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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=Christopher Russell and Christine RussellSylvie Cathrall|title=The Quest of A Letter to the Warrior SheepLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Take five rare breed sheep, put them in There are few greater joys than a field, and wait for something to fall out the sky on book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. You'll find the result is that they gather|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, confer among themselvesJake Johnson, work out their sacred God Aries is in trouble as he's lost the only thing to confer has settled into his power over rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the sacred Demon future of sheephis life with his vet girlfriend, LambadLivia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and decide relaxing life to take move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the fallen object up North to return it. future she wants for herself and her daughter? A journey that will take them into London For the moment they’re enjoying life in a market truck, down the Underground, present and so much more putting the future on their epic journeythe back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405243767</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=M J Trow1786482126|title=Maxwell's RetirementThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Peter Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'Mad Maxluxury' Maxwell has always been something apartments - when they discovered the bones of a dinosaur and even he realises just how far adrift he is when some of his sixth form students start receiving threatening messages on their mobileschild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. He might prefer to make Was this a phone call ritual killing or send a note when the need arisesmurder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but this isnNelson doesn't the way , that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the younger generation and Maxwell discovers that he's going one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to have to climb a steep learning curve if he's to help his students through the problemsudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007664</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda Porter0008551324|title=Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine ParrDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Katherine Parr was It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the last other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and arguably he's prepared to tell the police where the most fortunate body of King Henry VIII's six wivesa missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Apart from Anne And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of Cleveshis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the speedily divorced other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what'Flanders mares happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It', she s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the only one investigation ground to survive hima halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. And while all six Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figures, this biography gives the impression bodies that she makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was probably the most intelligent going to be an open-and well-rounded personality of them allshut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Kessler0571379877|title=MercyThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In some waysEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, the first line of this novel says it all: Robert and Stanza. Robert'Its a theatre director. He's hard to sit still when your client is scheduled also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to die in fifteen hoursrun errands for him.' From this moment on, the action comes thick Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and fast, leaving the reader with barely the breath he's drunkenly confided how he feels to murmer Robert. Most men in Robert's 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 it really probable that all this was left to stumble upon the last day?' However, if you suspend your disbelief, then the author does deliver blockbuster plot twists and twirls that are very satisfactorytwo of them kissing in a dark passageway. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561829</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lesley PearseJo Callaghan|title=StolenLeave No Trace|rating=3.54|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=The story When a man is found crucified on the top of ''Stolen'' is an interesting one. David Mitchell is walking along a beach in Selsey, Sussex hill in May 2003Nuneaton, when he comes across a young woman – beautiful, half-drowned and barely alive. She is taken DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to hospital and the case alongside her photo is featured in the newspaperssidekick, as the police hope to discover who she isAI detective Lock. Meanwhile It's their first live case together, Dalehaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a female hairdresser, sees the photo potential serial killer and believes the girl a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to be Lotte, who she befriended on a cruise they were working ontheir AI Future Policing project. Along with Dale's colleague Scott – who also knew Lotte – Will they visit be able to solve the girlcase in time, but she has amnesia or will Kat find herself taken off the case and seems to have forgotten almost everything., potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718152859</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Trofimuk 1399613073|title=Waiting for ColumbusMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionThrillers|summary=I was hooked instantly by Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the titlefirst day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. OriginalOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, thought-provoking, quirkywhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. The book revolves around When we first meet them they're at a youngish man who has been admitted to an insane asylum (these two words alone make me want drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to shiver) end in modern-day Spain. The staff have their work cut outtragedy. He doesnWe don't remember his name know who suffered the tragedy or anything at all about his pastthe consequences. He's sporadically violent Twenty- and he says he is Christopher Columbus! five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. As the Americans would sayThis time, go figureit's their teenage children who are involved. