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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, biographynon-fiction, crime, cookery and children's books & self-published books plus author interviews and & top tens.</metadesc><h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library, the charity shop and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.

Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in! Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''], [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''], [[File:instagram_classic_logo.png|link=https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/|alt=Follow us on Instagram]] [https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/ '''Instagram'''] and [[File:LinkedIn.png|link=https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-bookbag-1b12a264/|alt=LinkedIn]] There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews ]] at TheBookbag.

==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

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

|isbnauthor=0753553236Sylvie Cathrall|title=Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything|author=B J FoggA Letter to the Luminous Deep

|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary=Go on, admit it - you're not quite perfect. You still have those odd, quirky, even loveable (to you) habits that seem to annoy other people. Other people, of course, There are sorely afflicted with some dreadful flaws few greater joys than a book which they could so easily correct, if only they would make just lives up to a little bit of effortcompelling premise. Or put another way, I get cross with myself because I forget to do things or do some actions more than I should and no matter how I try to make what seem to be quite monumental changes I never quite seem to get to grips with the concepts. I constantly fail and then I get cross with myself for failing. Lack And this is one of willpower is another burden to add to the listthem.|isbn= 0356522776

|authorisbn= B T Keaton0008517061|title= TransferenceDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating= 4|genre= Science FictionCrime|summary= Barrabus Madzimure is about to dieFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, stranded on has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a mining planet millions little uncertainty about the future of light-years from homehis life with his vet girlfriend, executed for high crimes against the ChurchLivia and her daughter Diana, the ruling body of Earth. Except he's not Barrabus Madzimure, he's Thaniel Kilraven as moving in Barrabus Madzimure's body. Such is the magic together would mean a lot of Transference, the ability compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to transplant a person's soul move in with Livia or consciousness into a different body - and a power that the Church has exclusive control over. As if Thaniel doesn't have enough things does Livia move to worry Little Sky despite her reservations about, a Church employee named Corvus has arrived from Earth to interrogate him. All Thaniel whether or not this is the future she wants is to see his family again, for herself and he'll stop at nothing to accomplish this, but her daughter? For the Church isn't going to give moment they’re enjoying life in without a hell of a fight..the present and putting the future on the back burner.|isbn=B082WPHTHH

|authorisbn=Christine Brown1786482126|title=Bucket Showers and Baby Goats: Volunteering in West AfricaThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths

|genre=TravelCrime|summary=In Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the summer bones of 2008, this book's author a child beneath a doorway. There was spending her days working in an office job in the USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something elseno skull. Long story short Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, she ended up volunteering in Ghana, West AfricaDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Now coincidentally, in the summer of 2010, this review It's author was spending ''her'' days working in an office job (albeit in the UK) while spending ''her'difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something elset, and ''that she'' ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leone, West Africais pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. So you can see why, when this book came up Her condition will be obvious before long, said reviewer was delighted not least because Ruth is prone to have the opportunity to read and critique itsudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=171024299X

|authorisbn=Mark Lingane0008551324|title=Degrade The Devil You Know (Tesla ExpansionD S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary= It''Degrade'' opens as it means s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to go on - with inyerface, banging actionapproach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. Poor Arid, alone But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the desert since his parents were killed, has body of a narrow escape as two mega-rigs fight it out missing person is buried and his who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is pretty much destroyed. He finds himself rescued by the mysterious-but-fascinating Ella someone big and onboard it will be worth the ''Moonlight'' under police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the suspicious eyes remainder of its leaderhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, Queen Bea. Beais it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's eyes flash with recognition when he tells her his name - Arid Geiger even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - but before he can find out why make certain that is, there's an assassination attempt DS Max Craigie and Arid anyone who works with him is under suspicion and imprisoned. An escape facilitated by Ella - Queen Beakept well away from what's daughter - sees Arid and her other daughter, Frey, stranded in the deserthappening...|isbn= 099461649X

|isbn=B07XLM3SM60008405026|title=Murder at A Stranger in the Dolphin HotelFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Helena DixonJane Casey|rating=45|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Elowed Underhay was just twentyIt's sixteen years since nine-year-seven when she old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmotherbed one summer night. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her She was never found and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence investigation ground to suggest otherwisea halt. Kitty has come to terms with this Now, her mother, Helena, and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty father are dead in charge - and Kitty could not understand whytheir bed. SheInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's always coped with something about the mix positioning of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and she's done every job in the hotelher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in What looked as though it was going to keep be an eye on things ''open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotels boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.

