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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life 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, & self-published 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|plus 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.</metadesc>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Liza PalmerSylvie Cathrall|title=A Field Guide Letter to Burying Your Parentsthe Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=Grace is reluctantly participating in a 5k race when she receives the news: her estranged sister is calling to tell her their estranged father has had a stroke. That's two lots of estrangement in just two generations of family, but a summons is a summons, and Grace soon finds herself dragged back into the heart of the family she deserted, working with the others to discover the many hidden secrets of the father who deserted them all. It's a tough jump from her happy life of There are few greater joys than a good job, a new boyfriend and a home of her own to return book which lives up to the family life she left behind a long time ago, and Grace has to decide whether she can ignore the pull of her biological siblings once more or whether the time has come to let bygones be bygonescompelling premise. After all, while there are lots of four letter words she would associate with her family, ''love'' And this is not one of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340962151</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Johnston0008517061|title=Truth or FictionDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Caroline Wallace is not a happy womanFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. She has waited ten years for her lover to propose to There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and herdaughter Diana, and now just as he finally moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does, she has Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to go move in with Livia or does Livia move to Dublin to interview faded literary star Desmond Fitzmaurice. Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? Desmond promises his tale will be brimful of 'sex For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and violence', but Caroline has no idea of putting the mystery that lies at future on the heart of his storyback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755330544</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786482126|authortitle=The Janus Stone (Dr Richard Hale and Alan Chambers MBE Ruth Galloway)|titleauthor=Keep Walking - Leadership Learning in Action - A thrilling story of a polar adventure with powerful lessons in leadership and personal developmentElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and FinanceCrime|summary=One side of this book is completely alien to me. I have had no reason to believe Builders were demolishing an old house in any of Norwich - the action learning, selfsite was going to hold seventy-actualisation etc, that people in business sometimes deem necessary. If pressed, Ifive 'luxury'd guess that if people needed so much inapartments -work training when they might just be discovered the wrong person for the jobbones of a child beneath a doorway. There's an anecdote here about was no skull. Was this a bright young thing fresh from business schoolritual killing or murder? Inevitably, and faced Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with her first task at workDCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, who panicked as 'but Nelson doesn't, that she did is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not know which theory least because Ruth is prone to apply''. The theory sudden bouts of common sense, I'd have suggestedsickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312780</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guy Delisle0008551324|title=Pyongyang: A Journey in North KoreaThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Meet Guy. HeIt's a French-Canadian animator, leaving home unusual for a short stay in anyone from the Hardie family to approach the capital of one of police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the worldother. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's most intriguingprepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, unknown is someone big and alien cultures - Pyongyang, North Korea - so it will be worth the police doing what he can work on a TV cartoon co-productionwants. Forced And what he wants is to be transferred to stay in one an open prison to serve the remainder of the three official hotels designed for foreignershis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so that the locals and people such as he she's even prepared to do not have to mix, he see glimpses of the unique socialist dictatorship, stunning views of the buildings forced through the poverty, other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and thousands of unreadable facesanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079905</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Osman0008405026|title=QuicksilverA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=It''Quicksilver'' is the story of Wolfie, Tala and Zi'ib, three ordinary children s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from three different continentsher bed one summer night. They have She was never met, until a strange chain of events involving gun-toting gangs found and eccentric old men means they all end up in Thornham, the investigation ground to a London suburbhalt. They soon realise they Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are connected: they all have green eyes with golden flecks and a missing parentdead in their bed. But was Initially, it fate, chance or looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the ley lines that encompass positioning of the earth bodies that brought them together? Before you know makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it they're solving clues was going to be an open-and fulfilling -shut case is now a one thousand year old prophecycomplex double murder. But all they want to do Kerrigan is find their parentsconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407105736</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Janes0571379877|title=Edwardian Murder: Ightham & the Morpeth Train RobberyThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Two murders took place in Edwardian England less than two years apartEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, one in the southRobert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-east obsessed, demanding, handsome and the other entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in the northlove with Stanza since their