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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>
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Thornton0008517061|title=Until We Meet AgainDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=In the fateful summer of 1914 Tilly Moon is Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled in into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the midst future of the Moon family in Scarborough. It's an extensive clan his life with the usual close relationshipshis vet girlfriend, unusual situations Livia and slight distances between people for no apparent reason. Tilly's an accomplished pianist and she longs to take her music studies furtherdaughter Diana, but there's someone who's coming as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to mean more move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her than her music. Her twin's best friend, Dominic Fraser reservations about whether or not this is the apple of her eye future she wants for herself and he feels the same way about her. daughter? There are war clouds on For the moment they’re enjoying life in the horizon though present and when Britain declares war putting the future on Germany Tommy and Dominic are quick to enlist as were many of the men in and around the Moon familyback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007486</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Fitzgerald0008551324|title=Bloody WomenThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Before reading It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he'Bloody Women'', I hadn't heard of s prepared to tell the author Helen Fitzgerald and by police where the title body of a missing person is buried and blurbwho was responsible for her death. This person, I expected a standard crime-thriller novelhe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. But And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early onparole date. Not much to ask, I realised this wasnis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the case. The novel was a kind of black comedy other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and written anyone who works with wit and humour, despite the theme of murder and violencehim is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971330</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick Casey and Richard I Hale0008405026|title=For College, Club & Country - A History of Clifton Rugby Football ClubStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=Clifton Rugby Football Club can proudly trace its history back It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to the very emergence of the sport of rugby uniona halt. Founded in September 1872 Now, the same year that William Webb Ellisher mother, who is reputed to have been the rebellious Rugby schoolboy who first ran with the ballHelena, diedand her father are dead in their bed. In reality Initially, it is highly likely that looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the Webb Ellis story is something positioning of a spin job on behalf of Rugby School, although the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it did mean that Rugby School was able going to impose its rules on the game at be an open-and-shut case is now a time when most public schools had their own rules for playing versions of complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the gameexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312756</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeffery Deaver0571379877|title=The Bodies Left BehindKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When lawyer Emma Feldman and her husband Steven decided to buy Edward Jevons is a holiday home to give them the opportunity for much needed breaks from their hectic professional livesworking-class young man, they brought an old colonial house in the woods by Lake Mondac in Wisconsinobsessed with his upper-class friends, on foreclosure – it seemed like the deal of Robert and Stanza. Robert's a lifetimetheatre director. But on their first evening in the place He's also self-obsessed, demanding, a series of strange snapping noises outside begin handsome and entitled and uses Edward to freak the couple outrun errands for him. They know they are Edward has been in real trouble when a man love with shotgun and stocking mask appears at Stanza since their window. Another enters the building university days - and the only hope they have is that someone will take notice of Stevenhe's phone call drunkenly confided how he feels to the police, cut off by the intruders after Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he 's not like most men: Edward is able left to get out only one word – Thisstumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994037</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zadie SmithJo Callaghan|title=Changing My Mind: Occasional EssaysLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=AnthologiesCrime|summary=Zadie Smith When a man is best known as found crucified on the author top of three novels: White Teetha hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, The Autograph Man and On Beautythe AI detective Lock. She now teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. This collection But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a mixture very high profile case that draws a lot of literary criticism unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and journalism, including travel writingpotentially, reviews out of a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura and other writing Anjali met on film the first day of medical school and several pieces about Zadie Smith's familytheir 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 perfectionist and especially her fathera trauma doctor. It Anjali is divided into the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. 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. Twenty-five sections under years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the headings Readingthree friends. This time, Being, Seeing, Feeling and Rememberingit's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142954</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emily Bearn0241636604|title=Tumtum and Nutmeg's Christmas AdventureThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=I do look forward If you were to bring up an image of a good children's storycity banker in your mind, and having read Tumtum and Nutmegyou's [[The Pirates' Treasure (Tumtum and Nutmeg) by Emily Bearn|previous adventure on a pirate ship]] I was particularly looking forward re unlikely to this onethink of someone like Gary Stevenson. It's Christmas, A hoodie and our two friendly little mice have been working hard, preparing delicious treats jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and temptations ready for Christmas Day. One evening they go upstairs to check on his background is the children who live in their houseEast End, Arthur and Lucywhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and find their