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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life 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, & self-published books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|plus author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__ ==The Best New Books== '''Read [[Features:Category:New Reviews|new featuresreviews by category]].'''<br>__NOTOC__{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:Features|author=Jennifer Johnston|title=Truth or Fiction|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Caroline Wallace is not a happy womanthe latest features]]. She has waited ten years for her lover to propose to her, and now just as he finally does, she has to go to Dublin to interview faded literary star Desmond Fitzmaurice. Desmond promises his tale will be brimful of 'sex and violence', but Caroline has no idea of the mystery that lies at the heart of his story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755330544</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guy Delisle0008517061|title=Pyongyang: A Journey Death in North Koreaa Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Meet GuyFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. He's There’s perhaps a French-Canadian animator, leaving home for a short stay in little uncertainty about the capital of one future of the world's most intriguinghis life with his vet girlfriend, unknown Livia and alien cultures - Pyongyangher daughter Diana, North Korea - so he can work on as moving in together would mean a TV cartoon colot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-production. Forced grid and relaxing life to stay move in one of with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the three official hotels designed future she wants for foreigners, so that herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the locals present and people such as he do not have to mix, he see glimpses of putting the unique socialist dictatorship, stunning views of the buildings forced through future on the poverty, and thousands of unreadable facesback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079905</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Osman1786482126|title=QuicksilverThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'Quicksilver'' is apartments - when they discovered the story bones of Wolfie, Tala and Zi'ib, three ordinary children from three different continentsa child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. They have never met, until Was this a strange chain of events involving gun-toting gangs and eccentric old men means they all end up in Thornhamritual killing or murder? Inevitably, a London suburb. They soon realise they are connected: they all have green eyes Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with golden flecks and a missing parentDCI Harry Nelson. But was it fate It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, chance or the ley lines that encompass she is pregnant with his child as a result of the earth that brought them one night they spent together? Before you know it they're solving clues and fulfilling a one thousand year old prophecysome three months ago. But all they want Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to do is find their parentssudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407105736</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Janes0008551324|title=Edwardian Murder: Ightham & the Morpeth Train RobberyThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Two murders took place in Edwardian England less than two years apart, one in It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the south-east and police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other . But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the north-eastpolice doing what he wants. At first glance they seemed And what he wants is to be transferred to have nothing an open prison to do with each otherserve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, but years later a link between them was hinted at though never proved beyond doubt. is it? The author has investigated new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the connection other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and come up anyone who works with a riveting bookhim is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752449451</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Gay0008405026|title=Modernism: The Lure of Heresy - From Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond|rating=4|genre=History|summary=It is impossible not to be impressed by the sheer scope of cultural historian Peter Gay's 2007 study of Modernism, newly released in this paperback edition. He notes A Stranger in the introduction that it is not a 'comprehensive history' but rather 'a study of its rise, triumphs, and decline'. What is remarkable though, is the attempt to include the whole gamut of artistic fields in this coherent study.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099441969</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Rachel Caine|title=Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires)Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=TeensCrime|summary=If you havenIt't already, meet Claires sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She is beholden was never found and the investigation ground to Mr Bishopa halt. Now, the horrid evil vampire that is ruling the town of Morganvilleher mother, even more so than the other humanHelena, and vampire, inhabitants her father aredead in their bed. Initially, now that he has taken over things from Claireit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's former ruler Amelie. She is caught in a struggle between something about the two warring vampire factions, especially over an unusual form positioning of disease among the undead - Amelie's side definitely trying to cure bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it, Bishop somehow trying was going to provoke it be an open-and profit from it-shut case is now a complex double murder. Not only Kerrigan is convinced that, her boyfriend is imprisoned, along with his father, one of the worldexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's least subtle vampire huntersboss, Una Burt) are less convinced. Can she have enough quality time with him? Can she and her captured-and-turned ex-housemate Michael survive the horrid things asked of them? And who is Ada?