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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=Jenny ValentineSylvie Cathrall|title=Hello NowA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary= Jude reluctantly moves to There are few greater joys than a small, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and settle into a big, old house overlooking the sea - book which happens lives up to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted in the house like a ghost that just won't leave – or can'tcompelling premise. As Jude settles into And this new, seemingly mundane, reality she is consumed by a longing for her old life in London and anger at another forced change – but this will be the last time, she swears. This world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating for Jude. That is until the day Novo arrives, and her entire concept one of the world changes foreverthem.|isbn=00074664980356522776

|isbn=B0867X8NW70008517061|title=Access PointDeath in a Lonely Place|author=T R GabbayStig Abell

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When we first meet Ula Mishkin she's having something of Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a professional success: using a device little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her own invention she's helped daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a man who has been blind for decades to see an image lot of a hummingbird. She's thirtycompromise: does Jake give up his off-six years old grid and her relaxing life is about to change radically as, cycling home, she's involved move in an accident with a bus. It's two years before we meet Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her again and in reservations about whether or not this is the meantime, future she's spent 392 days in a coma wants for herself and now walks with a stick. her daughter? A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to bring For the moment they’re enjoying life in some incomethe present and putting the future on the back burner.

|authorisbn= Ben Oliver1786482126|title= The LoopJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating= 34.5|genre= TeensCrime|summary= Set during Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up site was going to a horrific level by machines, The Loop follows hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the precarious existence bones of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, he is trapped inside child beneath a living hell with doorway. There was no chance of escapeskull. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to Was this a trigger held by the guards who can end his life ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with one squeezeDCI Harry Nelson. Luka It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is taunted by limited access to pregnant with his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through child as a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place result of execution] after Delay he is in despairthe one night they spent together some three months ago. His prison Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is based on the model prone to sudden bouts of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffersickness. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop?|isbn=1912626551

|author= Kirsty Applebaum|title= Troofriend|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Are you tired of your child's classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lying, stealing or bullying. They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have absolutely no basis in reality…right?|isbn=1788003470}}{{Frontpage |isbn=1529123941 0008551324|title=The Silent Treatment Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Abbie Greaves |rating=4.5 |genre=General Fiction |summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfully. Maggie, on the other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, in fact - and before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has a bit of a problem. He has to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long? Well, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life.}} {{Frontpage|author=Rob Harrell|title=WinkNeil Lancaster

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=When Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to just be 'normal' become impossibleapproach the police. Suddenly he Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is the cancer kid, struggling in prison and everything he does, how he looks, and how he behaves falls under 's prepared to tell the police where the scrutiny body of the other kids in schoola missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Ross isThis person, understandablyhe promises, angryis someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. He And what he wants is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with to be transferred to an eye sealed in a permanent wink. He has gloopy eye medicine open prison to try to help with serve the pain, plus the need to wear a hat at all times to protect remainder of his face due sentence and to the ongoing treatmentget an early parole date. With the sudden ghosting by one of his best friendsNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and a series of horrible memes she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about his life is normal any more, DS Max Craigie and he has to find new ways to deal anyone who works with his feelings, and survivehim is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1471409147

|isbn=17864855750008405026|title=Magpie LaneA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Lucy AtkinsJane Casey

|summary=When we first meet Dee sheIt's talking to Nick Law, the new college mastersixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Law's lately of She was never found and the BBC and he doesn't come with an entirely good reputation: he's investigation ground to a bit of a bully halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and Dee can sense something of that her father are dead in their first conversationbed. She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new job as Initially, it looks like a nanny, straightforward murder/suicide but somehow she finds herself going to see Mariah, there's something about the Danish wife positioning of the masterbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. She's pregnant What looked as though it was going to be an open-and looking for help, not with -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the new baby but with the masterexplanation lies in Rosalie's daughter by his first wife, Ana. Felicity is selectively mutedisappearance: she does talk to her fatherothers (such as Derwent's boss, but to no one else. The eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother and struggling at schoolUna Burt) are less convinced.

|authorisbn=Sally Magnusson0571379877|title=The Sealwoman's GiftKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= There Edward Jevons is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Gardenworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. Eve had not finished bathing her children He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted uses Edward to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children that those, already bathed, that she willing paraded run errands for him. God was not to be deceived, however, Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and decreed that what was sought he's drunkenly confided how he feels to be hidden from the eyes of God Robert. Most men in Robert's position would henceforth be hidden stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the eyes two of man, and so the Elves were born: the hidden folk. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choosekissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1473638984

|author=Wendy Cheyne Jo Callaghan|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard PlaceLeave No Trace

|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= After the Jacobite defeat at When a man is found crucified on the Battle top of Cullodena hill in Nuneaton, many Scottish estates were given DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to English lordsthe case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. They were not kind to It's their crofting tenantsfirst live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Many on the mainland were cleared But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to leave - their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to port cities on solve the mainlandcase in time, to North America or will Kat find herself taken off the case and even to Australia and New Zealand. , potentially, out of a career?|isbn= 1838591753139851120X

|authorisbn=Ele Fountain1399613073|title=LostMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson

|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Lola lives in an Indian city with her fatherOlivia, Laura and her brotherAnjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Amitwhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. She lives with them in Laura is a nice apartment, perfectionist and although they are not rich like some a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the girls group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at school, they have enough money 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 years later there will be comfortablean eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. Lola spends her This time thinking about her school friends, and trying it's their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to fit bring up an image of a city banker in with themyour mind, until one dayyou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, suddenlywhere he was familiar with violence, everything in her life changespoverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. After taking Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a work trip away, Lola's father doesn't come homefacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. They have nobody else He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders be stupid. It was his ability at what will become of them untilwas, finallyessentially, they are evicted from their flata card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the streetsthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=178269255X

|authorisbn= N K Jemisin1035021803|title= The City We BecameAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating= 43.5|genre= Science FictionCrime|summary= New York is being born, the city has reached critical mass and It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has matured into a living almost-breathing entity and is ready been back to make its way out into the worldEnglish country village where she grew up. Before it can be established She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis Carole. Freya's former mentor and other forgotten places. The city Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is not alone through dead and the birthing processcircumstances seem suspicious, people who embody to say the least. Arthur was the values are selected reason why Freya had not been back to become the living embodiment of the cityvillage: Arthur, she feels, some cities have onelet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, some have twelve and New York she has sixnot felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Together these human-embodiments must defeat After the woman split, she worked in white a cafe, met and save New York married James (on the rebound from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eyethe love of her life, it's a personality clash on an epic scale who was murdered) and unity is both critical Freya and not remotely guaranteedJames have now divorced.|isbn=0356512665

|isbn=0241446732AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Our House is on FireAll Tomorrow's Futures: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in CrisisFictions that Disrupt|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg Benjamin Greenaway and Svante ThunbergStephen Oram (Editors)

|genre=Politics and SocietyScience Fiction|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the parenting shape of their two daughtersthings to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sisterWell, Beata, then nine years old, struggled I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural advantageous to seek a solution close to home, me but eventually, it became clear to I'm left with the family feeling that they were it''burneds all getting away from me. Some of it is -out people on a burnedfrankly -out planetquite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. If they were to find I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radicalI could understand.

|isbnauthor=178730101XSunny Singh|title=Keep Him Close|author=Emily KochHotel Arcadia

|summary=Alice had two Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children: Benny (well, Benoîtsons Niall, actually) Paul and Ollie and Louisher daughter, Etty. Lou's seventeen and he's just got his A level results and he and his brother are going out to celebrateall worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Someone has to Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find something to celebrate in the lettersbody of Greg's father, DDuncan Ackerley, D and Ein the river. Alice has always It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had a good relationship with nineteen-year-old Benny but it's a touch problematic with Lou murdered Charlie and being honest, then committed suicide when hecouldn's not terribly likeablet stand the guilt. The letters which kept coming to my mind were ADHDSalter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.

|isbn=02413968401035906708|title=KeeperDiva|author=Jessica MoorDaisy Goodwin

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Katie Straw worked We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in the women's refuge December 1923 and the women who lived there liked and respected heronly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. She treated them well and seemed Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to have an understanding of what they were going throughmake it more manageable in the States. Why then did she jump from the local suicide spot into the river below? There had been no signs that When she was unhappy and she and her boyfriend seemed to have been content together back in Athens - and Noah has a decent alibi for the time when supposedly so that she died, but what other explanation could there be get appropriate training for her death? The police are convinced that it's suicide, but voice - she was raised under the women Nazi occupation by a mother who knew mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her believed otherwiseelder sister, Jackie.

|isbnauthor=1838880658Christopher Edge|title=Murder at Enderley Hall (Miss Underhay)|author=Helena DixonBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=ItLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 's the summer The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of 1933 exciting films, and Kitty Underhay is on her way to visit many, many snacks! However, as the family which she never knew she hadmovie starts, at Enderley Hall. Her grandmother, Mrs Treadwellthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and Great Aunt Livvy they are back at the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouthswept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Kitty gets easily bored working at But as they lurch from one film genre to the Dolphin - every day next, can they figure out what on earth is much going on? Will they ever get back to the same - but her real reason for going away is that she needs a break after her recent adventurescinema, which involved three vicious murders, an arson attack and an attempt on her life.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|isbnauthor=1788638026Rachel Greenlaw|title=Where the Innocent Die (D I Ridpath)|author=M J LeeCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=It was easy to assume that ''I can hear the song of the death sea. The call of the young Chinese girl at deep, the Immigrant Removal Centre was suicideanswering beat in my heart. Her throat was cut'' Rosevear, there was a lot of blood remote and the knife was partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the floor at rocks and plundering the side wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the bed, She was due seven who swim out to be deported survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that daylies within. But... how did when the knife get into Council Watch lays a trap to end the secure centre and why was wrecking, they capture the girlisland's room the only one which was unlocked? DI Thomas Ridpath, the coronerleader and Mira's officerfather. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is sent to investigate and as charming as he quickly becomes suspicious, There's a snag though: the inquest is due secretive and with only coordinates to open guide her, she sets off in search of a couple of family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days' timeto unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the girl's parents are coming over from China and they want watched streets of foreign islands to take their daughterthe heart of the smuggler's body home with them. Ridpath has just five days territory, Mira must be determined to solve the case. The coroner is disinclined stop at nothing to delay save the inquest: for future of her, it's about giving closure to home and the parentsones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730

|isbnauthor=1471166023James Sherwood Metts|title=Burnt Island (Ben Kitto)|author=Kate RhodesPlanet Storyland