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330518844</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Highmore0241636604|title=The MessageTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionAutobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''The Message'' re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is very much a twenty first century tale as it all hinges 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 London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a voicemail message made from a mobile phonefacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. It is He also based on the fact realised that it is very easy most rich people expect poor people to send a message to one person when it is actually meant for someone elsebe stupid. This is It was his ability at what happens to Jen when she receives was, essentially, a message from her husband Robertcard game which got him an internship with Citibank. There is nothing particularly special about Eventually, this message; that is until Jen realises that she is not the intended recipient and then it has turned into permanent employment as a shattering effect on her marriagetrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755343018</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dugald Steer1035021803|title=The Dragon Diary: Dragonology Chronicles Volume 2Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Daniel and Beatrice Cook are studying Dragonology with Dr Ernest Drake, and are awaiting It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the hatching English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of their very own dragon egga request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. But suddenly their parents have gone missing Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, an illness is killing dragons dead and it all smells of evil dragonologistthe circumstances seem suspicious, Alexandra Gorynytchkato say the least. Before they know it, Arthur was the brother, sister and new dragon chick have reason why Freya had not been back to deliver Liber Draconisthe village: Arthur, the dragon diaryshe feels, and St Petroc's chalice to Dr Drake let her down badly. Even though they were in Hong Weibusiness together as antique hunters, which may hold she has not felt able to be near the secret to man or pursue the cureprofession she loved. As After the back cover reads: ''The future of dragon kind hangs split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the balance!'' |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763634255</amazonuk>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 shape of things to come.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate Lum and Sue HellardSunny Singh|title=Princesses Are Not PerfectHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=Princesses AllieThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, Mellie and Libby love bakingkilling everyone on site, gardening and building respectively. The day before the big summer partythere is Sam, they suddenly fancy a change wartime photographer and all swap jobsAbhi, the hotel manager. With a hundred punnets of blueberries As Abhi continues to try to pickcare remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a hundred cupcakes bond with Sam who refuses to makebe cowed by events, and a hundred chairs keeps on venturing out of her room to try to buildcapture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, the children are going their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be awfully disappointed if rescued before they are discovered by the princesses' new-found interests aren't successfulterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747599297</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland1529153298|title=Why Women Mean BusinessThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Business and FinanceGeneral Fiction|summary=Do you want to improve your businessIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? Make more profits? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. You probably need Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to look at move the sector which makes 80% of purchasing decisionsfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the majority of the talent move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and represents 59% of graduatesshe'll do anything to prevent that. Women She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0470749504</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Clayton1398524085|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on the UK Gold TV channelsCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and from occasional mentions in Greg, find the context body of Greg'how great s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he would have been if only…couldn' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as a rising major star of the 80s who would blossom into one of t stand the great all-round stage actorsguilt. One year later, he was deadThe 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>0752454404</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Asbridge1035906708|title=The Crusades: The War for the Holy LandDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction|summary=The word We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'CrusadesCallas' has been misappropriated and often used to make it more manageable in various other contexts over the passing yearsStates. In their original meaning they were a series of holy wars during the medieval era between the Christian and Muslim world, fighting When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for dominion over her voice - she was raised under the Holy Land between 1095 Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and 1291 as the defenders made no secret of western civilization formed expeditions travelling across the face of the known world from Europeher preference for her elder sister, their sole aim being to conquer and defend an isolated swathe of territory centred on JerusalemJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0743268601</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=M R HallChristopher Edge|title=The DisappearedBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=We first met Jenny Cooper Lucas and his friends are all booked in [[for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Coroner by M R Hall|The Coroner]] when she had just taken over as Coroner for Severn ValleyBlack Hole'. ItAll big movie fans, they's now some months later re looking forward to lots of exciting films, and whilst she's settled into many, many snacks! However, as the job to some extent her relationship with her officermovie starts, Alisonthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, is uneven and shethey are swept up into an adventure they couldn's still shaky mentally and dependant on pills to a greater extent than she would care to admitt even imagine. She's a feisty woman though and determined that she's But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to do the job properly.cinema, and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230709850</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|title=Compass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carlo Collodi and Sara FanelliJames Sherwood Metts|title=PinocchioPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Pinocchio, as you all know, is Things have been a little wooden puppetbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, who wants often replacing jobs they're paid to be a real boydo and other tasks that took time to accomplish. He's very badly behaved, Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and always getting into trouble. Will he listen starting to the advice think of Gepettoother, new ways to spend time, the cricket or the fairy? Will he become real? What's it like if he doesn't break into a Disney song every two minutes?