Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
Hello from The Bookbag<metadesc>Expert, a full book review site, featuring books reviews from all the many most walks of literary life ; fiction, non- [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often & self-published 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 plus author [[:Category:Interviews|interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[Features]] page.</metadesc>
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: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' reviews on the sitell want to read here.Dig in!
Want to find out more Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''], [[About UsFile:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|about alt=Follow uson 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]]?
==New There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews==}}'''For new reviews by genre [[:Category:New Reviews|click herereviews]]at TheBookbag.'''
'''For new features Want to find out more [[FeaturesAbout Us|click hereabout us]].'''? __NOTOC__
{{newreview|author=Anne Rice|title=Angel Time|ratingThe Best New Books==2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Toby O'Dare is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for music, history and playing his beloved lute. He's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years ago'Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. One day while on a 'job' he is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemption. Toby agrees to become the Angel's human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonukbr>}}'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MortimerSylvie Cathrall|title=1415: Henry V's Year of GloryA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryScience Fiction|summary=The medieval, in fact time-honoured, view of King Henry V as one of England's greatest heroes was propagated though not originated by Shakespeare, and again more recently There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to some extent by Olivier's portrayal in filma compelling premise. At least And this is one historian has called him ''the greatest man that ever ruled England''of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Deborah Gregory0008517061|title=Dancing With The DeadDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=34|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead''Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, because I'm interested in family historyhas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. The blurb on There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the back future of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up). I felt move in with all these links, the novel could Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not fail to interest me – but this was not 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 caseback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Miss Read1786482126|title=Christmas at Thrush GreenThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Set Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the rural village bones of Thrush Green, this book is the latest in a series surrounding familiar characterschild beneath a doorway. There is the feisty Ella Bembridgewas no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, who is finally having to admit that old age is creeping up as her eyesight failsDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Friends such It's difficult as Dimity and Charles Henstock are concerned about herRuth knows, but she refuses to accept any help. Albert Piggott has decided itNelson doesn's time to retire now t, that she is pregnant with his wife, Nelly, is child as a successful cafe owner and can afford to take care result of him! And relative newcomer Phil Hurst and her husband are arranging the local nativity playone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, despite a number not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of set-backssickness. Will everything be in place for Christmas? And will independent Ella make a decision about her future?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409101592</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt and Dave0008551324|title=Yuck's Robotic BottomThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=It's concerned me unusual for a while that itanyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's relatively easy prepared to pick up early readers tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for girls – princessesher death. This person, magic soft toyshe promises, mermaids is someone big and pets abound – but there's a much smaller choice for boysit will be worth the police doing what he wants. It's important too with And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early readers that the content parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn''interesting'' t think so and reading becomes more than just something which you ''have'she' s even prepared to do at school the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and moves into being fun. Matt and Dave have found the answer in Yuckanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John E Smelcer0008405026|title=The Great DeathA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It'As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the indigenous people had no natural immunityinvestigation ground to a halt. At the beginning of the twentieth century Now, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measlesher mother, smallpoxHelena, and influenza. No community was sparedher father are dead in their bed. In most cases Initially, half of it looks like a villagestraightforward murder/suicide but there's population died within a weeksomething about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. In some cases, there were no survivors. It What looked as though it was the end of going to be an ancient way of lifeopen-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Natives still refer to Kerrigan is convinced that the dreadful period explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as the Great DeathDerwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maxine Barry0571379877|title=River DeepThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Two Edward Jevons is a working-class young women both have a love of the Thamesman, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Melisande RayRobert's beloved hotel, the Ray of Sunshine is on the river banka theatre director. ItHe's here that guests come who want to be pampered also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and looked after in the way that only the best hotels can do well, but when Wendell James checks in uses Edward to the hotel it's not pampering he's looking run errands forhim. He's buying a piece of land not far from the Ray of Sunshine Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's sussing out the competitiondrunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. ThereMost men in Robert's something personal in there too – if his new hotel means position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the Ray two of Sunshine goes under then that would be an added bonus. There's just a slight doubt them kissing in his mind when a red-haired maid catches his eyedark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe GoresJo Callaghan|title=Spade and ArcherLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Sam Spade decidesWhen a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, bravelyDCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, to set up his one-man the AI detective agencyLock. It's the 1920s in San Francisco so we have the prohibition era and all that that entailstheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Many localsBut when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, of course, choose to disobey the law, stick two fingers up, so to speak Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and as a result there's lots of bootleg liquor. Straight away, it's evident very high profile case that Sam is draws a man lot of few wordsunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. He has Will they be able to solve the mannerisms of a cat - stealthycase in time, quick on his feet. He's also a compulsive chain-smokeror will Kat find herself taken off the case and, but then againpotentially, most people were. In that era, holding out of a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessory. How times have changed.