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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.
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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=A 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=B07S6DBCFT0008517061|title=Little Girls Tell TalesDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Rachel BennettStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 2004 RosalieFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Beth and Dallin were walking in the boggy wetlands by Rosalie and Dallin's cottageJake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Beth There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and Dallinher daughter Diana, both twelve-years-old, got ahead as moving in together would mean a lot of ten-yearcompromise: does Jake give up his off-old Rosalie grid and it wasn't long before she realised that she was lost. Trying relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to find Little Sky despite her way back to reservations about whether or not this is the main path future she found a skeleton, but when she finally got to the road she could never find wants for herself and her way back to daughter? For the bog when she'd seen moment they’re enjoying life in the body. Most people didn't believe her, present and putting the story down to her vivid imaginationfuture on the back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00082737901786482126|title=Remain SilentThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Susie SteinerElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we first meet Matis and Dimitri, Matis is Builders were demolishing an old house in a bad way, vomiting and obviously traumatised. When he's able Norwich - the site was going to speak he tells Dimitri that ''Lukas is deadhold seventy-five 'luxury'apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Lukas There was in his late teens and he and Matis had come to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuaniano skull. They'd answered an advert offering good money and accommodation in return for their labour: they could have Was this a decent life ''and'' send money home to their familiesritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. SadlyIt's difficult as Ruth knows, it but Nelson doesn't work out like , that. When they arrive in she is pregnant with his child as a result of the UK - on an old, uncomfortable bus, - one night they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have to share rooms and sleep on dirty mattresses on the floorspent together some three months ago. It's modern slaveryHer condition will be obvious before long, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersnot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amin Maalouf0008551324|title=The DisorientedDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= Adam It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has lived in Paris any respect for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabicthe other. In fact But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he hasn't been back s prepared to his homeland tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for 25 yearsher death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. An old friend And what he wants is dying…or as Adam prefers to think be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as his sentence and to get an ex-friendearly parole date. Not much to ask, or maybe. is it? The falling out was a long time ago, new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and Adamshe's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him prepared to go knowing do the other thing that he'll regret not doing so. Not knowing whether heHardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's going because he needs or wants to, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next planehappening. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Anstey Harris0008405026|title=Where We BelongA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= IIt've always believed that places s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and buildings absorb what happens within them and reflect it back; this is how we can tell that the investigation ground to a sacred space is sacredhalt. Cate Morris believes a similar thingNow, her mother, Helena, she believes that ''A house absorbs happinessand her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it blooms into looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the wallpaper, the wood positioning of the window frames, the bricks: bodies that's how it becomes a home.'' She is having these thoughts as she packs up makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her homeboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. She has What looked as though it was going to leavebe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. A combination of circumstances means Kerrigan is convinced that is not only redundant, but also homeless. With nowhere else to go, she has called on her late husbandthe explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's family for help. Just for a few weeksboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1471173836
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17874776810571379877|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)The Kellerby Code|author=Martin WalkerJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was Edward Jevons is a couple of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from working-class young man, obsessed with his sonupper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. GastonRobert's father had sold the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy which he had used to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlat, owned by a Russian oligarchtheatre director. Before he even got to go there he diedHe's also self-obsessed, apparently of a heart attackdemanding, handsome and the retirement home collected the proceeds of the policy entitled and Gaston uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and Claudette Driant were left with just the contents of the farmhousehe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. The family hadnMost men in Robert't exactly fallen out, but Gaston lived some way s position would stay away and Claudette from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had fallen out of favour when she announced that she was gay, begun between them but they werenhe't expecting s not like most men: Edward is left to be almost completely disinheritedstumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B083Z3ZZ61Jo Callaghan|title=Broken Silence (DS Nikki Parekh 2)|author=Liz MistryLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first meet him Stefan Marcovici has live case together, having previously been in the UK very successful with his daughter Maria for a whileseveral cold cases. He came expecting to work as But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a gardener potential serial killer and Maria was a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to be a nannytheir AI Future Policing project. Stefan ends up doing slave labour Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a chicken factory: you can imagine what happens to an eighteen-year-old girl.career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Justine Avery and Daria Yudina1399613073|title=This Book Is Alive! (Living Book)Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingThrillers|summary= Books ''want'' you to read Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readersinseparable for a quarter of a century. Books ''want'' Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be reada cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. This Anjali is the key message in Justine Avery's latest offering, ''This Book Is Alive!''