letters to Father Christmasinjustice. Last year the children didn't get any presents because their chimney There was blocked up and Father Christmas couldn't get in. They've asked for the same presents again this year, hopeful that this year Father Christmas will manage no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to find a way through even though their father refuses to unblock the chimney for fear London School of draftsEconomics. Tumtum Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and Nutmeg are worried anyway that the letter won't reach Father Christmas in time, and that the children will be disappointed once againhe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. They decide He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to take matters into their own hands and set off to visit the terrifying Baron Toymouse in Toy Kingdom to see if he can helpbe stupid. HoweverIt was his ability at what was, with clockwork cats to contend withessentially, and the capture of Tumtum by the evil Baron, Christmas could turn out to be a card game which got him an even bigger disaster than they'd thought.internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405250267</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=M C Beaton1035021803|title=Agatha Raisin: There Goes The BrideAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Private investigator Agatha Raisin is not a happy womanIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She is concerned with the rate at which 's back now because of a request for help from her body is ageing; even worsebeloved aunt, her ex-husbandCarole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, JamesArthur Crockleford, is getting married dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to a much younger woman and Agatha has say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been invited back to the weddingvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. She goes, with plenty of friends Even though they were in tow and looks forward to the whole thing being over as soon business together as possible. She sees James just before the weddingantique hunters, when he makes it clear that he she has changed his mind and wants not felt able to pull out of be near the man or pursue the weddingprofession she loved. Then After the bride is killedsplit, by she worked in a bullet through cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the windowlove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James and Agatha are the primary suspectshave now divorced. Can they prove their innocence while finding out who the real perpetrator is?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845299531</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janice GallowayAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Collected StoriesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=In this collection, stories are taken from two previous volumes, Blood and Where You Find It. The forty-two snap shots ''Opening up new ways of life are mainly thinking about the shape of women and young girls, struggling with emotions, sometimes realized and sometimes not. In all, there seems things to be an underlying link of isolation and truthcome. The settings are varied, from a visit to the dentist to the place known as home, to a walk in the evening. We have a peek into the deepest darkest corners of everyday relationships, with lovers, partners and most of all ourselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540398</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Herta MullerSunny Singh|title=The PassportHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Literary FictionThrillers |summary=Meet WindischThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. A miller in a small village, he trudges Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through there, and through his neighbourskilling everyone on site, and through his lifethere is Sam, counting his days a wartime photographer and hoursAbhi, for reasons that are not initially clearthe hotel manager. But he does want something - he is waiting As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for a passport so he can leave for other climes. The perks of his job the residents who are still alive in the bags of flour hotel, he leaves forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by the mayorevents, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's house with regularityhappened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as an open bribe, but there might be a bigger sacrifice Abhi tries to have help her keep safe and they both wait to makesee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1852421398</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Billy Hopkins1529153298|title=Tommy's WorldThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born in October 1886 in CollyhurstIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, one of the poorerhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, inner-city suburbs of Manchesterthough. Women have been disappearing. His father had Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite a good job and there wasnso frightening. Miv's upset because she't a lot of money s overheard that her father wants to spare but Tommy remembered move the home as being filled with love and laughterfamily 'Down South'. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in the form of worldly goodsWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. All that was to change when his father died of spinal meningitis For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and he and his mother had she'll do anything to move into cheaper lodgingsprevent that. Even She's not worried about the dangers or that tenuous security wasnher Mum't s stopped talking - to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years oldanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Grant1398524085|title=HungerHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=The kids of Perdido Beach are still within the FAYZ, a barrier erected by Little Pete - no-one knows how - when the nuclear plant went into meltdown. An uneasy truce between SamCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's tribe of Perdido Beach kids and Caine's Coates Academy kids is beginning to waverfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. The food is running out Her children, sons Niall, Paul and the Darkness has its claws in all those it's encountered. Caine himself is reduced to delirium by the voice of the Darkness in his head Ollie and Lana the healer knows it's inevitable that she too will answer its callher daughter, Etty. Sam are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is struggling to keep any form of ordernot. As more and more kids begin to develop special powers Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the hunger bites deeper into everyonebody of Greg's belliesfather, it's inevitable that conflict will break out. And it doesDuncan Ackerley, in some very unpleasant ways. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405251522</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Various|title=Hello Kitty Guide to Life|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=''Hello Kitty'' is a huge worldwide phenomenon with a whole heap of related merchandise featuring the cute cartoon cat in dresses and ribbonsriver. It appeals was an easy assumption for the police to girls make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and women of many ages, but this new hardback book ''Hello Kitty – Guide to Life'then committed suicide when he couldn' is aimed at t stand the brandguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's younger fans, probably around 6 to 14 year oldslittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000732622X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claire Tomalin1035906708|title=Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn ManDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=I came We tend to this biography having read three think of Hardy's novelsMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, two quite recentlyNew York, in December 1923 and some of his poetry, only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but knowing very little about him as a personher father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably to life When she was back in these pagesAthens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=Caroline Wallace is not Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a happy womanplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. She has waited ten years for her lover All big movie fans, they're looking forward to propose to herlots of exciting films, and now just many, many snacks! However, as he finally doesthe movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, she has to go to Dublin to interview faded literary star Desmond Fitzmauriceand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Desmond promises his tale will be brimful of 'sex and violence'But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, but Caroline has no idea of can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the mystery that lies at the heart of his story.cinema, and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755330544</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Quicksilver'' is Things have been a bit sticky for the story of Wolfie, Tala Earthlings. AI and Zi'ib, three ordinary children from three different continents. They automation have never metbeen proceeding apace, until a strange chain of events involving gun-toting gangs often replacing jobs they're paid to do and eccentric old men means they all end up in Thornham, a London suburbother tasks that took time to accomplish. They soon realise they are connected: Just as they were beginning to get used to all have green eyes with golden flecks this technological change and a missing parentstarting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. But Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it fate, chance or the ley lines that encompass all the earth that brought them together? Before you know it many daily social interactions on which they're solving clues and fulfilling a one thousand year old prophecy. But all they want to do is find their parentsdepend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407105736</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane JanesMatthew Tree|title=Edwardian Murder: Ightham & the Morpeth Train RobberyWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Two murders took place in Edwardian England less Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than two years apartto be different from his father, one in the south-east a drunk and the other in the north-eastchronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. At first glance they seemed to have nothing So Tim applied himself to do with each otherhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but years later a link between them was hinted at though never proved beyond doubt. The author has investigated the connection and come up with a riveting bookachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752449451</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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Caine1529900360|title=Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires)The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=If you havenIt hadn't alreadybeen Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, meet ClaireSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. She is beholden to Mr Bishop, the horrid evil vampire His assertions that is ruling there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the town help of Morganvillea psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, even more so than the other human, and vampire, inhabitants areit was Robin, now that he has taken over things from ClaireDelaware's former ruler Ameliepartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She is caught knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in a struggle between the two warring vampire factions, especially over an unusual form swimming pool of disease among a remote property in Bel Air. He was the undead - Amelie's side definitely trying heir to cure it, Bishop somehow trying an Italian shoe empire and she is married to provoke it an extremely rich man and profit from it. Not only that, her boyfriend is imprisoned, along with his father, one of the world's least subtle vampire huntersnot the Italian. Can she have enough quality time with him? Can she and her captured-and-turned ex-housemate Michael survive the horrid things asked But which of themwas the primary target? And who is Ada?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>074900777X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Dahme 1529395224|title=Tombstone TeaLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Having recently moved to Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a new school, in a new town, Jessie is struggling to make friends GP and fit in. She is afraid Rowlands didn't want to show these new people who she really is - follow in her old school she often found she had 'blank' momentshis footsteps, particularly when she could hear voices and he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father'see' people who weren't really theres life. In desperation to become part When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a 'group' she accepts the dare of family friend who was a group of girls to spend the night in the Cemetery vet and collect some gravestone rubbings to prove she was thereconvinced this was the job for him. Once there she bumps into PaulBefore long, the handsome caretaker, and finds herself in the middle of a strange evening when, Paul claims, local actors get together to rehearse for something called the he was at Liverpool University. It hadn'Tombstone Tea', t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a play in which they portray those buried in the graveyardchild...there If anything, he's something strange though about these actors and Jessie soon finds