|authorisbn=Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)0571379877|title=The Honjin MurdersKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5

|summary=To many readersEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'Robert and Stanza. For those who need more, here is the extra background – weRobert're in rural Japan in the 1930ss a theatre director. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting marriedHe's also self-obsessed, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned updemanding, what with it being arranged at great hastehandsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. She only Edward has an uncle representing her family, for one thing. Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death been in love with Stanza since their private annexe before the sun rises on their marriageuniversity days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. What with a man missing parts of his fingers being Most men in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a traditional musical instrument at relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the time two of the crime, this case has them kissing in a lot of the peculiar about itdark passageway.|isbn=1782275002

|author=Cixin LiuJo Callaghan|title=Death's EndLeave No Trace|rating=54|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary= If I'd been paying more attention when I picked this book up, I would have put it back When a man is found crucified on the shelf. Not because I didn't want to read it, but because I'd have figured out that it was the final part top of a trilogy. Coming hill in partway through a saga is never Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the easiest thing to do and it's particularly true in science fiction because without knowing case alongside her sidekick, the back-story there are not just people whose names mean nothing to you (when itAI detective Lock. It's assumed they will) but there are whole concepts that you won't understandtheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. This latter But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is particularly true suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of Cixin Liu's work – his range is phenomenalunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. George R R MartinWill they be able to solve the case in time, who knows a thing or two about world-creationwill Kat find herself taken off the case and, described it as ''a unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculationpotentially, conspiracy theory and cosmology''. All out of that and more.a career?|isbn=1784971650139851120X

|isbn=17808945111399613073|title=Die AloneMoral Injuries|author=Simon KernickChristie Watson|rating=4.5

|summary=Ray Mason is in prison awaiting trial for murder Olivia, Laura and he's in Anjali met on the vulnerable prisoner unit: as first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a cop, he's something quarter of a targetcentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, but which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the unit is not as secure as free spirit of the inmates would have hoped group and Mason is injured in she becomes a riotGP. On his way to hospital heWhen we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's broken free by armed men and an offer is made going to himend in tragedy. HeWe don's to assassinate t know who suffered the man who is likely to become tragedy or the country's next prime minister and he'll then consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be given a new identity so an eerily similar event that he can start afresh abroadwill impact the three friends. His captors say that theyThis time, it're MI6, but Mason has his doubts. His choices s their teenage children who are limited though and he has personal reasons to believe that it would be better if Alastair Sheridan was deadinvolved.

|authorisbn=Akwaeke Emezi0241636604|title=PetThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson

|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=The people 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 town Lucille believe that all pin-stripe suit and his background is the monsters are goneEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Their children are raised There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to understand that they were saved by the angels, those who rid the town London School of evil, and there are no monsters anymoreEconomics. But one day, Jam accidentally cuts herself Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and bleeds he has a little onto one facility with numbers which most of her mother's paintingsus can only envy. The blood awakens a bizarre, terrifying-looking creature named Pet, who somehow comes to life and declares He also realised that it is here most rich people expect poor people to hunt the monsterbe stupid. Though Jam tries to convince it that all the monsters are gone, Pet is certain that there is oneIt was his ability at what was, stillessentially, and that the monster is hiding in the home of her best frienda card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, Redemptionthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=0571355110

|isbn=16867516801035021803|title=My Mummy does weird things / Maman fait des choses bizarresThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Amelie Julien and GustyawanC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Which child doesn't think that their mother is, well, ''weird''? It might be that in the morning their mother doesn't like speaking much when every self-respecting child knows that that is when you're at your brightest with lots s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to say? the English country village where she grew up. She''Why'' then does Mummy stick s back now because of a request for help from her fingers in her ears? beloved aunt, Carole. Then thereFreya's former mentor and Carole's doing yoga in front of close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the televisioncircumstances seem suspicious, which could be worrying if it wasn't so funnyto say the least. We won't go into too much detail about what goes on in Arthur was the bathroom and reason why Freya had not been back to the colour changes which have occurred when Mummy emerges and franklyvillage: Arthur, she feels, the less said the better about let her reactions down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to your artistic efforts on be near the man or pursue the wallprofession she loved. I meanAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, what else would you use paint for?who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.

|authorisbn=Justine Avery and Liuba SyrotiukAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=What Wonders Do You See... When You Dream?All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=''The day has ended''<br>''Hasn't it been splendid?'' <br>''But now, it's time, Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to be sure'' <br>''For an entirely different adventurecome.'' <br>

I hope you haven't forgotten how ve heard it feels to be much too excited for bed. If said that 'technology' is what happens after you're a parent at leasteighteen. Well, you'll know how it is to persuade an excited small person I must confess that yes, it is there have been more than a few decades of technology in fact time for bedmy lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what'What Wonders DoYou See...s advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it' sets out to cater to these childrens all getting away from me. Instead Some of trying to persuade them that night time is a calm time, it takes a slightly different tack. It tells them that sleep is actually an exciting time: a time of dreams in which imagination takes over and has no limit- frankly - quite frightening. But Of course, I could research the trick in accessing this wonderful possibilities and exciting world is to get calm the probabilities and relaxed first so that you can easily fall asleep and open end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the door to itlatest conspiracy theorist. |isbn=194812422X I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.