. By anthropomorphising free spirit of the relationship between book group and young reader, shebecomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's sending an invitation going to all end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty- pick me up, read me, five years later there will be my friendan eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, we can go on a journey together. Itit's a great message, don't you think?|isbn= 1948124416their teenage children who are involved.}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02419846530241636604|title=I Made a MistakeThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Jane CorryGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=We know from If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the very beginning London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that there's a tragedy about most rich people expect poor people to happenbe stupid. On It was his ability at what was, essentially, a January evening on card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a very crowded platform trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3 .5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under an oncoming trainrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. That Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man is Matthew Gordonor pursue the profession she loved. Much later we see Poppy Page After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the witness box shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a crown court, few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting a very rough ride away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the prosecuting barristerprobabilities 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. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Maryse CondéSunny Singh|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaHotel Arcadia|rating= 43.5|genre= Literary FictionThrillers |summary= We live The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a post-world: post-colonialismterrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, post-modernism, post-truth. The list goes killing everyone on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in their categorisationsite, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelthere is Sam, ''The Wondrous a wartime photographer and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana''Abhi, Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana residents who are twins born still alive in Guadeloupethe hotel, he forms a French overseas department. They grow up bond with intense Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and passionate feelings for each otherkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. As Although they grow up only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and move overseas, they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesterrorists.|isbn=1642860697086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Abi Elphinstone1529153298|title= Jungle Drop (The Unmapped Chronicles)List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 45|genre= Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary= Abi Elphinstone has said that she connects with her world-building through her charactersIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. In an interview with [Books For Keeps] Well, she described visualising her characters "wearing head torches which gradually reveal the world they are seeing 've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her and father wants to move the readerfamily 'Down South'." Just as the darkness of a mine When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is cut through by a spear of light so too do quarrelsome Fox and Fibber get their first glimpse of frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the phantasmagorical glow-in-the-dark realm of Jungle Drop when they emerge through the mouth of a Dragon on the Here move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and There Expressshe'll do anything to prevent that. Running from She's not worried about the opprobrium of their demanding and selfish parents, they must address what is in their hearts dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to find what they seekanyone.|isbn= 1471173682
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B084VNRRD61398524085|title=Killing Mind (D I Kim Stone)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Angela MarsonsNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It looked very like a suicideCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and to begin withher daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, that was how both DI Kim Stone Etty and KeatsGreg, find the pathologist called itbody of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was only later an easy assumption for the police to make that Stone Duncan had murdered Charlie and her team realised that then committed suicide when Samantha Brown cut her throat, hers was not the only hand holding he couldn't stand the knifeguilt. It was murder. SammyThe Salter children are not convinced but there's parents. Myles and Kate were a little bit reluctant to say what else they can do but get on with their daughter had been doing recently. The property where she was found was less homely than most hotel rooms: her mother was lives and wonder about to accuse her husband of saying that Sammy was readywhat really happened... But what was Sammy ready ''for'' and where was their other daughter, Sophie?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Hana Tooke1035906708|title= The UnadoptablesDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary= In the winter We tend to think of 1880Maria Callas as Greek, five babies are abandoned at the Little Tulip orphanage but she was born to Greek parents in AmsterdamManhattan, New York, much in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the annoyance of matron GasbeekStates. Twelve years later, Milou, the last of the five babies to be abandoned When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that winter, struggles to work out the identity of she could get appropriate training for her parents from the clues voice - she was abandoned with: a small coffin with claw-marks on raised under the outside, Nazi occupation by a cat doll mother who mercilessly exploited her and made by someone called Bram Poppenmaker and a velvet blanket. She, along with the other four, patiently wait no secret of her preference for Milou's parents to come back and take her home. Howeverelder sister, when the five children are sold to the dodgy merchant Meneer Rotman, they know they have to escapeJackie. And so begins the adventure of a lifetime as the Unadoptables join forces to reunite Milou with her parents, all the time being pursued by the Kinderbureau and Rotman…|isbn=0241417465
