train, and back up restrictions imposed during the rich lists.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>covid pandemic
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton1529431735|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?The Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her backIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, and leaves which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the town of Lamonic Bibber Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls out with decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his best friendex-wife, causing carnivorous carnage all over the placesaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. Meat is getting thrown around like itIt's going out of fashionhard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and we have sent to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise a watery grave in the power boot of love and put things to rightsa stolen Ford Sierra. Especially as this book does not contain Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>problem closer to home?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Loose WomenAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Here Come the GirlsThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Home and Family
|summary=This is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised on the cover, this book is an entertaining night with the girls. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yet, with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity faces. The women are universally warm-hearted and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the evening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jean Ure
|title=Fortune Cookie
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fudge Cassidy Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of evening a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got helper at the idea fromdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. They're actually chalk and cheese Eli lives with his lovely gran, too Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake for there is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination works. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with generation missing in the problems and he now has another family. ItA few short years ago, Eli's just Cupcakeparents were both lost to the titular race, 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 globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the richest and most opulent city world in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one company of them), and became Queen in 1777a magical beast. A conscientious woman, she had This has made the misfortune race anathema to be born in during the 'age of reason', pair – but when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of bad incident at the old religion, with eatery leads to a humanitarian approach to state affairsconfession from gran, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan Eli knows his only hope is Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Well, with a title like thatto dare to enter what he most hates, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in sole aim the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array prize of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's deadmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Eggers178763681X|title=The Wild ThingsKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Meet MaxChef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. When I say He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he sometimes gets wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the wrong end of impression that he'd be at the stick about adults, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendschool to assist Paul, or gets who had a bit feisty when he feels the need for revengebroken arm, I am certainly understating but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the factsproblems - are all his own. He is a bit of a rascal The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to say the leastturn up dead. But all Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that might change when he finds himself travelling person to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kingbe the prime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}

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