|author=Michael HarrisSunny Singh|title=Solitude: In Pursuit of Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a Singular Life wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a Crowded Worldbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and 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 they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|genre=LifestyleGeneral Fiction|summary= This It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not the book I was expecting it to bewhat's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm Well, how to step outside the mainstreamthey've been murdered, but it is not that at allto have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Instead of telling us how it is more about the Miv's upset because she'whys overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. Harries examines how weWhen you're eroding solitudefrom Yorkshire, which used to be Down South is a natural part of our human lifefrightening, and why that mattersforeign place, best avoided. Of course For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of she'll do anything to prevent that, and eventually in the final chapter he talks . She's not worried about his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the alleys and bydangers or that her Mum's stopped talking -ways that his thinking about this lost art led himto anyone.|isbn=1847947662

|authorisbn=Andy Briggs1398524085|title=Ctrl+SHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French

|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary= Life in the near futureCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's not all badfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. We've reversed global warming Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and fixed the collapsing bee populationher daughter, Etty. We even created SPACEare all worried but - strangely - her husband, a virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desireAlec, is not. But almost anything isn Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg't enough for some. Every days father, normal people are being takenDuncan Ackerley, their emotions harvested - and lives traded - to create death-defying thrills in the river. It was an easy assumption for the rich police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and twisted. Now Theo’s mother has disappeared. And as he follows her breadcrumb trail of clues, then committed suicide when hecouldn'll come up against t stand the most dangerous SPACE has to offer: police, AI Bots guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and anarchists - as well as a criminal empire that will kill to stop him finding her wonder about what really happened. . .|isbn=1409184641

|isbn=16098093781035906708|title=The Rabbits' RebellionDiva|author=Ariel Dorfman and Chris RiddellDaisy Goodwin

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=We're in the realm tend to think of the rabbitsMaria Callas as Greek, only the foxes and wolves have taken over. King Wolfbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, His WolfinessNew York, has declared the rabbits don't exist, but the pesky birds have spread rumours from awing that the bunnies are in fact still aroundDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Demanding a propaganda spree, King Wolf orders a humble monkey Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to be his official portrait photographer, but whatever make it more manageable in the poor innocent monkey prints out in his darkroom there is a distinct leporine hintStates. Can King Wolf succeed When she was back in proving himself victorious, can Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the rabbits show their continued existence to all Nazi occupation by a mother who need to know mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of it – and what can the poor monkey caught in between do?her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.

|author=Innosanto NagaraChristopher Edge|title=M is for MovementBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=Set Lucas and his friends are all booked in Indonesiafor a movie marathon at their local cinema, in a place that has the not too distant past, this is a story about social changenickname of 'The Black Hole'. Dealing with some difficult issuesAll big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, such as political corruption and nepotismmany, the book is neither boring nor preachy. many snacks! It educates gentlyHowever, with vibrantas the movie starts, challenging illustrationsthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and it portrays how social movements need people who will try, they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even when it seems that they will failimagine. The message is a positive But as they lurch from one; that in an increasingly uncertain worldfilm genre to the next, we do still have can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the power cinema, and to instigate change.their real lives?|isbn=16098093511839942738

|isbnauthor=1780724047Rachel Greenlaw|title=A Dictionary of Interesting Compass and Important Dogs|author=Peter J ConradiBlade|rating=43.5|genre=PetsTeens|summary=''I struggle to resist a book about dogscan hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, but I did wonder why this one was so the answering beat in my heart.''thin'': given that I've never encountered  Rosevear, a dog who wasn't interesting or important - remote and probably bothpartially forgotten island, I was expecting a massive tomesurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. But ''A Dictionary Mira, like her mother before her, is one of Interesting the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and Important Dogs'' is actually ''any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a rich compendium of trap to end the wrecking, they capture the worldisland's most significant and beloved dogs'' leader and itMira's certainly father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a rich treasure trove. We begin bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudyonly coordinates to guide her, Skyshe sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. Bradley and Max. They're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogsWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, but what comes over is Conradias her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's love for each territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and every one of them. I knew that I was in safe handsthe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730

|isbnauthor=1785769294James Sherwood Metts|title=Man at the Window (Detective Cardellini)|author=Robert JeffreysPlanet Storyland