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140911323X</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark1399613073|title=The Best of TimesMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Most children enjoy a good traditional tale Olivia, Laura and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to have all Anjali met on the right ingredients – first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a handsome prince and quarter of a beautiful princess who fall in lovecentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, get married which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and live happily ever aftera trauma doctor. Or do they? Sadly, not long after Prince Frederico marries Anjali is the free spirit of the lovely Princess Serafina, group and she becomes very sada GP. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadness, but poor Prince Frederico is desperate to find When we first meet them they're at a cure for his wifedrug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's miserygoing to end in tragedy. He tries everything in his power and eventually decides to offer his kingdom to anyone We don't know who can make her happy again before she dies of a broken heart. Lots of people come to suffered the palace to try and help but in tragedy or the end consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the solution is a simple one provided by some very kind travellersthree friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Jackson0241636604|title=We Have Always Lived In The CastleTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=Mary Katherine BlackwoodIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, also known as Merricat, is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always livedyou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Merricat quickly draws A hoodie and jeans replaces the reader into her world by a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister pin-stripe suit and death cap mushroomshis background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and everyone else in her family is deadinjustice. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the house 'steady against the world', shutting out other people, London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and they live near he has a villagefacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Merricat believes He also realised that 'The most rich people expect poor people of the village have always hated us'to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and tells us that she hates them toothis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Weston1035021803|title=Nelson The Antique Hunter's Guide to the RescueMurder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike the MilkIt's milk float, but he twenty years since Freya Lockwood has now retiredbeen back to the English country village where she grew up. He lives in the stable at the She's back now because of the dairy along with a couple of tricky ratsrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Rhodri and Rhys, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, a frog who thinks heCarole. Freya's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleeping. Rhodri former mentor and Rhys find a mysterious message on MikeCarole's fridge close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the animals believe that Mike has been invited circumstances seem suspicious, to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBEsay the least. Somehow our heroArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, Nelsonshe feels, finds himself travelling let her down to London, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your lifebadly. Suddenly you see the danger Even though they were in every situationbusiness together as antique hunters, and fear and trepidation can she has not felt able to be become your constant companionsnear the man or pursue the profession she loved. In this novellaAfter the split, we meet she worked in a young mother who is cafe, met and married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures James (on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects the rebound from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas the love of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with himlife, begins to let things slip at home who was murdered) and Freya and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present dangerJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>
}}
{{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 shape of things to come.''
{{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning Out|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Violet has I've heard it all – a well-paid jobsaid that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, and I must confess that there have been more than a luxurious apartment all to herselffew decades of technology in my lifetime. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to be. But me but I'm left with the life she is leading is beginning to take its tollfeeling that it's all getting away from me. On the verge Some of snapping, a drained and somewhat outit is -offrankly -sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home townquite frightening. There Of course, she meets I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isnwho knows what they't a ghost, but a girl living re talking about or the life Violet once lived – exactly the samelatest conspiracy theorist. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself I needed people I knew I could trust and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will who could deliver information in turn haunt the girla way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda DownumSunny Singh|title=The Drowning CityHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyThrillers |summary=In The Hotel Arcadia is a nutshellluxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City killing everyone on site, there is goodSam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, bad or mediocrethe hotel manager. You As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what've probably glanced at s happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating =5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and guessed the latterMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? Imean, honestly...) She's not what'm afraid its worrying Miv's not family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that simpleher father wants to move the family 'Down South'. This When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelingsfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. I started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly coolFor Miv, the premise intriguingmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, the characters laden with potential for greatness and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the backdrop is certainly evocativedangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson1398524085|title=The True DeceiverHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Most people of my age will have come across JanssonCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's work unwittinglyfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, via sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the televised renditions body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the Moomin talesriver. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago It was an easy assumption for the police to discover make that at last Thomas Teal Duncan had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book murdered Charlie and then of a collection of short stories which were published as committed suicide when he couldn'A Winter Bookt stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Kehlmann 1035906708|title=Me and KaminskiDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing We tend to read such a fluent yet pared down story think of Maria Callas as 'Kaminski and Me'. In itGreek, Sebastian Zollnerbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, the obnoxious main characterNew York, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt December 1923 and only moved to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art criticAthens when she was thirteen. Kaminski, the proposed subject, Her original surname was a fashionable painter long ago, Kalogeropoulos but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivionher father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. So When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the second-rate writer is on Nazi occupation by a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world mother who mercilessly exploited her and general publicmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Louis BarfeChristopher Edge|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=EntertainmentConfident Readers|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down uponLucas 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'. All big movie fans, as if itthey's a bit naffre looking forward to lots of exciting films, tepid and ignorable. What's often forgotten many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is that itvery different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's hugely populart even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, enjoyable and much of it can they figure out what on earth is of going on? Will they ever get back to the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainment.cinema, and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
 {{newreview|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Off, but just like him, his tomatoes aren't growing very big. He takes the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes a song. The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph Delaney Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Spook's Stories: Witches|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book is 'seriously scary'...  The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls in love with a witch Compass and is forced to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-children.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa Unger|title=Die For YouBlade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from work, she realises something is wrong. Going to his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that she's been living a lie for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so long. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novels.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Lisa McMann
|title=Wake
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in I can hear the way song of resourcesthe sea. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than The call of the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in deep, the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands answering beat in her waymy heart...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in with his girlfriend Rosevear, a remote and they are adopted partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the Zing familyrocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, with all is one of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour the seven who swim out to survey the ruins the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner rescuing any survivors and then disappear into any treasure that lies within. But when the garden shed Council Watch lays a trap to work on end the wrecking, they capture the island'Zing Family Secrets leader and Mira's father. Marbie Zing Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is terrified as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listena family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with With only nine days to unearth what might save her home lifefather, and as her journey takes her daughterfrom the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's year two teacher is coming territory, Mira must be determined to terms with a break up. The stories of these people come together stop at nothing to create a tale save the future of life, love, her home and ultimately, what being part of a family meansthe ones she holds most dear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>0008664730
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G CottamJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Magdalena CursePlanet Storyland|rating=24.5|genre=HorrorConfident Readers|summary=Mark Hunter is Things have been a bit sticky for the sort of father who would do anything for his sonEarthlings. After losing his wife AI and daughter in a tragic accidentautomation have been proceeding apace, his surviving son Adam has become his whole worldoften replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices starting to think of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreamsother, able new ways to speak Russian in the hours after he wakesspend time, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessedalong came an awful pandemic. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is scepticalLife was pretty much shut down and, until she meets Adamalong with it, and witnesses the horrors all the poor boy endures for herselfmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyMatthew Tree|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=I shall start with Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a word drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus master, exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and a magician, for the soul who had endless crises of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogyself confidence. Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud cities, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world So Tim applied himself to desert oases and backhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and friends new and old will be on board to helpset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendA G Slatter|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It'' There's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy a part of me that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like wants to believe, and desperately attempting keep this just to talk his mother out myself for however long I can. This secret magic of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' showmy own, all mine, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the at last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still I just want to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – enjoy it's going to be for a tough year for the Moles, and therewhile.'s little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Lauren Kate|title=Fallen|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=A 17 year old girl at Within a new school meets remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a mysterious town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and impossibly goodthe wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-looking boywitch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, who shethe town's immediately drawn toleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. He seems determined to either ignore As challenges come her or be outright rude way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to hercommunicate with the dead, until he saves putting her lifeat 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 two of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'Briar witches'legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, but it certainly has striking similaritiesis under threat.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>1803364548