university days -eastand he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. At first glance they seemed to have nothing to do with each other, but years later Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a link relationship had begun between them was hinted at though never proved beyond doubt. The author has investigated but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the connection and come up with two of them kissing in a riveting bookdark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752449451</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter GayJo Callaghan|title=Modernism: The Lure of Heresy - From Baudelaire to Beckett and BeyondLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=It When a man is impossible not found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to be impressed by the sheer scope of cultural historian Peter Gaycase alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's 2007 study of Modernismtheir first live case together, newly released in this paperback editionhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. He notes in the introduction that it But when there is not a 'comprehensive history' but rather 'second body found crucified a study of its rise, triumphsfew days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and decline'a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. What is remarkable though Will they be able to solve the case in time, is or will Kat find herself taken off the attempt to include the whole gamut case and, potentially, out of artistic fields in this coherent study.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099441969</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Caine1399613073|title=Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires)Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=If you haven't alreadyOlivia, meet ClaireLaura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. She Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is beholden a bonus when you aim to Mr Bishop, the horrid evil vampire that be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is ruling the town free spirit of Morganville, even more so than the other human, group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and vampire, inhabitants are, now that he has taken over things from Claireit's former ruler Ameliegoing to end in tragedy. She is caught in a struggle between We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the two warring vampire factions, especially over consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an unusual form of disease among eerily similar event that will impact the undead - Ameliethree friends. This time, it's side definitely trying 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 cure itbring up an image of a city banker in your mind, Bishop somehow trying you're unlikely to provoke it and profit from itthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. Not only that, her boyfriend A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is imprisonedthe East End, along where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his father, one CV - but he had been to the London School of the world's least subtle vampire huntersEconomics. Can she have enough quality time Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him? an internship with Citibank. Can she and her captured-and-Eventually, this turned ex-housemate Michael survive the horrid things asked of them? And who is Ada?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>074900777X</amazonuk>into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Dahme 1035021803|title=Tombstone TeaThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=[[The Girl with It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and Reg Keeland (translator)|The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo]]circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the first of Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy of thrillersreason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, was a fine stand-alone novellet her down badly. The second Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the seriesman or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, [[The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson she worked in a cafe, met and Reg Keeland married James (translator)|The Girl Who Played With Fire]], continues on the rebound from the adventures love of Lisbeth Salanderher life, Larsson's finely crafted anti-hero. If you haven't read this second volume yet I advise you to stop reading this review who was murdered) and Freya and James have nowdivorced. I'm about to spoil the ending for you…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694168</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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David MillerSunny Singh|title=Sea WolfHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=Meet Hanna, Ned and Jik. They're on an unlikely quest to recover the world's biggest and richest pearl, from the hiding place Jik alone knows of, when there's The Hotel Arcadia is a problem luxury hotel in the shape of an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a tornadoterrorist group. They're thrown Hiding from the craft they're terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone onsite, Ned disappears - there is Sam, a wartime photographer and then there were twoAbhi, the hotel manager. Hanna and Jik get rescued by As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the occupants of hotel, he forms a horridbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, piratical craft, engaged in very environmentally-unfriendly fishing. Jik gets overworked and underfed, and then there was one..keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Only one - Hanna - with Although they only ever talk over the spunkphone, brainpower and energy their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep her spirit together, safe and try and get one up on the Maestro who commands they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the boatterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192729020</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katie Davies1529153298|title=The Great Hamster Massacre|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Anna. Rather than write the usual staid what-I-did-in-my-holidays report for school, she is taking the time to tell us about her pet issues over the summer, from recalling the Old Cat, and the horror that is the New Cat, to the New Rabbit down the road, and her own demands for a hamster or two. There are family secrets to be revealed relating to hamsters List of old, parents to argue with, and finally a trip to the pet shop - and that's just the start of Anna's troubles.