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Alison WeirChristopher Edge|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted QueenBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating= 4|genre= Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'Katheryn was seven when her mother died''. All big movie fans, thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time in young Katherynthey's life, trying re looking forward to find a homelots of exciting films, both figuratively and literallymany, where she can grow and grieve. Unfortunatelymany snacks! However, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lessonas the movie starts, she they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is too youngvery different, too poor and too unimportant they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to be of any value to anyonethe next, but she can they figure out what on earth is beautiful and surely, that will count for something in going on? Will they ever get back to the endcinema, won't itand to their real lives?|isbn=14722277781839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405946172Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Glass House|author=Eve ChaseCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens|summary=Rita lost both her parents in a car crash when she was just six years old: since then she's always craved a family'I can hear the song of the sea. She'd lived with her grandmother in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with The call of the deep, the Harrington family answering beat in Londonmy heart. Soon her engagement to Fred'' Rosevear, a Torquay butcherremote and partially forgotten island, fell through survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the Harringtons became wrecks. Mira, like her familymother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. In 1971, after But when the Council Watch lays a fire at trap to end the London housewrecking, Jeannie Harringtonthey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, her children, 13-year-old Hera Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went only coordinates to the guide her, she sets off in search of a family's house secret that lies buried deep in the Forest sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of Dean. It wasnthe smuggler't ''quite'' dilapidateds territory, but it certainly wasn't Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the same standard as future of her home and the London house had been before the fireones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008386137James Sherwood Metts|title=Just My Luck|author=Adele ParksPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Elaine Winterdale took the fall Things have been a bit sticky for the landlordEarthlings. Aged 37AI and automation have been proceeding apace, she got a suspended sentence because a faulty gas boiler had caused the deaths of 29-year-old Reveka Albu often replacing jobs they're paid to do and her 2-year-old son Benkeother tasks that took time to accomplish. Toma AlbuJust as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, husband new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and father, had found them when he returned homealong with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Ema Tepic Matthew Tree|title=I Dreamed YouWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=It is always a pleasure Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to review be different from his father, a new book by Justine Avery drunk and ''I Dreamed You'' carries on the tradition beautifully. This little book is the perfect exemplar chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of our category name, ''For Sharing''self confidence. It is a mother's love letter So Tim applied himself to her childhis studies, told in rhyme formcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1948124505B0CVFXPGP8}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sharon BlackieA G Slatter|title=If Women Rose RootedThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre= BiographyFantasy|summary= '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure This secret magic of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before , all mine, at last. Ijust want to enjoy it for a while.'ve finished reading ' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the one Iworld, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar've borroweds, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. I want Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to avoid clichés like be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie'powerfuls cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town' s leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches'inspiringlegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, 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'lifes fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-changingand-shut cases which didn' – although t need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it is definitely was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the first two and only time will tell about man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the third – but clichés exist for swimming pool of a reason remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and Iit'm s not sure I can succinctly put it any betterthe Italian.|isbn=1912836017 But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Patrick Ness1529395224|title=BurnLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=TeensAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn''On a cold Sunday evening t want to follow in early 1957 - his footsteps, particularly when he considered the very day, in fact, strain that Dwight David Eisenhower being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the oath opportunity of office for the second time as President of the United States of America - Sarah Dewhurst waited doing work experience with her father in the parking lot of a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the Chevron gas station job for the dragon him. Before long, he'd hired to help on the farmwas at Liverpool University.'' Ithadn's 1950s America but not t - as we know it. In this alternate US, there is still a Cold War with the Russians, still so many students - been his dream since he was a concomitant arms racechild. And the stain of racism is just as crushing - something mixed-race Sarah and her Japanese American friend Jason are only too well aware of. As is the deeply unpleasant town deputy If anything, Kelby. But one thing is he''very'' different. In this alternate world, there are dragons. The dragons live in an uneasy peace with humans and communication is minimal. But d wanted to be a few of these winged creatures do hire out their labour to human in return for gold - they are dragons, after allprofessional footballer.Poor Frankie! |isbn= 1406375500
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Angela Woolfe0861541774|title= Roxy and Jones: The Great Fairytale Cover-UpA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident ReadersCrime|summary= After her father gets married for the umpteenth timeDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, Roxy Humperdinck is sent has taken a short holiday in Singapore to live meet up with her half-sister Gretel in Rexopolisan old ally, the capital city of the Kingdom of IllustriaGuy Trueman. Gretel works as Maik was involved in a toilet cleaner for the Ministry of Soup. Why does street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a country like Illustria need an entire ministry dedicated to soup, you ask? Well, after Roxy finds man armed with a secret passage in her bathroom knife - and meets he killed a snarky young woman known only as Jones, she soon finds out whyGhurka. Turns out Initially, fairy tales are real, and he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the Ministry’s official job is to safeguard all knowledge of them and monitor man. Now he could be facing the living fairy talesdeath penalty. And, when an evil queen breaks out of Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a maximum-security prison diplomatic incident and threatens to reinstate her reign of terror, Roxy and Jones hold the fate of the world in their young hands…so, no pressure then!