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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>
|rating=5
|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected from the World Ear in readiness for There are few greater joys than a mission that will last a lifetime. Sent book which lives up to man a tiny station built at enormous effort and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar system, he will never be able to returncompelling premise. Gravity And this is one-tenth that of Earth and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without the strength of calcium. ''If he stood on the Earth now... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.'' It took eight years to get there and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfully. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Lahey |title=My Bread: the Revolutionary No-work, No-knead Method|rating=4.5|genre=Cookery|summary=It's a long time since I did Home Economics at school, but a major part of it was learning methods, which, I was assured would stand me in good stead for the rest of my life. A Victoria sponge was a careful progression of creaming and gently adding flour and eggs. A white sauce had a couple of these methods, but essentially it meant working through a series of instructions until they became second nature. Bread was the worst requiring fermenting, kneading, proving and then more kneading and risingthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393066304</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amy V Fetzer and Shari Aaron0008517061|title=Climb the Green Ladder: Make Your Company and Career More SustainableDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Business and FinanceCrime|summary=With Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the abject failure future of the Denmark Climate Change Conference fresh in our mindshis life with his vet girlfriend, it is perhaps time to turn away from the politicians Livia and look back toward what we can do. The Conference may have finally got the likes her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of the USA, India compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and China relaxing life to acknowledge that they have to join move in if we are going with Livia or does Livia move to save Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the planet as a benevolent place future she wants for our species to live, but there is still too much posturing herself and not enough commitment. her daughter? Clearly our governments For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and 'leaders' are not going to do this for us; we have to do it for ourselvesputting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>047074801X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jaki Scarcello1786482126|title=Fifty and Fabulous: The Best Years of a Woman's Life|rating=3.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=When you open a package and find a bright pink book which proudly proclaims 'Fifty and Fabulous: the best years of a woman's life' you can be forgiven for wondering if this is going to be another of those books which recommends strenuous exercise regimes, strict diets and just a little nip and tuck under the chin. Personally, my heart sank because, er, well, I'm no longer fifty. Were my fabulous years behind me?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906787603</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Will Birch|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive BiographyElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Ian Dury Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was always one going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of the most individual, even contrary characters in the musical worlda child beneath a doorway. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardom, he There was no oil paintingskull. During the pub rock eraWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, he and his group, the BlockheadsDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz-funk than rockbut Nelson doesn'n'rollt, and that she is pregnant with his songs extolled child as a result of the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or Californiaone night they spent together some three months ago. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches in the rock pressHer condition will be obvious before long, he was comparatively middle-aged. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Glenn Cooper0008551324|title=Book of SoulsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Area 51 is not what you think it isIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. No - all that UFO kerfuffle is a smokescreen Neither side likes or has any respect for the powers that be other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to hide even better tell the police where the most unusual manuscript known to (body of a handful of) mankind - the most unearthly, singular, missing person is buried and unsettling book, in thousands and thousands of volumeswho was responsible for her death. All except oneThis person, he promises, which is about to come under someone big and it will be worth the hammer in a London auction housepolice doing what he wants. Our hero Will Piper must go very reluctantly on And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the trail remainder of it his sentence and its secretsto get an early parole date. Not much to ask, a trail which will force him is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and others she's even prepared to become entangled do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with shadowy agents, who in turn know the very day of all their enemyhim is kept well away from what's deathshappening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099534479</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sharon Owens0008405026|title=The Seven Secrets of HappinessA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=It was hard to think that life wasn't perfect for Ruby O'Neills sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and Jonathan had an idyllic marriage and the investigation ground to a beautiful homehalt. There was a job Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a dress shop which she enjoyed straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and although she might not be close to her parents she had good friendsboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. It What looked as though it was Christmas Eve going to be an open-and the tree had just been delivered by -shut case is now a lovely man on behalf of complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the garden centre when her world fell apart. Jonathan had been killed explanation lies in a car crashRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141028564</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Skinner0571379877|title=Furnaces of ForgeThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=In this [[Blue Fire Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Ice (The Land) by Alan Skinner|sequel]], itStanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's almost as you werealso self-obsessed, except here the mysterious powers of the blue flame are not being used by some outlander arsonistdemanding, but have handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been