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385958</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSuspicious Things|author=Shirley Jackson|title=The Lottery and Other Stories|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Even though it was written over sixty years ago, The Lottery, coming in at fewer than 3,500 words still has the power to shock. When it first appeared in the The New Yorker in 1948 it caused many outraged readers to cancel their subscriptions such was the devastating nature of the story. Time may have lessened sensibilities over the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first but The Lottery, like many of the other stories in this timely reissue, still packs a mighty punch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191430</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hazel McHaffie |title=Right to DieJennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just once, but for Naomi, Adam's death 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is just the beginningPrime Minister. Coming across his personal (A woman? I mean, private diary of his time from diagnosis to subsequent demise, she is forced to relive the awful months during which his body began to betray him and his will to live was replaced with a will to diehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though.on his own terms Women have been disappearing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Karen Sapp|title=Christmas Is Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided.|rating=3|genre= For Sharing|summary=Christmas is looming and thus Miv, the market for picture books featuring santasmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, presents and Christmas trees. Itshe's hard ll do anything to come up with anything new here, and itprevent that. She's rather not worried about the point dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - is it? Christmas is, after all, about annually repeated celebration of traditional rituals that add delight and nourishment to the spiritual, emotional and social fabric of lifeanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007303750</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Giddins and Scott Deveaux1398524085|title=JazzHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=EntertainmentCrime|summary=At first glance this 700-page volume might look a little dauntingCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Do Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not be daunted. If you want a small pocket book which merely scratches at Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the surface and can probably be digested body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in a sitting or two, look elsewherethe river. On It was an easy assumption for the other hand, if you want an extremely readable police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and comprehensive book on jazz which then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can not only be read cover to cover, do but also retained as a work of reference to use again get on with their lives and again, I doubt if this can be betteredwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068617</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Wrangham 1035906708|title=Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Distracted by the discovery that her husband has been having an affairWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, a middle-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lanebut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, killing Ruth MitchellNew York, an elderly cyclist. The woman doesn't wait for the police in December 1923 and only moved to arrive; Athens when she goes home and parks her car in the garage where she smashes it almost beyond recognitionwas thirteen. When Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her arrogant husband sees the damage he believes father changed itto 's been done to punish him and he packs his bags. After a few days the woman goes to the home of the dead woman; she doesnCallas't go to make it more manageable in the door, but from a hidden spot nearby States. When she can see the widower, an elderly gentleman who is clearly not coping well. Wracked with guilt, the woman makes a decision: the only way was back in Athens - supposedly so that she can atone could get appropriate training for her actions is to step into voice - she was raised under the shoes Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the dead womanher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel McCreryChristopher Edge|title=Tooth and ClawBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Another serial killer is on the loose, Lucas and yet again the police have failed to connect the deaths. Carl Whittley has just tortured his friends are all booked in for a glamorous TV presenter to death - leaving a singularly gruesome tableau - and blown a hapless commuter to smithereens movie marathon at their local cinema, a railway station. He's planning his next murder already, secreted away in the shed at place that has the bottom nickname of the garden of the house he shares with his invalid father'The Black Hole'. Carl is embittered and lonely - with his mother living away and pursuing a career as a forensic psychologist All big movie fans, therethey's only him re looking forward to take care lots of his severely disabled father: to change the colostomy bagexciting films, to cookand many, to clean, to, well, just to bear it, really. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847248071</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Hornby|title=An Education: The Screenplay|rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Adroit marketing? many snacks! WellHowever, yes. ''An Education'' has been publishedas the movie starts, of coursethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, to coincide with the filmand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's general release in the UKt even imagine. Hardly surprising since our national appetite for nosiness seems insatiable and cosy background details prop up every telly series and But as they lurch from one film these days. As well as genre to the screenplaynext, Nick Hornby has provided an introduction and diary of can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the film's successful premiere at the Sundance Festival in Utah. Beyond triviacinema, I think this fascinating little book presents an excellent 'how and to' guide for wannabes from one of Britain's most respected screen and novel writers.