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406317470</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ursula Dubosarsky and Andrew Joyner|title=The Terrible Plop|rating=3along came an awful pandemic.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=The rabbits are sitting by the lake, munching on cake Life was pretty much shut down and carrots. An apple falls in, along with a terrible plopit, and they scamper off scared. All all the other animals join in the stampede and get as far away as many daily social interactions on which they can from the terrible plop. Bear is far too big and grumpy to be scared, depend so he gets the littlest rabbit to show him just where the scariness lies..heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405251379</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John WardMatthew Tree|title=The CometWe's Childll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Teenage Fin is rescued Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his remote forest home by Raggfather, the first man he has ever encountered. Having such a sheltered childhood has equipped Fin with the speech drunk and education chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of a nobleman's son but little idea about the real world. Other than relying on his instincts artistic passions all failed miserably and resourcefulness, Fin has no way who had endless crises of knowing who self confidence. So Tim applied himself to trusthis studies, or where he is bound as he leaves home with Raggcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905537123</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert Jackson BennettA G Slatter|title=Mr ShiversThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=HorrorFantasy|summary=Marcus Connelly, a quiet, reserved and private man, has recently joined the mass of humanity travelling west in search of work. It's the Midwest in the 1930s and the Great Depression is in full swing. The dustbowl is a desperate place and there's none more desperate than Connelly. But Connelly doesn't need a job and he has a wife and a home. Connelly isn't missing prosperity; he's missing his daughter, and he's in search of the man who killed her. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498572</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Cross|title=Captured|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Kenny is dying - brain cancer is hitting him just as heThere's barely turning forty. As a result he compiles a short list part of rights me that wants to wrong, and people keep this just to create closure withmyself for however long I can. OneThis secret magic of my own, his ex-wifeall mine, might not be easy, two concern a misguided sense of a guilt of oldat last. The fourth turns out I just want to be enjoy it for a missing womanwhile. The journey he takes in that redemptive exercise is not for the squeamish.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847373976</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Renee Russell1529900360|title=Dork DiariesThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Dr Siri Paiboun is now married 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 Madame Daeng ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and despite -shut cases which didn't need the fact that they have help of a combined age of going on psychologist only worked for a hundred and forty they're behaving like the newly-weds they arewhile. Even being the reluctant coroner for the Republic of Laos can't dampen SiriFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's enthusiasm partner, who nudged Milo into asking for lifehelp again. Well, it can't until he makes She knew that the gruesome discovery involvement was something that a the man is wooing and wedding girls she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in various parts the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the country heir to an Italian shoe empire and then murdering them on honeymoon she is married to an extremely rich man and binding their bodies to trees. What he does to his victims leaves it's not the morgue staff sickenedItalian. There's a determination to find But which of them was the man responsible and bring him to justice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849160082</amazonuk>primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicola Davies1529395224|title=Gaia WarriorsLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=The best way to read this book is to treat it like Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a magazine: flip the pages GP and dip Rowlands didn't want to follow in. I can guarantee his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that you will find something to catch your eye. Fashion addicts could start being on page 136 ''Dressing for the climate'', foodies may prefer page 124 ''Rock-star food'call put on his father's life. The array When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of different typefaces doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and page colours make was convinced this was the book very easy to browsejob for him. Before long, and the author excels he was at explaining difficult concepts in Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a straightforward waychild. So certain sections in it could If anything, he'd wanted to be considered not just as for older children or teen readers, but as an informative read for adults as wella professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406312347</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain Banks0861541774|title=The Steep Approach to GarbadaleA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=It took me DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a while short holiday in Singapore to realise that Iain Banks is, most of allmeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a teller of tales street brawl - I he would call him later maintain that he was facing a story-teller had this term not became man armed with a compliment-cumknife -invective usually reserved for the Jeffrey Archers and Dan Browns of the modern publishing worldhe killed a Ghurka. This ability to tell stories - not to plot as much as to weave a yarn - combines with Initially, he faced a penchant for creating appealing contexts for Banks' narratives to unfold in (this gets magnificently realised in the world building charge of his [[:Category:Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks]] alter-ego) and populating them with memorable, larger than life manslaughter but usually short of caricature, characters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349119287</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Malcolm Walker|title=The Stone Crown|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Neither Emlyn nor Maxine feel completely at home in Yeaveburgh - yet they both evidence came to light that suggested that he might have roots there. Emlyn's come back planned to murder the town in which man. Now he was born because his mother and sister, archaeologists, are working on a dig nearbycould be facing the death penalty. His father is in a care home, having suffered a nervous breakdown. Maxine returned Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to the town to live with her grandmother after her mother died of a heroin overdose. Emlyn is quiet and shy, help as any interference from another police force could provoke a bit geeky, diplomatic incident and lonely. Maxine is lonely too, but shewouldn'd never admit it. She's too spiky and defensive. They both feel like outsiders, and yet they both have a nagging sense that they are where they were meant to bet help Danny at all. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321516</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ceci JenkinsonAlexander McCall Smith|title=Mirror Mischief (Oli and Skipjack's Tales of Trouble) The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Sid from the pizza shop The Perfect Passion Company is on holiday a dating agency in Africa Edinburgh, run by Ness and she's sent presents operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her two best customersyounger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, Oli Biggles and Skipjack Haynesas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Oli's present Katie is coming out of a mirror break up with a bad boyfriend, and it's not just any mirror as it seems so jumps at the chance to come home to have magical powersEdinburgh. It was perhaps unfortunate that Vernon SurdAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the mean maths teacher Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who punishes anyone who canquickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there't do fractions s always her very helpful (and Slugger Stubbinsrather handsome) neighbour, the school bully should be the ones at the wrong end of the magical powers but it seemed quite appropriate that the first should be transformed into William, to lend a vulture and the second into a blue-faced baboon.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571249698</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eloisa James0811771741|title=When the Duke ReturnsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's 'When 'InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the Duke Returns''long, the newest volume cosy afternoons in front of the fire'Desperate Duchesses' series, continues the regency celebrity romp saga where [[Duchess by Night by Eloisa James|Duchess by Night]] left offvariety. The focus, this projects are divided by the time, is on Isidore, the Duchess of Conway: hotthey'll take to complete -headedless than five hours, hot-blooded and Italian five to bootten hours, she was married by proxy at ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the age of sixteen projects are attractive, modern and is still a virgin seven years lateruseable. Isidore I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's cunning plot to entice back the husband she has never seen from his travels in Asia and Africa works perfectly and Simeon, His Grace Duke of Conway is now back in England, ready to claim his estate and, as Isidore presumes, ready to claim his beautiful wifeme being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340961104</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteDean Koontz|title=Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's LifeBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyParanormal|summary=Like the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen VictoriaBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, but John Van der Kiste and someone has taken the unusual step of using the men in her life delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course the most famous man in her lifehis home, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't it'son, servant s possible that whoever or statesman' as promised by whatever was inside is the title of thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the book, but he established very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a trendnice person. A really nice person. VictoriaSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, often regarded as a difficult woman to pleasebad weather friend called Spike, would always have a man in her life who would, has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a greater or lesser extentgood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, dominate herand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maureen EmersonAdam Stower|title=Escape to ProvenceMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyConfident Readers |summary=In the 1920s two womenMurray is supposed to be a humble, one Americantidy and friendly cat, one British, settled in the south of France, both for different reasons. Elisabeth Starr had left her home in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and the death, possibly suicidewell, of her fiancé, a nephew whatever takes his fancy next of the American Presidenttwo. Drawn to Paris, But he'the chosen European city for the sophisticated and well-heeled of the New Worlds a bad magician's cat, she worked as so his favourite bun has been turned into a nurse during hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the Great War, then moved to Provence where she made her home in an ancient stone housecatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Castelloregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and took French citizenshipwhiffs. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was the wife of the Royal Librarian at WindsorThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, who retired in 1926 with where a knighthood and became a renowned (though hardly successful in financial terms) military historian. After the fall of the poundtroll hunter is expected – well, it one much bigger than Murray was hard for them , to make ends meet in Englandbe honest, but he's turned up and they were drawn he'll have to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestyle, partly by a favourable exchange rate.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith ColquhounB0C47LV1PC|title=Beyond ReasonFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Beyond ReasonYo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is a deceptively complex novel - a black comedy about the conflicts within religion. The main focus of question should you make it? Or is the plot, Edward Bunyanquestion if you did, would it land? The catch is a radical within that the Church of England who is trying to take religion in a new (and rather amusing) direction in order to get the public interested in it againanswer for both could well be.... Bunyan claims to have a direct link with God as well as spiritual powers, such as being able to levitate and read minds, which leave his colleague and old college friend, Reverend Ralph 'Marmy' Marmaduke, unsure about both his friendship with Bunyan and his own religious beliefsno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529348</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin Cotterill1529431735|title=Curse of the Pogo StickThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Dr Siri Paiboun usually managed to control his reactions in front of Judge HaengIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, but occasionally he forgot himself and was which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more insolent than usualsurprising. This time He'd been exiled on the Laos national coroner (reluctant), communist (even more reluctantly) and shaman finds himself on Costa del Sol as a road trip with the judge and the Justice Department. Nurse Dtui (pregnant and married, although not in the usual order of events) is left to run the morgue along with Mr Geung, who might, or might not be wanted drug smuggler for a help, but probably not in the way that you might expectdecade. As if that wasnThe return has come about because he't enough Nurse Dtui discovers s had a boobyletter from his ex-trapped corpsewife, theresaying that she's a geriatric hit-person on the loose ill and Siri is kidnapped.