herself caught up in d wanted to be a chilling dramaprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762437189</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stieg Larsson and Reg Keeland (translator)0861541774|title=The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' NestA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=[[The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and Reg Keeland (translator)|The Girl former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with the Dragon Tattoo]], the first of Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy of thrillersan old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a fine standknife -alone noveland he killed a Ghurka. The second in Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the series, [[The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson and Reg Keeland (translator)|The Girl Who Played With Fire]], continues man. Now he could be facing the adventures of Lisbeth Salander, Larsson's finely crafted anti-herodeath penalty. If you haven Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't read this second volume yet I advise you to stop reading this review nowhelp Danny at all. I'm about to spoil the ending for you…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694168</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane ChamberlainAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Bay at MidnightPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story starts properly when Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a letter is discoveredmore personal, tailored service. It will have devastating consequences for several families - Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and life will never be look after the same again. Apparentlybusiness, the wrong person was convicted as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a murderwhile. MoreoverKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the writer of chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this letter appears new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to know an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who did commit this crimequickly begin to charm. UnfortunatelyKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, the writer dies before able to make contact with the police.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Miller0811771741|title=Sea WolfInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=3.54|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Meet Hanna, Ned and Jik. TheyMelissa Leapman's ''re on an unlikely quest to recover the worldInstaKnits for Baby's biggest and richest pearl, from the hiding place Jik alone knows of, when there's gives us a problem in the shape collection of a tornadoknits from toys to blankets. TheySome will be quick knits - others are of the 're thrown from long, cosy afternoons in front of the craft theyfire're on, Ned disappears - and then there were twovariety. Hanna and Jik get rescued The projects are divided by the occupants of a horridtime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, piratical craftfive to ten hours, engaged in very environmentally-unfriendly fishingten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. Jik gets overworked and underfedAll the projects are attractive, modern and then there was one..useable. Only one I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social- Hanna media- with the spunk, brainpower and energy to keep her spirit together, and try and get one up on the Maestro who commands the boatworthy projects' but that's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729020</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katie DaviesDean Koontz|title=The Great Hamster MassacreBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Meet AnnaBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Rather than write the usual staid whatOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-I-did-in-my-holidays report for school, she is taking the time sized object to tell us about her pet issues over the summer, from recalling the Old Cathis home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the horror thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the New Cat, very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the New Rabbit down the roaddelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, and her own demands who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a hamster or twogood person. There are family secrets Spike is going to be revealed relating to hamsters take care of oldBenny, parents to argue withand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and finally Harper (a trip to the pet shop - and thatwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's just the start of Anna's troubleswild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847385958</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonAdam Stower|title=The Lottery Murray and Other StoriesBun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesConfident Readers |summary=Even though it was written over sixty years ago, The Lottery, coming in at fewer than 3,500 words still has the power Murray is supposed to shock. When it first appeared in the The New Yorker in 1948 it caused many outraged readers to cancel their subscriptions such was the devastating nature of the story. Time may have lessened sensibilities over the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first but The Lottery, like many of the other stories in this timely reissue, still packs be a mighty punch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191430</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hazel McHaffie |title=Right to Die|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just oncehumble, but for Naomitidy and friendly cat, Adam's death one who is just the beginning. Coming across his personal, private diary of his time from diagnosis to subsequent demise, she is forced to relive the awful months during which his body began able to betray him sleep and his will to live was replaced with a will to die...on his own terms.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Karen Sapp|title=Christmas Is...