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=ItThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's when we read re paid to do and other tasks that a young boy is creeping reluctantly took time to a teacher's bedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrongaccomplish. Nowadays you ''might'' hope that something would be done about it fairly quickly but Just as they were beginning to get used to all this was 1965 technological change and child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on the part starting to think of the child. The boy would be safe that night though - albeit in the most horrific fashion. When he reached Captain Edmund's bedroom he found the man dead on the floorother, new ways to spend time, the top of his skull missingalong came an awful pandemic. The school's initial reaction Life was that this was a dreadful accident: there had been a cull of kangaroos in some nearby fields pretty much shut down and , along with it was obviously a stray bullet that had killed , all the Captainmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|isbnauthor=1786695227Matthew Tree|title=Invisible in a Bright Light|author=Sally GardnerWe'll Never Know

|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=A G Slatter|title=The beginning Briar Book of the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this excellent story will leave 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 reader more than world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a little confused: family of witches who is protect the town and the man in wider world from the green suitDarklands. Though she has always wished for magic, what Ellie Briar is the Reckoningfirst 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 why are rows of people in a cave? But stick with it – Mspotions. Gardner is very cleverly letting us experience When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the same disorientation as our heroinetown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. We watch in dismay as As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the strange manheart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who seems to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have no eyessacrificed to survive, does his best is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529900360|title=The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to persuade her to answer ask for his questionshelp on difficult cases. But His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for some reasona while. Finally, it was Robin, CelesteDelaware's partner, despite her bewildermentwho nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, remains wary though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and gives nothing awayit's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?

|isbn=19123748541529395224|title=VioletLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=S J I HollidaySion Rowlands

|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=ISiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn've never been but understand that travelling is all about meeting new people and forming instantaneous bonds with people t want to follow in often chance situations. Wellhis footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain thatbeing on-call put on his father's exactly what happens when life. When he was seventeen he took the two main/only characters meet in opportunity of doing work experience with a travel agency in Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying to get family friend who was a refund on an extra ticket for vet and was convinced this was the Trans-Siberian train and Violet is trying to unsuccessfully buy a ticket job for the same sold-out journeyhim. As the two team up Before long, travelling through Mongolia, Serbia and into Russia, it couldhe was at Liverpool University. It hadn've t - as with so many students - been the start of his dream since he was a beautiful friendship but this a thriller after all so it quickly becomes child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a tale of obsession, manipulation, and toxic friendshipsprofessional footballer.

|isbn=19123748380861541774|title=Nothing Important Happened TodayA Nye of Pheasants|author=Will CarverSteve Burrows

|summary=Nothing Important Happened Today The Perfect Passion Company is a darkdating agency in Edinburgh, twistedrun by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, difficult readtailored service. Stories about cults often are Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, but this as Ness is different; it's written with planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a sense while. Katie is coming out of style that is quite unlike anything I've read before. I can't remember ever having read a novel break up with such a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an oddEdinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, distinctive narrative voicebut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. While Katie has no experience in running a slim business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and relatively small bookrather handsome) neighbour, the slow-moving nature of the plot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages.William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596

|isbn= williamabbey0811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The Pursuit of William Abbeyprojects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire NorthDean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5

|summary=When William Abbey fails 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 prevent the lynching of a young boy in 1880his home, and it's South Africapossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, he finds himself cursed by Benny is the grieving mothervery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A naïve English Doctorreally nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon hima bad weather friend called Spike, as the shadow of the dead boy begins who has been sent to follow help him across the worldsince Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Never stopping Spike is going to take care of Benny, always growing – it crosses oceans and mountains in pursuit will certainly take care of William. As Benny's enemies, if he finds himself unable to resist speaking the truths that he hears in others, he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – Benny, and seeks to kill the one he loves the most…Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491

|author=Adam Stower|title=Murray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1643785036B0C47LV1PC|title=The Wondrous ApothecaryFragility|author=Mary E MartinMosby Woods

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Those who have known Alexander WainwrightCan 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 landscape artist famous answer for his Turner prize-winning both could well be.... no. ''The Hay WagonFragility''is set as the city of Portland, and RinaldoOregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the renowned conceptual artist would say that theycovid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529431735|title=The Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=It're chalk s February 1991 and cheeseEssex is bitingly cold, if not sworn enemieswhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. If youHe've watched d been exiled on the relationship, Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has our narratorcome about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, yousaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It'd have said that they were magnetss hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, drawing stripped to his underwear and repulsing each other sent to a watery grave in equal measurethe boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Wainwright was at the socially acceptable end Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the artistic continuumwondrous library we start by visiting with him, but and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with Rinaldohis lovely gran, it was all too obvious that – for there was but is a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisancegeneration missing in the family. As time has worn onA few short years ago, heEli's frequently been brought parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the attention company of the policea magical beast. On this latest occasionThis 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 hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, we see him charged with arson and theft the sole aim the prize of ''The Hay Wagon''magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231