usurped by two inept young scientists from the Myrmidots, in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to fuel their industryRobert. We can predict this will prove Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a bad thing, relationship had begun between them but the breadth of the journey he's not like most men: Edward is left to capture stumble upon the flame, and the efforts two of all our returning characters to put things right might still be them kissing in a surprisedark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955726859</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark SimpsonJo Callaghan|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian'sLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=The mere mention When a man is found crucified on the top of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during the 1950s when a more gentle humour was hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the order of case alongside her sidekick, the dayAI detective Lock. Yet the man hated It's their first live case together, having 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 potential serial killer and did his best to avoid publicity, claiming a very high profile case that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed draws a lot of unwanted attention to know about himtheir AI Future Policing project. How he would have fared twenty years later Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the age case and, potentially, out of a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonder.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Saci Lloyd1399613073|title=The Carbon Diaries 2017|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=It's been a year since we read a diary entry from Laura Brown. We left her with a boyfriend and just about adjusted to a Britain in the full throes of carbon rationing. Her nu-punk band, ''dirty angels'', hadn't quite made it, but things were looking rather promising for its future. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970162</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoral Injuries|author=P Robert Smith|title=Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy Endings|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy Endings'' is the sort of book you finish with the feeling that you've just read something with a million different meanings. Don't be surprised if you feel like you should start the whole thing again but with your brain more fully engaged, and perhaps that's the whole point.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535238</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dai Sijie |title=Once on a Moonless Night|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A French female scholar, studying in China, finds herself caught up in the search for a lost, sacred text that was inscribed on an ancient scroll. The scroll was torn in two by Emperor Puyi years ago, and was lost. After falling in love with a young grocer called Tumchooq the young woman becomes caught up in tales within tales, as she finds that Tumchooq's father found and translated half of the missing scroll and became obsessed with finding the other half, and soon Tumchooq too becomes embroiled in the search.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521326</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicholas Stern|title=A Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How We Can Save the World and Create ProsperityChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyThrillers|summary=The hardback edition Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of 'A Blueprint medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a Safer Planet' was published early in 2009 as an update to the 2006 Stern Review on the economics quarter of climate changea century. Now here Olivia is the paperback editionruthlessly ambitious, published too early which is a bonus when you aim to critique Copenhagen, but nonetheless an interesting readbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Stern Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an expert witness eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who presents his evidence understandably for the layman; he is unemotional and very convincingare involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099524058</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crawford0241636604|title=The BardTrading Game: Robert Burns - a biographyA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=If Shakespeare is Englandyou were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's own Bard, re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived pin-stripe suit and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils his background is the equivalent role in Scottish iconography more than adequatelyEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstrates, there is much more There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the man than the wordsmith London School of 'Auld Lang Syne' Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and 'Weehe 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, sleekitessentially, cowrin'a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, tim'rous beastie'this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alyxandra Harvey1035021803|title=My Love Lies BleedingThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Solange Drake hates being It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the only born female vampire. Not only does English country village where she have to put grew up with . She's back now because of a request for help from her pheromones making her irresistible beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to male vampiresthe village: Arthur, who all want to use she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to start their own vampire familiesbe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she has worked in a prophecy looming over her headcafe, one that states a female Drake vampire will overthrow met and married James (on the rebound from the current ruler to become Queen love of the Vampiresher life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803402</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Terence MorganAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Master of BrugesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Science Fiction|summary=Belgium, the fifteenth century. Hans is apprenticed to a master painter in ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the city shape of Brussels, until the old curmudgeon dies, and his studio falls apart. Luckily for Hans, a mistakenly drawn sketch, and a bizarre rescue from the gallows gives him a major boost - patronage, for both portraits and many religious images. With what might seem things to be a patchy diary - some years have five pages only, concerning but one month - we see his startling life journey, covering beguiling models, ghostly war scenes, and even the biggest intrigues of English royal courtcome.