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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]].

|author=Alastair ChisholmSylvie Cathrall|title=Orion LostA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=ThirteenBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-yearfive 'luxury' apartments -old Beth and her parents board when they discovered the transport ship Orion ready for bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a new life on Eos Fiveritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Their new home is still being terra-formed and life there isn It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't going to , 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 easyobvious before long, but it 'not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=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 isstruggling in prison and he'' going s prepared to be tell the police where the body of a fresh startmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. As Beth's mum puts This person, he promises, is someone big and itwill be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn''Theret think so and she's a future waiting for us. A chance even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make our own decisions, create our own livescertain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.''|isbn=1788005929

|isbn=07535532360008405026|title=Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change EverythingA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=B J FoggJane Casey

|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=Go on, admit it It's sixteen years since nine-year- you're not quite perfectold Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. You still have those odd, quirky, even loveable (She was never found and the investigation ground to you) habits that seem to annoy other peoplea halt. Other peopleNow, her mother, of courseHelena, and her father are sorely afflicted with some dreadful flaws which they could so easily correctdead in their bed. Initially, if only they would make just it looks like a little bit straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of effortthe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. 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 What looked as though it was going to be quite monumental changes I never quite seem to get to grips with the concepts. I constantly fail an open-and then I get cross with myself for failing-shut case is now a complex double murder. Lack of willpower Kerrigan is another burden to add to convinced that the listexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.

|authorisbn= B T Keaton0571379877|title= TransferenceThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating= 43.5|genre= Science FictionCrime|summary= Barrabus Madzimure Edward Jevons is about to die, stranded on a mining planet millions of lightworking-years from homeclass young man, executed for high crimes against the Churchobsessed with his upper-class friends, the ruling body of EarthRobert and Stanza. Except he Robert's not Barrabus Madzimure, hea theatre director. He's Thaniel Kilraven also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in Barrabus Madzimurelove with Stanza since their university days - and he's bodydrunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Such is the magic of Transference, the ability to transplant a person Most men in Robert's soul position would stay away from Stanza or consciousness into a different body - and a power tell Edward that the Church has exclusive control over. As if Thaniel doesn't have enough things to worry about, a Church employee named Corvus has arrived from Earth to interrogate him. All Thaniel wants is to see his family again, and relationship had begun between them but he'll stop at nothing s not like most men: Edward is left to accomplish this, but stumble upon the Church isn't going to give two of them kissing in without a hell of a fight..dark passageway.|isbn=B082WPHTHH

|author=Christine BrownJo Callaghan|title=Bucket Showers and Baby Goats: Volunteering in West AfricaLeave No Trace|rating=4.5|genre=TravelCrime|summary=In When a man is found crucified on the summer top of 2008a hill in Nuneaton, this book's author was spending her days working in an office job in DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the USA while spending case alongside her nights dreaming about being somewhere elsesidekick, doing something elsethe AI detective Lock. Long story short It's their first live case together, she ended up volunteering in Ghanahaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, West AfricaKat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Now coincidentally, Will they be able to solve the case in the summer of 2010time, this review's author was spending ''her'' days working in an office job (albeit in or will Kat find herself taken off the UK) while spending ''her'' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else, case and ''she'' ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leonepotentially, West Africa. So you can see why, when this book came up, said reviewer was delighted to have the opportunity to read and critique it.out of a career?|isbn=171024299X139851120X

|authorisbn=Mark Lingane1399613073|title=Degrade (Tesla Expansion)Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=TeensThrillers|summary= ''Degrade'' opens as it means to go Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on - with inyerfacethe first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, banging actionwhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Poor Arid, alone in the desert since his parents were killed, has Laura is a narrow escape as two mega-rigs fight it out perfectionist and his a trauma doctor. Anjali is pretty much destroyedthe free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. He finds himself rescued by the mysterious-but When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fascinating Ella fuelled party and onboard the it's going to end in tragedy. We don'Moonlight'' under t know who suffered the tragedy or the suspicious eyes of its leader, Queen Beaconsequences. Bea's eyes flash with recognition when he tells her his name Twenty- Arid Geiger - but before he can find out why that is, five years later there's will be an assassination attempt and Arid is under suspicion and imprisonedeerily similar event that will impact the three friends. An escape facilitated by Ella - Queen Bea This time, it's daughter - sees Arid and her other daughter, Frey, stranded in the deserttheir teenage children who are involved...|isbn= 099461649X

|isbn=B07XLM3SM60241636604|title=Murder at the Dolphin HotelThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Helena DixonGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)Autobiography|summary=Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in June 1916your mind, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care you're unlikely to think of her grandmothersomeone like Gary Stevenson. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the conclusion East End, where he was that she was deadfamiliar with violence, mainly because there poverty and injustice. There was no evidence posh public school on his CV - but he had been to suggest otherwisethe London School of Economics. Kitty Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has come to terms a facility with this 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 illnumbers which most of us can only envy. She was reluctant He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand whybe stupid. She's always coped It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotelCitibank. And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotelEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.