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=The 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-fifth birthday and the occasion Things have been a bit sticky for the usual bonfire celebrationsEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, but it would be marred this year by the discovery of Professor Alex Roganoften replacing jobs they's body on a bonfire. He'd obviously been alive when he was put on the fire re paid to do and can only have died a terrible deathother tasks that took time to accomplish. The body was first discovered by Jimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes Just as the Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and his only concern is the welfare starting to think of the birds he looks afterother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. His instinct is to cover Rogan's body Life was pretty much shut down and he uses his sheepskin coat to do this, along with it, all the result that he's the prime suspectmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|author=Elliot ReedMatthew Tree|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This is the story Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death exceptional at any of his mother artistic passions all failed miserably and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way who had endless crises of describing certain events, situations and emotionsself confidence. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving So Tim applied himself to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the stylehis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and was instead caught up in William's storyset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1911545418B0CVFXPGP8

|author=Will Dean A G Slatter|title=Black River The Briar Book of the Dead

|summary=Tuva Moodyson returns - It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal lifeeven after Alex recovered, returning her Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the isolated town help of Gavrik and a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into a desperate search asking for her missing best friendhelp again. With She knew that the Midsommar sun blocked out by involvement was something that the dark pines man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the forest, Tuva fights heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to save her friendan extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But who’ll be there to save Tuvawhich of them was the primary target?|isbn=1786077116

|isbn=17824074801529395224|title=Bird LoveLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Family Secret Life of Birdsa Vet|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike WebsterSion Rowlands|rating=43.5

|summary=I Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a little perturbed GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when I looked at he considered the blurb for ''Bird Love'' strain that being on a couple of -call put on-line booksellers: his father''exploring the sex s life of birds'' it said. I very nearly passed over When he was seventeen he took the book, but opportunity of doing work experience with a closer examination suggested that the book is about the ''family life'' of birds, which is rather different. If the book friend who was confined to the sex life of birds, you would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, bring up their families a vet and cope in was convinced this was the wildjob for him. Not only thatBefore long, you have missed the treat of he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many beautiful illustrations about students - been his dream since he was a wide variety of birds which run through this book from the first page child. If anything, he'd wanted to the lastbe a professional footballer.

|authorisbn=Camilla Bruce0861541774|title=You Let Me InA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows

|summary= EccentricThe 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 more personal, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp tailored service. Ness has been missing asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a year while. Katie is coming out of a break up with 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 Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has been pronounced legally dead by full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her lawyersvery helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0811771741|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. Her Some will instructs her niece be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects 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=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and nephew someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to enter her his home , and find it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the key very last person to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the last story shedelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'll ever tells wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=17876331791662500491

|author=Judith EagleAdam Stower|title=The Pear AffairMurray and Bun

|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Set in the 1960's, this Murray is supposed to be a mystery adventure storyhumble, all about a little girl called Nell tidy and her quest to find her nannyfriendly cat, Perrine (Pear) one who left her very suddenly is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and then, after keeping in touch regularly by postwell, disappeared completely from her life, leaving Nell bereftwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. ThereBut he's everything in this storya 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, with underground tunnels as not into the playground regular back garden, but into a world of gangs of children, to travel frightening adventure and detective workwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a mystery mould infecting Parisian bakeriestroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, mysterious figures following Nell aroundto be honest, but he's turned up and a set of truly dreadful parents!he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571346855B0C47LV1PC|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. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|isbn=B083NMCSZX1529431735|title=Little Doubt (D I Kelly Porter)The Winter Visitor|author=Rachel LynchJames Henry

|summary=Ella Watson was in It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the wrong place at more surprising. He'd been exiled on the wrong timeCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. She was out running in the park when The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she was randomly attacked 's ill and stabbed hasn't long to deathlive. Her husband, ThomasIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and children, Jordan and Millie were devastated and Detective Superintendent Neil Ormond was outraged that sent to a decent, middle-class woman should be watery grave in the victim boot of knife crimea stolen Ford Sierra. Despite being Is it a warning from a golfing partner Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Glorious Race of Thomas Jordan he declined to distance himself from Magical Beasts|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=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 case dessert cafe his gran owns and told DI Kelly Porter that he would be taking runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a great deal of interest generation missing in how the case was handledfamily. He wasnA few short years ago, Eli't anywhere near as interested when s parents were both lost to the titular race, a second woman was stabbed globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to death navigate the world in the company of a few hours latermagical beast. Keira Bradley lived on This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the Beacon estate and Ormond's view seemed eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to be that anyone living there should expect this sort enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to happen. He could hardly bring himself to mention Keira's namepossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231