|rating=3|genre=For Sharing|summary=Christmas is looming eat and thus the market for picture books featuring santas, presents eat and Christmas trees. It's hard to come up with anything new here, sleep and it's rather not the point - is it? Christmas is, after allwell, about annually repeated celebration whatever takes his fancy next 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=Jazz|rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=At first glance this 700-page volume might look a little dauntingtwo. Do not be daunted. If you want But he's a small pocket book which merely scratches at the surface and can probably be digested in bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a sitting or twohyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, look elsewhere. On and the other handcatflap they both use can chuck them out, if you want an extremely readable and comprehensive book on jazz which can not only be read cover to coverinto the regular back garden, but also retained as into a work world of reference to use again frightening adventure and againwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, I doubt if this can be bettered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068617</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Wrangham |title=Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human |rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Humans are cooking apes. According to Richard Wranghamwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, mastery of fire and cooking of the food that resulted from it one much bigger than Murray was at the root of human evolutionary development and ultimate success. Various factors have been proposed as the crucial stimulus which led , to the appearance of the first recognisably human creatures: leaving aside divine intervention (be it from Godhonest, extra-terrestrials or future humans travelling in time), the candidates for what made our ancestral apes stand straighter but he's turned up and start growing brains range from socialised hunting he'll have to chattering about kinship to eating seafood.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682851</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.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nigel McCrery1529431735|title=Tooth and ClawThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Another serial killer It's February 1991 and Essex is on the loosebitingly cold, and yet again which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the police have failed to connect more surprising. He'd been exiled on the deathsCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Carl Whittley The return has just tortured come about because he's had a glamorous TV presenter to death - leaving a singularly gruesome tableau letter from his ex- wife, saying that she's ill and blown a hapless commuter hasn't long to smithereens at a railway stationlive. He It's planning hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his next murder already, secreted away underwear and sent to a watery grave in the shed at the bottom boot of the garden of the house he shares with his invalid fathera stolen Ford Sierra. Carl is embittered and lonely - with his mother living away and pursuing Is it a warning from a career as Spanish gang or a forensic psychologist, there's only him problem closer to take care of his severely disabled father: to change the colostomy bag, to cook, to clean, to, well, just to bear it, really. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847248071</amazonuk>home?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick Hornby|title=An Education: The Screenplay|rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Adroit marketing? Well, yes. ''An Education'' has been published, of course, to coincide with the film's general release in the UK. Hardly surprising since our national appetite for nosiness seems insatiable and cosy background details prop up every telly series and film these days. As well as the screenplay, Nick Hornby has provided an introduction and diary of the film's successful premiere at the Sundance Festival in Utah. Beyond trivia, I think this fascinating little book presents an excellent 'how to' guide for wannabes from one of Britain's most respected screen Alex Bell and novel writers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141044748</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=The Harvard LampoonTim McDonagh|title=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight |rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Most people will have heard of the worldwide phenomenon that is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]. The books by Stephenie Meyer and the film have made a legend Glorious Race of the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays the movie role) and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013330</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Elliott|title=Traitors' Gate (Crossroads)Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=Kate Elliott's ''Crossroads'' series has so far come Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in largethe wondrous library we start by visiting with him, slightly off-putting chunksand in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. They've been decent readsEli lives with his lovely gran, by and large, with too – for there is a huge cast of wonderfully drawn characters, but generation missing in the sheer size and slow pace of the action has meant I didn't enjoy them as much as I may otherwise have donefamily. A few short years ago, Eli''Traitors' Gate''s parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the third world in the sequence is different in company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only one aspect; the character development hope is still thereto dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the huge page count is still there, but end – the pacing is a lot betteronly thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498351</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Jackson178763681X|title=The Haunting of Hill HouseKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kat Marino is stabbed on her way home from work. All she wanted was Chef Paul Delamare took a hot bath after teaching job at a hard day's workresidential cookery school in Belgravia. From this point the novel skips nimbly from one neighbour He didn't really want to the next, all but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of whom are absorbed in their own dilemmasgetting both men and women to do what he wanted. There is Paul ''somehow'' got the draftee with a sick motherimpression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, the nurse who thinks she has run over had a babybroken arm, the woman who suspects her husband of cheating and othersbut it didn't turn out that way. We are shown what these characters were doing that evening, The teaching - and how these events drag through to the morning. We problems - are shown how in the midst 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 the attack, and how these people did nothing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743595</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Josh Lacey|title=Two Tigers on a String|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Ben's not too keen to be sharing his bedroom with his half-brother, Frankown. But you donThe one thing he hadn't have expected was for someone to be turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the hero of a detective adventure such as this book to know body and everyone knows that as Frank's mother has vanished from the face of the Earth, Ben will let it lie - for a while. Nor is it too surprising police consider that person to see the four Misfitz together, on another case, as they go on the hunt for be the missing womanprime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407109782</amazonuk>
}}