|authorisbn=Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)1035021803|title=The Honjin MurdersAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5

|summary=To many readers, the phrase It'locked room murder mystery' is enough s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words English country village where she grew up. She'clevers back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya' or s former mentor and Carole'good'. For those who need mores close friend, Arthur Crockleford, here is dead and the extra background – we're in rural Japan in circumstances seem suspicious, to say the 1930sleast. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although Arthur was the whole affair is really reason why Freya had not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned upbeen back to the village: Arthur, she feels, what with it being arranged at great haste. She only has an uncle representing let her family, for one thingdown badly. Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead Even though they were in business together as plannedantique hunters, only for the wedded couple she has not felt able to be slashed to death in their private annexe before near the man or pursue the sun rises on their marriageprofession she loved. What with After the split, she worked in a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhoodcafe, met and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at married James (on the rebound from the time love of the crimeher life, this case has a lot of the peculiar about itwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=1782275002

|authorisbn=Cixin LiuAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=DeathAll Tomorrow's EndFutures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|summary= If ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I'd been paying more attention when I picked this book upve heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I would must confess that there have put it back on the shelfbeen more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. Not because I didn't want ve kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to read it, me but because I'd have figured out m left with the feeling that it was 's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the final part of latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a trilogyway I could understand. Coming }}{{Frontpage|author=Sunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in partway 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 saga is never wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the easiest thing hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to do be cowed by events, and itkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's particularly true in science fiction because without knowing happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the back-story there 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|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not just people whose names mean nothing to you (when itwhat's worrying Miv's assumed family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they will) 've been murdered, but there are whole concepts that you wonto have 'disappeared' doesn't understandsound quite so frightening. This latter is particularly true of Cixin LiuMiv's upset because she's work – his range overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is phenomenala frightening, foreign place, best avoided. George R R MartinFor Miv, who knows a thing or two about world-creationthe move would mean leaving her best friend, described it as ''a unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculationSharon, conspiracy theory and cosmology'she'll do anything to prevent that. All of She's not worried about the dangers or that and moreher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1784971650

|isbn=17808945111398524085|title=Die AloneHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Simon KernickNicci French|rating=45|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Ray Mason is in prison awaiting trial for murder and heCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's in the vulnerable prisoner unit: as a copfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, he's something of a targetPaul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but the unit - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not as secure as the inmates would have hoped and Mason is injured in a riot. On his way to hospital heShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's broken free by armed men and an offer is made to himfather, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. He's to assassinate It was an easy assumption for the man who is likely police to become the country's next prime minister make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when hecouldn'll then be given a new identity so that he can start afresh abroadt stand the guilt. His captors say that The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they're MI6, can do but Mason has his doubts. His choices are limited though get on with their lives and he has personal reasons to believe that it would be better if Alastair Sheridan was deadwonder about what really happened.

|authorisbn=Akwaeke Emezi1035906708|title=PetDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=The people We tend to think of the town Lucille believe that all the monsters are gone. Their children are raised Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to understand that they were saved by the angelsGreek parents in Manhattan, those who rid the town of evilNew York, in December 1923 and there are no monsters anymoreonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. But one day, Jam accidentally cuts herself and bleeds a little onto one of Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her motherfather changed it to 'Callas's paintings. The blood awakens a bizarre, terrifying-looking creature named Pet, who somehow comes to life and declares that make it is here to hunt more manageable in the monsterStates. Though Jam tries to convince it When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that all she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the monsters are gone, Pet is certain that there is one, still, Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and that the monster is hiding in the home made no secret of her best friendpreference for her elder sister, RedemptionJackie.|isbn=0571355110

|isbnauthor=1686751680Christopher Edge|title=My Mummy does weird things / Maman fait des choses bizarres|author=Amelie Julien and GustyawanBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Which child doesn't think that Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their mother is, welllocal cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'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 youAll big movie fans, they're at your brightest with looking forward to lots to say? of exciting films, and many, many snacks! ''Why'' then does Mummy stick her fingers in her ears? Then there's doing yoga in front of However, as the televisionmovie starts, which could be worrying if it wasnthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't so funnyeven imagine. We won't go into too much detail about But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what goes on in earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the bathroom and the colour changes which have occurred when Mummy emerges cinema, and frankly, the less said the better about her reactions to your artistic efforts on the wall. I mean, what else would you use paint fortheir real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|author=Justine Avery and Liuba SyrotiukRachel Greenlaw|title=What Wonders Do You See... When You Dream?Compass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The day has ended''<br>''Hasn't it been splendid?'' <br>''But nowcall of the deep, it's time, to be sure'' <br>''For an entirely different adventurethe answering beat in my heart.'' <br>