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141044748</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=The Harvard LampoonRachel Greenlaw|title=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=HumourTeens|summary=Most people will have heard ''I can hear the song of the worldwide phenomenon that is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]sea. The books by Stephenie Meyer and the film have made a legend call of the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays deep, the movie role) and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart)answering beat in my heart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013330</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Haunting of Hill HousePlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=There was Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time before Stephen Kingto accomplish. There was Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time before ''The Shining'', along came an awful pandemic. There Life was a time when 'horror' was not rooted in blood, guts pretty much shut down and gore. I owe a slight apology to Mr King, because along with it, all the gutsier side of the genre, I will own that he is a master at suspensemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill Tomlinson and Paul HowardMatthew Tree|title=The Penguin Who Wanted To Find OutWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Otto the penguin lives on Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father's feet , a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at the bottom any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of the worldself confidence. He's an inquisitive little thing and wants So Tim applied himself to know why they haven't fallen off the world. His dad explains that they won't Because I say so. Otto and his friend Leo gradually expand their horizons from their fathers' feet - they meet other penguin chicksstudies, get to know their aunts who watch them when their fathers are away, and eventually grow feathers so they're big enough to toboggan on their bellies cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and swim in the seaset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140523041X</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Josh Lacey1529900360|title=Two Tigers on a StringThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=BenIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's not too keen fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to be sharing ask for his bedroom with his half-brother, Frankhelp on difficult cases. But you donHis assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't have to be need the hero help of a detective adventure such as this book to know that as Frankpsychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's mother has vanished from partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the face of involvement was something that the Earthman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, Ben will let it lie - for though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a whileremote property in Bel Air. Nor He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it too surprising to see 's not the four Misfitz together, on another case, as they go on the hunt for Italian. But which of them was the missing woman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407109782</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Williams1529395224|title=Last ChristmasLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Women's FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=With Christmas fast approachingSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, what better way of getting in particularly when he considered the spirit of things than by reading this excellent book strain that captures being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the joys opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and stresses of was convinced this was the festive season job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so well? The reader follows four different people – Catherine Tinsall and her husband Noelmany students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, Marianne Moore and Gabriel North. Each of these characters have their own reasons for not really looking forward to Christmas (mainly because of the experience of last Christmas) and these reasons slowly become apparent he'd wanted to the reader as the story progressesbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847560865</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nigel McCrery0861541774|title=Core A Nye of EvilPheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Violet Chambers becomes Daisy Wilson through an aromatic cup of tea, flavoured with Christmas roses. DCI Domenic Jejeune'"There are all kinds of horrible things in the Christmas roses close friend and former colleague," she saidDanny Maik, watching has taken a short holiday in Singapore to see whether Daisy could still hear her. "Helleborin and hellebrin are both like digitalismeet up with an old ally, which I've also used before, but there's saporin and protoanemonin as wellGuy Trueman. It's Maik was involved in a very nasty cocktail."' And now Daisy has met her rather sticky street brawl - and graphically effluent he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - end, and Violet has become Daisy, Daisy sets her sights on he killed a new townGhurka. Initially, he faced a new identity and, most importantly, a new victimcharge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Daisy has problems with her memory - Now he could be facing the identities go back so far that sometimes she death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can barely remember who is she is now, let alone do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all the whos she's been before, and most certainly not the who with whom she began. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847243843</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteAlexander McCall Smith|title=Jonathan Wild: Conman and CutpurseThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction|summary=Born towards the end of the seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to become all the eighteenth century's most famous criminal, plying his trade online apps in providing a rather curious fashionmore personal, tailored service. He was born in Wolverhampton of parents described Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as ''mean but honest''Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. It seems likely that he first travelled to London as the servant Katie is coming out of a lawyer where he was eventually 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 settlean Edinburgh we already love, leaving his wife thanks to 44 Scotland Street and child the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to fend for themselvescharm. It was whilst serving Katie has no experience in running a term of imprisonment business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in Wood Street Compter that he mixed with the cream of Londonher abilities, and there's criminal underclass always her very helpful (and learned the rudiments of his trade.