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>074900777X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Dahme 0571379877|title=Tombstone TeaThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Having recently moved to Edward Jevons is a new schoolworking-class young man, in a new townobsessed with his upper-class friends, Jessie is struggling to make friends Robert and fit inStanza. She is afraid to show these new people who she really is - in her old school she often found she had Robert'blanks a theatre director. He' momentss also self-obsessed, when she could hear voices demanding, handsome and entitled and 'see' people who weren't really thereuses Edward to run errands for him. In desperation to become part of a 'group' she accepts the dare of a group of girls to spend the night Edward has been in the Cemetery love with Stanza since their university days - and collect some gravestone rubbings he's drunkenly confided how he feels to prove she was thereRobert. Once there she bumps into Paul, the handsome caretaker, and finds herself Most men in the middle of a strange evening when, Paul claims, local actors get together to rehearse for something called the Robert'Tombstone Tea', s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a play in which they portray those buried in the graveyard...thererelationship had begun between them but he's something strange though about these actors and Jessie soon finds herself caught up not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a chilling dramadark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762437189</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stieg Larsson and Reg Keeland (translator)Jo Callaghan|title=The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' NestLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=[[The Girl with When a man is found crucified on the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and Reg Keeland (translator)|The Girl with top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the Dragon Tattoo]]case alongside her sidekick, the first of Steig LarssonAI detective Lock. It's Millennium trilogy of thrillerstheir first live case together, was having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a fine stand-alone novel. The second in the seriesbody found crucified a few days later, [[The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and Reg Keeland (translator)|The Girl Who Played With Fire]], continues the adventures a very high profile case that draws a lot of Lisbeth Salander, Larsson's finely crafted anti-hero. If you haven't read this second volume yet I advise you unwanted attention to stop reading this review nowtheir AI Future Policing project. I'm about Will they be able to spoil solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the ending for you…case and, potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694168</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Chamberlain1399613073|title=The Bay at MidnightMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=The story starts properly Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a letter perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is discoveredthe free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. It will have devastating When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences for several families . Twenty- and life five years later there will never be an eerily similar event that will impact the same againthree friends. ApparentlyThis time, it's their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the wrong person East End, where he was convicted for a murderfamiliar with violence, poverty and injustice. Moreover, There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the writer London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of this letter appears us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to know who did commit this crimebe stupid. UnfortunatelyIt was his ability at what was, the writer dies before able to make contact essentially, a card game which got him an internship with the policeCitibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Miller1035021803|title=Sea WolfThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Hanna, Ned and Jik. TheyIt're on an unlikely quest s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to recover the worldEnglish country village where she grew up. She's biggest and richest pearl, back now because of a request for help from the hiding place Jik alone knows ofher beloved aunt, when there's a problem in the shape of a tornadoCarole. TheyFreya're thrown from the craft theys former mentor and Carole're ons close friend, Arthur Crockleford, Ned disappears - is dead and then there were twothe circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Hanna and Jik get rescued by Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the occupants of a horridvillage: Arthur, piratical craftshe feels, engaged in very environmentally-unfriendly fishinglet her down badly. Jik gets overworked and underfedEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, and then there was one..she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Only one - Hanna - with After the spunksplit, she worked in a cafe, brainpower met and energy to keep married James (on the rebound from the love of her spirit togetherlife, who was murdered) and try Freya and get one up on the Maestro who commands the boatJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729020</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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonSunny Singh|title=The Lottery and Other StoriesHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Short StoriesThrillers |summary=Even though it was written The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over sixty years agoby a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, The Lotterykilling everyone on site, there is Sam, coming in at fewer than 3a wartime photographer and Abhi,500 words still has the power hotel manager. As Abhi continues to shock. When it first appeared try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the The New Yorker in 1948 it caused many outraged readers hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to cancel their subscriptions such was the devastating nature be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of the storyher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Time may have lessened sensibilities Although they only ever talk over the latter half of the twentieth century phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the beginning of the twenty first but The Lottery, like many of the other stories in this timely reissue, still packs a mighty punchterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191430</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hazel McHaffie 1529153298|title=Right to DieThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just once's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but for Naomi, Adamto have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's death is just overheard that her father wants to move the beginningfamily 'Down South'. Coming across his personal, private diary of his time When you're from diagnosis to subsequent demiseYorkshire, she Down South is forced to relive a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the awful months during which his body began to betray him move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and his will she'll do anything to live was replaced with a will prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to die...on his own termsanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Sapp1398524085|title=Christmas Is...