I hope you haven't Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten how it feels to be much too excited for bedisland, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. If you're a parent at leastMira, like her mother before her, you'll know how it is one of the seven who swim out to persuade an excited small person survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that yeslies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, it is in fact time for bed. they capture the island's leader and Mira'What Wonders DoYou See.s father..'' sets out Desperate to cater save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to these childrenguide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. Instead of trying With only nine days to persuade them that night time is a calm timeunearth what might save her father, it as her journey takes a slightly different tack. It tells them that sleep is actually an exciting time: a time her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of dreams in which imagination takes over and has no limit. But the trick in accessing this wonderful and exciting world is smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to get calm save the future of her home and relaxed first so that you can easily fall asleep and open the door to itones she holds most dear. |isbn=194812422X 0008664730

|author=Michael HarrisJames Sherwood Metts|title=Solitude: In Pursuit Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= 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 to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of a Singular other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life in was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a Crowded Worlddrunk 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 Briar Book of the Dead

|genre=LifestyleFantasy|summary= '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This is not the book secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I was expecting just want to enjoy it to befor a while. For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm'' Within a remote mountain pass, how to step outside far away from the mainstreamworld, but it is not that at all. Instead lies Silverton; a town under the protection of telling us how it is more about the Briar''why''s, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Harries examines how we're eroding solitudeThough she has always wished for magic, which used 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 natural part of our human life, steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and why that matterspotions. Of courseWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come of thather way left, right and eventually in centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the final chapter he talks about his own experience dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of having deliberately sought it outchaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, but mostly he wanders down Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led himBriar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=18479476621803364548

|authorisbn=Andy Briggs1529900360|title=Ctrl+SThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=54|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary= Life in the near futureIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's not all bad. We've reversed global warming fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and fixed the collapsing bee population. We even created SPACEafter Alex recovered, a virtualSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire. But almost anything isnshut cases which didn't enough need the help of a psychologist only worked for somea while. Every day Finally, normal people are being takenit was Robin, their emotions harvested - and lives traded - to create death-defying thrills Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the rich and twistedinvolvement was something that the man she loved needed. Now Theo’s mother has disappeared The next case did look simple, though. And as he follows her breadcrumb trail Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of clues, he'll come up against a remote property in Bel Air. He was the most dangerous SPACE has heir to offer: police, AI Bots an Italian shoe empire and anarchists - as well as a criminal empire that will kill she is married to stop him finding her an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. . .|isbn=1409184641 But which of them was the primary target?

|isbn=16098093781529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Rabbits' RebellionSecret Life of a Vet|author=Ariel Dorfman and Chris RiddellSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=We're in the realm of the rabbits, only the foxes and wolves have taken overSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. King Wolf, His Wolfiness, has declared the rabbits donfather was a GP and Rowlands didn't existwant to follow in his footsteps, but particularly when he considered the pesky birds have spread rumours from awing strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the bunnies are in fact still aroundjob for him. Demanding a propaganda spreeBefore long, King Wolf orders a humble monkey to be he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his official portrait photographer, but whatever the poor innocent monkey prints out in his darkroom there is dream since he was a distinct leporine hintchild. Can King Wolf succeed in proving himself victoriousIf anything, can the rabbits show their continued existence he'd wanted to all who need to know of it – and what can the poor monkey caught in between do?be a professional footballer.

|authorisbn=Innosanto Nagara0861541774|title=M is for MovementA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows

|genre=Emerging ReadersCrime|summary=Set DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in IndonesiaEdinburgh, 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 not too distant pastbusiness, this as Ness is planning to take a story about social changetrip to Canada to get away for a while. Dealing Katie is coming out of a break up with some difficult issuesa bad boyfriend, such as political corruption and nepotism, so jumps at the book is neither boring nor preachychance to come home to Edinburgh. It educates gentlyAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, with vibrantbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, challenging illustrationsthanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, and it portrays how social movements need people but with some new characters who will try, even when it seems that they will failquickly begin to charm. The message is Katie has no experience in running a positive one; that business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in an increasingly uncertain worldher abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, we do still have the power to instigate change.lend a hand…|isbn=16098093511846976596

|isbn=17807240470811771741|title=A Dictionary of Interesting and Important DogsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Peter J ConradiMelissa Leapman