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth Hinds1529900360|title=King LearThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=34|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Hound me out It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Learpsychologist only worked for a while. For meFinally, even as a trained actorit was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the language is too dense and richman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought to beswimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. To my mind He was the acclaim heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blusteringnot the Italian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Theroux1529395224|title=A Dead HandLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: A Crime in CalcuttaThe Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Set Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in Indiahis footsteps, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells particularly when he considered the story of a travel writer suffering from writerstrain that being on-call put on his father's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, life. When he was seventeen he took the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story opportunity of doing work experience with a mystery of family friend who was a dead body in a hotel leads vet and was convinced this was the job for him to release . Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his creativity in very unexpected waysdream since he was a child. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger If anything, he's Tantric charmsd wanted to be a professional footballer. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester0861541774|title=The Fourth Part A Nye of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapPheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 millionDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, the highest price ever paid publicly for has taken a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary mapshort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificateGuy Trueman. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, and Maik was discovered by accident in some archives involved in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much street brawl - he would later maintain that he was inspired to discover more, facing a man armed with a knife - and this book is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over he killed a wet kitchen floorGhurka.'' Surely Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that is he might have planned to murder the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for man. Now he could be facing the worlddeath penalty. You won't get Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any such namby-pamby animal likenesses interference from these authors, instead with quite another police force could provoke a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, diplomatic incident and those millions just seemingly waiting for us wouldn't help Danny at all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy StantonAlexander McCall Smith|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=As soon The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as heroine Polly turns an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her back, younger cousin Katie if she could come and leaves look after the town of Lamonic Bibber business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls while. Katie is coming out of a break up with his best frienda bad boyfriend, causing carnivorous carnage all over and so jumps at the placechance to come home to Edinburgh. Meat is getting thrown around like it's going out of fashionAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, and bringing us to an Edinburgh we have already love, thanks to doubt whether Polly 44 Scotland Street and her companions can ever utilise the power of love and put things Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to rightscharm. Especially as this book does not contain Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Loose Women0811771741|title=Here Come the GirlsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyCrafts|summary=This is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, Melissa Leapman's ''Loose WomenInstaKnits for Baby''gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Just as promised on Some will be quick knits - others are of the cover'long, this book is an entertaining night with cosy afternoons in front of the girlsfire' variety. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces projects are already familiar and even if you dondivided by the time they't know them yetll take to complete - less than five hours, with nine contributorsfive to ten hours, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the celebrity facesprojects are attractive, modern and useable. The women are universally warmI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-hearted and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningworthy projects' but that's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreDean Koontz|title=Fortune CookieThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Fudge Cassidy Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and the Cupcake kid are best friendshis house gets trashed. If the names remind you of Oh, and someone has delivered a certain film then youreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it'd be spot on as s possible that's where Fudge's father got whoever or whatever was inside is the idea from. thing that has trashed his house! They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge The thing is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake , Benny is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination worksvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather He is a lot on her platenice person. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obviousA really nice person. Add to this So fortunately for Benny it turns out that her father couldn't cope with the problems and he now delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has another familybeen sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. ItSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's just Cupcakeenemies, if he, Benny, Joey and her mother – and not Harper (a lot of moneywaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsAdam Stower|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyConfident Readers |summary=Born in 1734 in LisbonMurray is supposed to be a humble, at that time the richest tidy and most opulent city in Europefriendly cat, Maria was destined one who is able to become sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the first female monarch in Portuguese historytwo. Married to her uncle Infante PedroBut he's a bad magician's cat, seventeen years her seniorso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, she had six children (outliving all but one of and the catflap they both use can chuck them)out, and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious womannot into the regular back garden, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age but into a world of reason', when church frightening adventure and state were vying for supremacywhiffs. Instinctively This time round it drops them into a supporter of the old religionViking land, with where a humanitarian approach to state affairstroll hunter is expected – well, she one much bigger than Murray was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Greatto be honest, but he's turned up and wore her crown rather reluctantly.he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Hughes1529431735|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=WellIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, with which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a title like that, need I bother with wanted drug smuggler for a plot summary? decade. A man The return has come about because he's had a day out in Morecambeletter from his ex-wife, then the next thing he knows hesaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the ultimate waiting room, with boot of a strange array of animals (stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a bat, warning from a toad, Spanish gang or a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>problem closer to home?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Wild ThingsGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Meet MaxEli 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 dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. When I say he sometimes gets Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the wrong end of the stick about adultsfamily. A few short years ago, or dislikes his motherEli's new boyfriendparents were both lost to the titular race, or gets a bit feisty when he feels globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the need for revenge, I am certainly understating world in the factscompany of a magical beast. He is a bit of a rascal This has made the race anathema to say the least. But all that might change pair – but when he finds himself travelling a bad incident at the eatery leads to a strange land confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kingmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>0571382231
}}