|rating=3|genre=For Sharing|summary=Christmas is looming and thus the market for picture books featuring santas, presents and Christmas trees. It's hard to come up with anything new here, and it's rather not the point - is itHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? Christmas is, after all, about annually repeated celebration of traditional rituals that add delight and nourishment to the spiritual, emotional and social fabric of life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007303750</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gary Giddins and Scott Deveaux|title=JazzNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=EntertainmentCrime|summary=At first glance this 700-page volume might look a little dauntingCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Do Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not be daunted. If you want a small pocket book which merely scratches at Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the surface and can probably be digested body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in a sitting or two, look elsewherethe river. On It was an easy assumption for the other hand, if you want an extremely readable police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and comprehensive book on jazz which then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can not only be read cover to cover, do but also retained as a work of reference to use again get on with their lives and again, I doubt if this can be betteredwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068617</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Wrangham 1035906708|title=Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Distracted by the discovery that her husband has been having an affairWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, a middle-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lanebut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, killing Ruth MitchellNew York, an elderly cyclist. The woman doesn't wait for the police in December 1923 and only moved to arrive; Athens when she goes home and parks her car in the garage where she smashes it almost beyond recognitionwas thirteen. When Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her arrogant husband sees the damage he believes father changed itto 's been done to punish him and he packs his bags. After a few days the woman goes to the home of the dead woman; she doesnCallas't go to make it more manageable in the door, but from a hidden spot nearby States. When she can see the widower, an elderly gentleman who is clearly not coping well. Wracked with guilt, the woman makes a decision: the only way was back in Athens - supposedly so that she can atone could get appropriate training for her actions is to step into voice - she was raised under the shoes Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the dead womanher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel McCreryChristopher Edge|title=Tooth and ClawBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Another serial killer is on the loose, Lucas and yet again the police have failed to connect the deaths. Carl Whittley has just tortured his friends are all booked in for a glamorous TV presenter to death - leaving a singularly gruesome tableau - and blown a hapless commuter to smithereens movie marathon at their local cinema, a railway station. He's planning his next murder already, secreted away in the shed at place that has the bottom nickname of the garden of the house he shares with his invalid father'The Black Hole'. Carl is embittered and lonely - with his mother living away and pursuing a career as a forensic psychologist All big movie fans, therethey's only him re looking forward to take care lots of his severely disabled father: to change the colostomy bagexciting films, to cookand many, to clean, to, well, just to bear it, really. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847248071</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Hornby|title=An Education: The Screenplay|rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Adroit marketing? many snacks! WellHowever, yes. ''An Education'' has been publishedas the movie starts, of coursethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, to coincide with the filmand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's general release in the UKt even imagine. Hardly surprising since our national appetite for nosiness seems insatiable and cosy background details prop up every telly series and But as they lurch from one film these days. As well as genre to the screenplaynext, Nick Hornby has provided an introduction and diary of can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the film's successful premiere at the Sundance Festival in Utah. Beyond triviacinema, I think this fascinating little book presents an excellent 'how and to' guide for wannabes from one of Britain's most respected screen and novel writers.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141044748</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=The Harvard LampoonRachel Greenlaw|title=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=HumourTeens|summary=Most people will have heard ''I can hear the song of the worldwide phenomenon that is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]sea. The books by Stephenie Meyer and the film have made a legend call of the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays deep, the movie role) and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart)answering beat in my heart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013330</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Haunting of Hill HousePlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=There was Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time before Stephen Kingto accomplish. There was Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time before ''The Shining'', along came an awful pandemic. There Life was a time when 'horror' was not rooted in blood, guts pretty much shut down and gore. I owe a slight apology to Mr King, because along with it, all the gutsier side of the genre, I will own that he is a master at suspensemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill Tomlinson and Paul HowardMatthew Tree|title=The Penguin Who Wanted To Find OutWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Otto the penguin lives on Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father's feet , a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at the bottom any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of the worldself confidence. He's an inquisitive little thing and wants So Tim applied himself to know why they haven't fallen off the world. His dad explains that they won't Because I say so. Otto and his friend Leo gradually expand their horizons from their fathers' feet - they meet other penguin chicksstudies, get to know their aunts who watch them when their fathers are away, and eventually grow feathers so they're big enough to toboggan on their bellies cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and swim in the seaset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140523041X</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{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.