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849160112</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nia Pritchard |title=More Than Just A Wedding|rating=2.5|genre=Womenhasn's Fiction|summary=If you like novels in which little happens as the story strolls towards its happy ending, then Nia Pritchard's sequel t long to 'More Than Just a Hairdresser' may suit youlive. If the Liverpudlian vernacular and setting pushes your buttons, then maybe youIt'll enjoy its light-hearted picture of Scouse life. My mother-in-law will probably love it. I'm sorry s hard to say that it wasn't my cup of tea at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784124</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tonya Hurley |title=Ghostgirl|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Charlotte Usher feel any sympathy when Hopkins is desperate abducted, stripped to be popular. She has spent the entire summer break transforming herself his underwear and sent to try and fit a watery grave in with the 'in' crowd all in an attempt to try and attract the attention boot of Damen, a popular and handsome jockstolen Ford Sierra. Yet even after all her hard work she still remains invisible at best, despised at worst. Finally, in Is it a moment of tragic bad luck, Charlotte chokes on warning from a gummy bear, alone in Spanish gang or a classroom, and dies. This isn't the end of the story however, it's actually just the beginning, because Charlotte isn't going problem closer to let the little inconvenience of being dead get in her way...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347714</amazonuk>home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony Horowitz Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider)The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fans of Anthony Horowitz' Alex Rider series have had a two-year wait for this installment of our young hero's escapades and they are not going to be disappointed. He's fourteen year old now and not only Eli is he being targeted by a hitman, he's also being pursued busy lad – by a journalist who wants to tell day an apprentice in the nation all about wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the fact that MI6 are using one of his tender years to do their dirty work. The trouble is that he can't be positive that it was evening a sniper that caused helper at the car he was in to skid off a Scottish road dessert cafe his gran owns and land at the bottom of a Lochruns. And MI6 don't seem all that bothered about the journalistEli lives with his lovely gran, unless, that too – for there is, Alex might be willing to find some simple information from a GM crop research centre, generation missing in which case they might be able to have a quiet word with the gentlemanfamily.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406310484</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cathi Unsworth |title=Bad Penny Blues|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Step into the seedy underbelly of London on the cusp of the Swinging Sixties. A few short years ago, Eli'Bad Penny Blues' is s parents were both lost to the story of the hunt for a brutal serial killer targeting prostitutes in the west of the citytitular race, at the time a melting pot of immigrants from globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the Caribbean and Ireland, bohemian artists and media types, and even peers. Carnaby Street was just becoming the fashion centre of London and a new decade promised exciting possibilities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686784</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Celia Friedman |title=The Wings of Wrath (The Magister Trilogy)|rating=4|genre=Fantasy|summary=The first part of Celia Friedman's ''Magister'' trilogy was a wonderfully dark piece of fantasy. It contained some beasts you wouldn't be surprised to come across world in a horror novel and stretched the idea company of magic being a draining power to an interesting place psychologicallymagical beast. The second part, ''Wings of Wrath'' is more of a straight fantasy novel, lacking some of the horror elements that This has made the first part such a draw for me, but it's still a very good read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495336</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bernard P Morgan and Rikin Parekh |title=The Lighthouse|rating=2|genre=For Sharing|summary=Bob the lighthouse keeper tries race anathema to warn the village of Quark that there's pair – but when a big storm on bad incident at the way. They don't listen eatery leads to him, so Bob just sets about making preparations anyway. When the storm comes, the villagers are in a lot of troubleconfession from gran, but thankfully Bob Eli knows his only hope is on hand to save the day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312764</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Blackstock |title=The Secret Symbol: The Original Masonic Documents Behind Dan Brown's Latest Bestseller|rating=3|genre=Spirituality and Religion|summary=Pop Quiz. What links Scott of the Antarctic, Jim Davidson, Churchill, and Rabbie Burns? Where and when might you come a cropper trying dare to spell Boazenter what he most hates, but starting with the B? And what has three stages - unless it's thirty-three, or even ten by sole aim the York system?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683734</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jonathan Buckley |title=Contact|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Dominic Pattison's life began to veer off course badly on a Tuesday in May. It's a fairly banal Tuesday. The kind prize of Tuesday that Dominic probably experiences quite frequently. He feels magic at the need to tell us about it. In detail. And, sadly, not in a particularly engaging style.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003869</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jessica Porter |title=Sicilian Sunset|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Sarah Livingstone's jewellery business was struggling but she was still annoyed when her father called James Ross for help. Sarah and James had had a relationship some ten years earlier and Sarah really didn't want to work with him, particularly after her marriage. Most people thought that her husband's death in a plane crash had been end – the cruel end only thing to a good marriage. Only a few knew that he had been about to leave her to live with another woman. It's left Sarah very reluctant to get involved with any manpossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709089430</amazonuk>0571382231
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