|isbn=1406391379wouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kat DunnAlexander McCall Smith|title=Dangerous RemedyThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= It's Paris, 1794. The Revolution Perfect Passion Company is five years old a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the country online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the midst business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of violent political turmoil between a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the Revolutionarieschance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, trying bringing us to maintain their control by whatever means necessaryan Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the RoyalistsIsabel Dalhousie novels, still loyal but with some new characters who quickly begin to monarchy intentcharm. Caught Katie has no experience in running a no manbusiness, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very 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 land between the two warring factions is the Battalion ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the Dead. Led by a disillusioned revolutionary's daughterlong, the band cosy afternoons in front of outcasts have made a name for themselves rescuing innocent citizens from the violent falloutfire' variety. But The projects are divided by the time they may have gotten in over their heads with their latest rescue'll take to complete - less than five hours, Olympefive to ten hours, a girl with a disturbing history ten to twenty hours and powers that might just make her more than twenty hours. All the spark projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that blows up the powder-keg of revolutionary Paris's me being picky. |isbn=1789543649
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|author=Joanne M HarrisDean Koontz|title=A Pocketful of CrowsThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre= Confident ReadersParanormal|summary= I have always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violence, there Benny is no difference between books for children and books for adultshaving a terrifically bad day. There are good books He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and poor oneshis house gets trashed. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. ''A Pocketful of Crows'Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it' s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the use of the middle initial in the author's name very last person to differentiate from her adult offersdeserve all this bad luck. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris He is mistress of the modern fairy talea nice person. A really nice person. This So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is no differentclearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. It Spike is an utter delightgoing 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's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=14732221841662500491
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|author= Maggie Tokuda-HallAdam Stower|title= The Mermaid, the Witch Murray and the SeaBun|rating= 4.5|genre= TeensConfident Readers |summary= On the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl has assumed the identity of Florian the man in an attempt Murray is supposed to fit in with the crew. Life is hard as be a piratehumble, trust tidy and empathy are the first things friendly cat, one who is able to be discardedsleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, but anything has to be better than starving on whatever takes his fancy next of the streetstwo. Meanwhile But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the young Lady Evelyn Hasegawa boards catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Doveregular back garden, headed off to be married to but into a military man she's never met on some far-flung colony world of the Nipran Empirefrightening adventure and whiffs. Neither of This time round it drops them expects into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be thrown together by fatehonest, never mind fall in love…but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=15362043150008561249
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|authorisbn=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)B0C47LV1PC|title=A Life Without EndFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have Can you make a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, but is the time when I have question should you make it? Or is the same number as Heinz varieties looms on question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the horizon. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes answer for both could well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that.. no. ''Fragility''s is set as the extent city of my mid-life crisisPortland, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phraseOregon, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how cautiously begins to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with emerge from the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep ongoing. But how can he get to not flick restrictions imposed during the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670covid pandemic
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|authorisbn=Holly Jackson1529431735|title=Good Girl, Bad BloodThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=54|genre=TeensCrime|summary=A month on from the explosive conclusion to It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the Andie Bell mystery, a new normal has settled over Little Kiltonmore surprising. Max Hastings He' assault trial thunders d been exiled on, Pippa's viral podcast detailing her journey of discovering the truth Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about Andie and Salbecause he's deaths has gained massive media attention, Cara and her sister Naomi are reeling from the realisation that their father, Elliot Ward, had murdered Sal Singh and kidnapped a girl he thought was Andie after she stumbled out of letter from his house, bleedingex-wife, saying that she's ill and disappeared into the nighthasn't long to live. As the town tries It's hard to heal againfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, six years on from stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the events boot of that night, tragedy strikes againa stolen Ford Sierra. Jamie Reynolds, older brother to one of Pippa's best friends has gone missing. And so, alongside her difficult life as Is it a warning from a semi-famous eighteen-year-old, she is once again taken down Spanish gang or a dark, twisted path problem closer to discover the truth.|isbn=1405297751home?
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|isbnauthor=B084H8F2CFAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Body Under the Bridge|author=Nick LouthGlorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=DCI Craig Gillard was annoyed to be pulled away from Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the funeral service for evening a serving police officerhelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, particularly when he discovered that he was to take charge of the enquiry into too – for there is a generation missing womanin the family. Beatrice Ulbricht was twenty-five A few short years old and ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a student of music at globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the Royal College company of Musica magical beast. She had been due This has made the race anathema to play 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, with the other members sole aim the prize of the Lysander String Quartet magic at the Church of St Martin-in-end – the-Fields but hadn't turned up. Gillard didn't understand why only thing to possibly save his immediate involvement was necessary until Chief Constable Alison Rigby explained that Beatrice's father was Karl-Otto Ulbricht, Germany's Minister of Justicegran.|isbn=0571382231
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