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848682190</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=K M Grant0811771741|title=Paradise Red (Perfect Fire Trilogy)|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=We are back in the south of France InstaKnits for the third and final time. In one corner, the 'French', with King Louis and his henchmen rampaging through, warring in the name of peace. In another corner, the local people, struggling in the harsh environment and none too pleased to see their corner of the world the location for religious wars, with the Cathar ''heretics'' also present. The lines are drawn, in a realistically convoluted way, and this book will see one of our heroes cross one such line, just as other people make their own momentous decisions. It will take all the narrative skills of the land itself to get the story across to us.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247075</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBaby|author=Camilla Noli|title=The Mother's TaleMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''It is early evening. I am suckling my infant son… We are picture perfect. Madonna and childInstaKnits for Baby''. No doubt about it: gives us a new mother totally smitten with her soncollection of knits from toys to blankets. Zach is adorable. Quiet. Undemanding. A happySome will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, generally relaxed, childcosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. Gorgeous. But Zach isnThe projects are divided by the time they't her firstll take to complete -born. First there was Cassieless than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. A child who entered All the world screaming projects are attractive, modern and has since learned exactly what power she can wring with such lungsuseable. Not yet two years old, Cassie adores her father, I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but even him she manipulates. Her mother she terrorisesthat's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409101584</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=AQA 63336Dean Koontz|title=More Brilliant AnswersThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=TriviaParanormal|summary=If you've got Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a question you can text those nice people at AQA 63336 really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and theyit'll do their best s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to provide you with deserve all this bad luck. He is a prompt and accurate answernice person. A really nice person. Over So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the last five years they've answered some twenty million questions and each autumn they publish delivery 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 book with the best good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and most interesting will certainly take care of the yearBenny's answers. Thereenemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's some fun to be had in this year's bookwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683262</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick O'BrienAdam Stower|title=You Are The First Kid On MarsMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=It Murray is supposed to be a sci-fi future of no danger whatsoeverhumble, with no technological breakdowntidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and no fatal meteor strikeeat and sleep and, well, but that whatever takes his fancy next of course is only to be expected for this marketthe two. I say it more to highlight how well the book But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been illustrated. Digital airbrush techniques turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and more have taken the antiseptic sheen off catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the whole experienceregular back garden, but have still allowed for into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a great detail in the machinerytroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and also a lovely warmth in the face of the lad wehe're empathising with.ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0399246347</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{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.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Abbott Nez 1529431735|title=Cromwell Dixon's Sky-CycleThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Meet Cromwell DixonIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He's d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a real tinkerer, forever in wanted drug smuggler for a barn or somewhere building something manically unusualdecade. Luckily - although The return has come about because he's had a letter from his longex-suffering mother may disagree with wife, saying that word - heshe's ill and hasn't long to live. It's around at hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the birth boot of powered flighta stolen Ford Sierra. Will his plans for Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a pedalled air machine workproblem closer to home?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0399250417</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue MoorcroftAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Starting OverThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=The story opens when Tess bumps her old reliable car into Eli is a breakdown truck. That's rather convenient, since she isn't hurtbusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the guy driving it is able to tow her to dessert cafe his garage, gran owns and then give her a lift to her new homeruns. Naturally Eli lives with his lovely gran, since this too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli'chicks parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-lit' genre, Tess and trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the truck-driver, who goes by world in the unlikely name of Ratty (an abbreviation of his surname) feel mutual antipathy company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the sort that's clearly going eatery leads to leada confession from gran, sooner or laterEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to strong attractionpossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906931224</amazonuk>0571382231
}}