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ryan David Jahn 1529900360|title=Acts of ViolenceThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kat Marino is stabbed It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on her way home from workdifficult cases. All she wanted was His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a hot bath after psychologist only worked for a hard daywhile. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's workpartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. From this point She knew that the novel skips nimbly from one neighbour to involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The nextcase did look simple, all of whom are absorbed in their own dilemmasthough. There is Two lovers were murdered in the draftee with swimming pool of a sick mother, the nurse who thinks she has run over a baby, the woman who suspects her husband of cheating and othersremote property in Bel Air. We are shown what these characters were doing that evening, He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and how these events drag through she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the morningItalian. We are shown how in the midst But which of their own interesting, poignant and dangerous concerns a woman is stabbed in the courtyard onto which all their windows look, through which windows they witness them was the attack, and how these people did nothing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743595</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Josh LaceySion Rowlands|titlerating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Two Tigers 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 Stringvet 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=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=BenDCI Domenic Jejeune's not too keen close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to be sharing his bedroom meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with his halfa knife -brother, Frankand he killed a Ghurka. But you don't have to be the hero Initially, he faced a charge of a detective adventure such as this book manslaughter but evidence came to know light that as Frank's mother has vanished from suggested that he might have planned to murder the face of man. Now he could be facing the Earth, Ben will let it lie - for a whiledeath penalty. Nor is it too surprising Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to see the four Misfitz together, on help as any interference from another case, as they go on the hunt for the missing womanpolice force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407109782</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia WilliamsAlexander McCall Smith|title=Last ChristmasThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=With Christmas fast approachingThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, what better way of getting run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the spirit business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of things than by reading this excellent book that captures the joys a break up with a bad boyfriend, and stresses of so jumps at the festive season chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so well? The reader follows four different people – Catherine Tinsall begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her husband Noelabilities, Marianne Moore and Gabriel North. Each of these characters have their own reasons for not really looking forward to Christmas there's always her very helpful (mainly because of the experience of last Christmasand rather handsome) and these reasons slowly become apparent neighbour, William, to the reader as the story progresses.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847560865</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nigel McCrery0811771741|title=Core of EvilInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=Violet Chambers becomes Daisy Wilson through an aromatic cup Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of tea, flavoured with Christmas rosesknits from toys to blankets. '"There Some will be quick knits - others are all kinds of horrible things the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the Christmas rosefire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours," she saidfive to ten hours, watching ten to see whether Daisy could still hear hertwenty hours and more than twenty hours. "Helleborin and hellebrin All the projects are both like digitalis, which I've also used beforeattractive, but there's saporin modern and protoanemonin as welluseable. It I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's a very nasty cocktail."' And now Daisy has met her rather sticky social- and graphically effluent media- end, and Violet has become Daisy, Daisy sets her sights on a new town, a new identity and, most importantly, a new victim. Daisy has problems with her memory - the identities go back so far worthy projects' but that sometimes she can barely remember who is she is now, let alone all the whos she's been before, and most certainly not the who with whom she beganme being picky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847243843</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteDean Koontz|title=Jonathan Wild: Conman and CutpurseThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryParanormal|summary=Born towards the end of the seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to become the eighteenth centuryhis home, and it's most famous criminalpossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, plying his trade in Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a rather curious fashionnice person. He was born in Wolverhampton of parents described as ''mean but honest'' A really nice person. It seems likely So fortunately for Benny it turns out that he first travelled the delivery to London as the servant of his house is a new friend, a lawyer where he was eventually to settlebad weather friend called Spike, leaving his wife and child who has been sent to fend help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for themselvesbeing a good person. It was whilst serving a term Spike is going to take care of imprisonment in Wood