|genre=PetsCrafts|summary=I struggle to resist a book about dogs, but I did wonder why this one was so Melissa Leapman's 'thin'InstaKnits for Baby': given that I've never encountered gives us a dog who wasn't interesting or important - and probably both, I was expecting a massive tomecollection of knits from toys to blankets. But ''A Dictionary Some will be quick knits - others are of Interesting and Important Dogsthe '' is actually ''a rich compendium long, cosy afternoons in front of the world's most significant and beloved dogsfire'' and it's certainly a rich treasure trovevariety. We begin with Peter J ConradiThe projects are divided by the time they's four collies: Cloudyll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, Sky. Bradley ten to twenty hours and Maxmore than twenty hours. They're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogsAll the projects are attractive, but what comes over is Conradi's love for each modern and every one of themuseable. I knew perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that I was in safe hands's me being picky.

|isbnauthor=1785769294Dean Koontz|title=Man at the Window (Detective Cardellini)|author=Robert JeffreysThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=It's when we read that a young boy Benny is creeping reluctantly to having a teacher's bedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrongterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Nowadays you Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it''might'' hope s possible that something would be done about it fairly quickly but this whoever or whatever was 1965 and child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on inside is the part of thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the childvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. The boy would be safe that night though - albeit in the most horrific fashionHe is a nice person. When he reached Captain Edmund's bedroom he found the man dead on the floor, the top of his skull missingA really nice person. The school's initial reaction was So fortunately for Benny it turns out that this was the delivery to his house is a new friend, a dreadful accident: there had bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a cull good person. Spike is going to take care of kangaroos in some nearby fields Benny, and it was obviously will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a stray bullet that had killed the Captainwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491

|isbnauthor=1786695227Adam Stower|title=Invisible in a Bright Light|author=Sally GardnerMurray and Bun

|genre=Confident Readers|summary=The beginning of this excellent story will leave the reader more than Murray is supposed to be a little confused: 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 man in 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 green suitcatflap they both use can chuck them out, what is not into the Reckoningregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and why are rows of people in a cave? whiffs. But stick with This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – Ms. Gardner is very cleverly letting us experience the same disorientation as our heroine. We watch in dismay as the strange manwell, who seems to have no eyesone much bigger than Murray was, does his best to persuade her to answer his questions. But for some reason, Celestebe honest, despite her bewilderment, remains wary but he's turned up and gives nothing away.he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249

|isbn=1912374854B0C47LV1PC|title=VioletFragility|author=S J I HollidayMosby Woods|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=ICan you make a ''Yo birthing person've never been but understand that travelling is all about meeting new people and forming instantaneous bonds with people in often chance situations. Well' joke? And if you could, that's exactly what happens when the two main/only characters meet in a travel agency in Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying to get a refund on an extra ticket for the Trans-Siberian train and Violet question should you make it? Or is trying to unsuccessfully buy a ticket for the same sold-out journey. As the two team up, travelling through Mongolia, Serbia and into Russiaquestion if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both couldwell be.... no. ''Fragility've been ' is set as the start of a beautiful friendship but this a thriller after all so it quickly becomes a tale city of obsessionPortland, manipulationOregon, and toxic friendships.cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|isbn=19123748381529431735|title=Nothing Important Happened TodayThe Winter Visitor|author=Will CarverJames Henry

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Nothing Important Happened Today It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a dark, twisted, difficult readwanted drug smuggler for a decade. Stories The return has come about cults often are, but this is different; itbecause he's written with had a sense of style letter from his ex-wife, saying that is quite unlike anything Ishe's ill and hasn've read beforet long to live. I can It't remember ever having read a novel with such an odds hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, distinctive narrative voice. While stripped to his underwear and sent to a slim and relatively small book, watery grave in the slow-moving nature boot of the plot makes a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it feel far larger than its 276 pages.a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?

|isbnauthor= williamabbeyAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Pursuit Glorious Race of William Abbey|author=Claire NorthMagical Beasts|rating=3.54|genre=ParanormalConfident Readers|summary=When William Abbey fails to prevent Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the lynching of dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a young boy generation missing in 1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving motherfamily. A naïve English Doctorfew short years ago, he slowly learns the weight of Eli's parents were both lost to the curse upon himtitular race, as the shadow of the dead boy begins a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to follow him across navigate the world. Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans and mountains in pursuit the company of Williama magical beast. As he finds himself unable This has made the race anathema to resist speaking the truths that 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 hears in othersmost hates, he also learns that with the sole aim the prize of magic at the dark shadow is deadly end – and seeks the only thing to kill the one he loves the most…possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231