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744125</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom PalmerSunny Singh|title=Captain Fantastic (Football Academy)Hotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=Ryan The Hotel Arcadia is a changed boyluxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Since he got into hot water with manager Steve for bullying several books ago, and his captaincy of Hiding from the United U12s was threatenedterrorists who are rampaging through, he's been determined to get his socks firmly pulled up. He's worked really hard at redeeming himself too - both killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and off Abhi, the pitchhotel manager. He's more than halfway towards becoming As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the best captain residents who are still alive in the teamhotel, 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's happened through her photography. Although they only ever had. So when Craig's attitude suddenly nosedives and he starts playing dirty during games and being insolent during trainingtalk over the phone, Ryan feels a big responsibility their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help sort it outher keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141324724</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Duncan1529153298|title=A Single to RomeThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=35|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Natalie It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is in love with MichaelPrime Minister. They (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been together for three yearsmurdered, but Michael to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants some spaceto move the family 'Down South'. He hasn’t said he doesn’t love her When you're from Yorkshire, so there Down South is still a chance he could come back… Then he goes and finds himself a new girlfriendfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Devastated For Miv, Natalie consoles herself with the help of move would mean leaving her friendsbest friend, who persuade her to go speed dating. There she meets Guy, a friendly man, who like her is trying to get over someone – his new ex-wife Vanessa. But Guy is one of the nice onesSharon, and before she knows it, he has been invited 'll do anything to her friend’s wedding as Natalie’s dateprevent that. At least she won’t be going alone and Michael will be there. But her love life isn’t her only worry. Past actions have come to light She's not worried about the dangers or that have put her career in danger. At a loss, Natalie turns Mum's stopped talking - to Guy for help, who offers her the use of his flat in Romeanyone. A place to escape? Or a place to dwell? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345932</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Russell and Christine Russell1398524085|title=The Quest of the Warrior SheepHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Peter Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband'Mad Max' Maxwell has always been something of a dinosaur s fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and even he realises just how far adrift he her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is when some not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of his sixth form students start receiving threatening messages on their mobilesGreg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. He might prefer It was an easy assumption for the police to make a phone call or send a note that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when the need arises, but this isnhe couldn't stand the way of the younger generation and Maxwell discovers that heguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's going to have to climb a steep learning curve if he's to help his students through the problemlittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007664</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda Porter1035906708|title=Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine ParrDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Katherine Parr We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was the last born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and arguably the most fortunate of King Henry VIII's six wivesonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Apart from Anne of Cleves, the speedily divorced Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Flanders mareCallas', she was to make it more manageable in the only one to survive himStates. And while all six of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figures, this biography gives the impression When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was probably raised under the most intelligent Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and well-rounded personality made no secret of them allher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David KesslerChristopher Edge|title=MercyBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=In some waysLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the first line nickname of this novel says it all: 'ItThe Black Hole's hard to sit still when your client is scheduled to die in fifteen hours. All big movie fans, they' re looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! From this moment onHowever, as the action comes thick and fastmovie starts, leaving the reader with barely the breath to murmer 'is it really probable they very quickly realise that all something about this was left new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the last daynext, can they figure out what on earth is going on?' HoweverWill they ever get back to the cinema, if you suspend your disbelief, then the author does deliver blockbuster plot twists and twirls that are very satisfactory. to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561829</amazonuk>1839942738
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lesley PearseRachel Greenlaw|title=StolenCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionTeens|summary=The story of ''Stolen'' is an interesting oneI can hear the song of the sea. David Mitchell is walking along a beach in Selsey, Sussex in May 2003, when he comes across a young woman – beautiful, half-drowned and barely alive. She is taken to hospital and her photo is featured in The call of the newspapersdeep, as the police hope to discover who she isanswering beat in my heart.''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas Trofimuk James Sherwood Metts|title=Waiting for ColumbusPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=I was hooked instantly by Things have been a bit sticky for the titleEarthlings. OriginalAI and automation have been proceeding apace, thought-provoking, quirkyoften replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. The book revolves around a youngish man who has been admitted Just as they were beginning to an insane asylum (these two words alone make me want get used to shiver) in modern-day Spain. The staff have their work cut out. He doesn't remember his name or anything at all about his pastthis technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. He's sporadically violent - Life was pretty much shut down and he says he is Christopher Columbus! As , along with it, all the Americans would say, go figuremany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330518844</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julie HighmoreMatthew Tree|title=The MessageWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=''The Message'' is very much Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a twenty first century tale as it drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all hinges on a voicemail message made from a mobile phonefailed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. It is also based on the fact that it is very easy So Tim applied himself to send a message to one person when it is actually meant for someone else. This is what happens to Jen when she receives a message from her husband Robert. There is nothing particularly special about this message; that is until Jen realises that she is not the intended recipient his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and then it has a shattering effect on her marriageset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755343018</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{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=Isabel Ashdown1529900360|title=GlasshopperThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=ThirteenIt 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-yearand-old Jake is just like any other boy on shut cases which didn't need the cusp help of puberty: new music and Saturday jobs are at the top of his agenda, a psychologist only worked for a while girls are the strange exotic creatures that must be looked at but not touched (particularly his pretty Classics teacher). But behind closed doors Finally, it was Robin, Jake struggles to cope with his motherDelaware's ongoing battle with depression and alcoholismpartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. His father moved out a few weeks ago She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. So has his older brother The next case did look simple, Matthewthough. That leaves Jake as Two lovers were murdered in the man swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the house: the one who must remember heir to get him an Italian shoe empire and little brother, Andy, up in time for school in the morning; the one making toast for dinner; she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the one keeping a watchful eye over his mother to make sure she doesn't get herself into any serious troubleItalian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954930975</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Lum and Sue Hellard1529395224|title=Princesses Are Not PerfectLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Princesses Allie, Mellie Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Libby love bakingRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, gardening and building respectivelyparticularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. The day before When he was seventeen he took the big summer party, they suddenly fancy opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a change vet and all swap jobswas convinced this was the job for him. With a hundred punnets of blueberries to pick Before long, a hundred cupcakes to make, and a hundred chairs to build, the children are going to be awfully disappointed if the princesseshe was at Liverpool University. It hadn' newt - as with so many students -found interests aren't successfulbeen his dream since he was a child.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747599297</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland|title=Why Women Mean Business|rating=5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=Do you want to improve your business? Make more profits? You probably need If anything, he'd wanted to look at the sector which makes 80% of purchasing decisions, is the majority of the talent and represents 59% of graduates. Womenbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0470749504</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Clayton0861541774|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on the UK Gold TV channelsDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, and from occasional mentions Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in the context of 'how great a street brawl - he would have been if only…' later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as Initially, he faced a rising major star charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the 80s who would blossom into one of man. Now he could be facing the great all-round stage actorsdeath penalty. One year later, he was deadDomenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas AsbridgeAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Crusades: The War for the Holy LandPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction|summary=The word 'Crusades' Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has been misappropriated asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and often used in various other contexts over look after the passing yearsbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. In their original meaning they were Katie is coming out of a break up with a series of holy wars during the medieval era between the Christian and Muslim worldbad boyfriend, fighting for dominion over the Holy Land between 1095 and 1291 as so jumps at the defenders of western civilization formed expeditions travelling across the face of the known world chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from EuropeAlexander McCall Smith, their sole aim being bringing us to conquer an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and defend an isolated swathe of territory centred on Jerusalemthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0743268601</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=M R Hall0811771741|title=The DisappearedInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=We first met Jenny Cooper in [[The Coroner by M R Hall|The Coroner]] when she had just taken over as Coroner Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Severn ValleyBaby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. ItSome will be quick knits - others are of the 's now some months later and whilst shelong, cosy afternoons in front of the fire's settled into variety. The projects are divided by the job time they'll take to some extent her relationship with her officercomplete - less than five hours, Alisonfive to ten hours, is uneven ten to twenty hours and she's still shaky mentally more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and dependant on pills to a greater extent than she would care to admituseable. SheI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects's a feisty woman though and determined but that she's going to do the job properlyme being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230709850</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ann PearlmanDean Koontz|title=The Cookie Club|rating=5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Chocolate bonbons with an almond glaze. Peanut butter cookies double dipped in chocolate. Coffee and raisin hermit biscuits. Crisp vanilla fingers with toasted almonds. Thin crunchy crisps flavoured with molasses and ginger. If you're even the slightest bit peckish after that, I guarantee you'll be starving by the time you finish this wonderful book full of festive flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847376843</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Carlo Collodi and Sara Fanelli|title=PinocchioBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Pinocchio, as you all know, Benny is having a little wooden puppet, who wants to be a real boyterrifically bad day. He's very badly behavedloses his job, he loses his fiancee, and always getting into troublehis house gets trashed. Will he listen Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the advice of Gepettothing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the cricket or the fairy? Will he become real? What's it like if he doesn't break into very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a Disney song every two minutes?