Street Compter that he mixed with the cream Benny, and will certainly take care of LondonBenny's criminal underclass enemies, if he, Benny, and learned the rudiments of his tradeHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848682190</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=K M GrantAdam Stower|title=Paradise Red (Perfect Fire Trilogy)Murray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=We are back in the south Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of France for the third and final timetwo. In one corner, the But he'Frenchs a bad magician's cat, with King Louis and so his henchmen rampaging throughfavourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, warring in and the name of peace. In another cornercatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the local peopleregular back garden, struggling in the harsh environment but into a world of frightening adventure and none too pleased to see their corner of the world the location for religious wars, with the Cathar ''heretics'' also presentwhiffs. The lines are drawnThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, in where a realistically convoluted waytroll hunter is expected – well, and this book will see one of our heroes cross one such linemuch bigger than Murray was, just as other people make their own momentous decisions. It will take all the narrative skills of the land itself to get the story across be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to us.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247075</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Camilla NoliB0C47LV1PC|title=The Mother's TaleFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''It is early evening. I am suckling my infant son… We are picture perfect. Madonna and childYo birthing person''. No doubt about joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it: a new mother totally smitten with her son. Zach land? The catch is adorablethat the answer for both could well be. Quiet. Undemanding. A happy, generally relaxed, child. Gorgeousno.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=AQA 633361529431735|title=More Brilliant AnswersThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=TriviaCrime|summary=If youIt've got a question you can text those nice people at AQA 63336 s February 1991 and theyEssex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'll do their best to provide you with d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a prompt and accurate answerdecade. Over the last five years theyThe return has come about because he've answered some twenty million questions and each autumn they publish s had a book with the best letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and most interesting of the yearhasn's answerst long to live. ThereIt's some fun hard to be had feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in this year's bookthe boot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683262</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick O'BrienAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=You Are The First Kid On Mars|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=It is a sci-fi future of no danger whatsoever, with no technological breakdown, and no fatal meteor strike, but that of course is only to be expected for this market. I say it more to highlight how well the book has been illustrated. Digital airbrush techniques and more have taken the antiseptic sheen off the whole experience, but have still allowed for a great detail in the machinery, and also a lovely warmth in the face Glorious Race of the lad we're empathising with.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0399246347</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary Naylus|title=The DresskeeperMagical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Things are pretty grim for Picky. She Eli is thirteen years olda busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, being bullied and in the evening a helper at school, the dessert cafe his gran owns and has to spend her weekends helping her singleruns. Eli lives with his lovely gran, working mum to take care of her little brother and her senile grandmothertoo – for there is a generation missing in the family. One eveningA few short years ago, at her GranEli's houseparents were both lost to the titular race, she goes up into a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the attic and tries on an old dress that she finds inside an old chestworld in the company of a magical beast. The dress turns out This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to be magic, and she suddenly finds herself back in 17th Century Londona confession from gran, struggling with a strange man who Eli knows his only hope is calling her 'Amelia' and is trying to kill her. Picky ends up embroiled in Amelia's 17th century life as she tries dare to find out enter what he most hates, with the truth sole aim the prize of who is attempting to murder her, magic at the same time as trying end – the only thing to avoid arousing suspicion with her strange behaviour whenever she returns to the present daypossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956122280</amazonuk>0571382231
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Abbott Nez 178763681X|title=Cromwell Dixon's Sky-CycleKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Meet Cromwell DixonChef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. Hedidn's t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a real tinkerer, forever in a barn or somewhere building something manically unusualway of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Luckily - although his long-suffering mother may disagree with Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that word - he's around d be at the birth of powered flight. Will his plans for school to assist Paul, who had a pedalled air machine work?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0399250417</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Moorcroft|title=Starting Over|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=The story opens when Tess bumps her old reliable car into a breakdown truck. That's rather convenientbroken arm, since she isnbut it didn't hurt, turn out that way. The teaching - and the guy driving it is able to tow her to problems - are all his garage, and then give her a lift own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to her new hometurn up dead. Naturally Unfortunately, since this is he was the 'chick-lit' genre, Tess and the truck-driver, person who goes by discovered the unlikely name of Ratty (an abbreviation of his surname) feel mutual antipathy of body and everyone knows that the sort police consider that's clearly going person to lead, sooner or later, to strong attractionbe the prime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931224</amazonuk>
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