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406317470</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ursula Dubosarsky and Andrew Joyner|title=The Terrible Plop|rating=3nice person. A really nice person.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=The rabbits are sitting by So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the lake, munching on cake and carrots. An apple falls indelivery to his house is a new friend, with a terrible plopbad weather friend called Spike, and they scamper off scared. All the other animals join in the stampede and get as far away as they can who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from the terrible plopnefarious forces for being a good person. Bear Spike is far too big going to take care of Benny, and grumpy to be scaredwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, so if he gets the littlest rabbit to show him just where the scariness lies.., Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405251379</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John WardAdam Stower|title=The Comet's ChildMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Teenage Fin Murray is rescued from supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his remote forest home by Ragg, fancy next of the first man he has ever encounteredtwo. Having such But he's a sheltered childhood bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has equipped Fin with been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the speech and education of regular back garden, but into a nobleman's son but little idea about the real worldof frightening adventure and whiffs. Other This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than relying on his instincts and resourcefulnessMurray was, Fin has no way of knowing who to trustbe honest, or where but he is bound as 's turned up and he leaves home with Ragg.'ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905537123</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.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil Cross1529431735|title=CapturedThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kenny It's February 1991 and Essex is dying - brain cancer is hitting him just as hebitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins's barely turning fortyreturn all the more surprising. As He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a result he compiles wanted drug smuggler for a short list of rights to wrong, and people to create closure withdecade. One, The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, might not be easy, two concern a misguided sense of a guilt of oldsaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. The fourth turns out It's hard to be a missing woman. The journey he takes in that redemptive exercise feel any sympathy when Hopkins is not for the squeamish.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847373976</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=The Economist|title=The World of Business: From Valuable Brands abducted, stripped to his underwear and Games Directors Play sent to Bail-Outs and Bad Boys |rating=5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=For years I've been a great fan of The Economist's [[Pocket World in Figures 2010 by The Economist|Pocket World watery grave in Figures]] series with all the unbiased statistics which the average person could wantboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. I was just Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a little nervous when I opened ''The World of Business'' – just in case it was going problem closer to be a disappointment – but I needn't have worried.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681588</amazonuk>home?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Dork DiariesThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I do like Eli is a blurb to be accurate. So when I saw the back cover of this book state busy lad – by day an apprentice in the obvious to me, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid for girls!", I could rest assured. I didn't relax fully, however, for I'd read [[Rodrick Rules (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) wondrous library we start by Jeff Kinney|the blue one]] of those and found it a bit feeblevisiting with him, and [[Diary of in the evening a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney|helper at the yellow one]] dessert cafe his gran owns and found it a bit fabulous, so I couldn't guarantee any feminine, pink variant would be worth my timeruns.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387411</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Val Doonican|title=My Story Eli lives with his lovely gran, My Life: Val Doonican - The Complete Autobiography|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=In the 1960s, if Harold Wilson was the personification of politics and the Beatles the collective icon of youth culture, Val Doonican was similarly at too – for there is a generation missing in the very apex of light entertainmentfamily. He may no longer have such a high profile – but heA few short years ago, Eli's outlasted them parents were both. Over four decades he has refused lost to bow to passing fads and fashionsthe titular race, remained true a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to himself, and navigate the world in the process he has never really put company of a foot wrongmagical beast. As he says towards This has made the race anathema to the end, 'When you find out what it is you do best, and what pair – but when a bad incident at the public wants eatery leads to a confession from you, then stick with itgran, and do it as well as you can.' With the possible exception of Eli knows his contemporary and long-time professional and personal friend Rolf Harris, it's difficult only hope is to dare to think of another person in showbiz who comes across as more genuinely likeable, and more a genuine case of 'enter what you see is what you get'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Su Tong|title=The Boat to Redemption|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ku Dongliang and his fatherhe most hates, Ku Wenxuan, are forced to live on a barge on with the river following Ku Wenxuan's fall from grace. Originally believed to be sole aim the son prize of a revolutionary martyr, it is eventually proved that Mr Ku was not so - as a result, his position in society takes a nose-dive. Dongliang suffers as a result of this, finding it hard to make friends within magic at the barge community and on shore. Then an orphaned girl moves onto end – the barges and finds a place in Dongliang's apparently cold heartonly thing to possibly save his gran. Will she be able to take him out of himself? Or will she, too, turn her back on him?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>038561344X</amazonuk>0571382231
}}