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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=Sue GraftonSylvie Cathrall|title=U is for UndertowA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=Several years ago I joined There are few greater joys than a funny little book group in London, and one of the first books we read was which lives up to a Sue Grafton alphabet bookcompelling premise. I had, up to And this point, never read any crime fiction, foolishly feeling myself above such books, and so I was dubious about what I'd have to say about it. That book changed my literary life. I devoured it. I couldn't get enough! I immediately searched for all the other books in the series and read them quickly, one by is one, swiftly followed by a delicious plunge into the world of Agatha Christie which gave me a joyously long reading listthem. And so now, years later, I find myself with the latest book in the alphabet series lying in my lap, a happy smile on my face as I found I read voraciously once again!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>023070932X</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jethro Adlington0008517061|title=Online Therapy: Reading Between the LinesDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=You can get most things online these days and even therapy is becoming more widely available on the internetFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. It might seem like There’s perhaps a simple step to take but many little uncertainty about the future of the signals beyond the spoken word are not available to the online therapist. In his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a facelot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to-face situation body language move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is an added form of communication the future she wants for herself and even small changes her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in skin tone can give clues as to state of mind. In a situation where these clues are not available it's essential to make the most of ''all'' present and putting the clues offered by future on the written wordback burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312748</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laurie Halse Anderson1786482126|title=ChainsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Isabel and her sister Ruth are slaves. But Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they should be free - Miss Mary Finch left discovered the bones of a child beneath a will that said sodoorway. But Miss Mary Finch is dead and her greedy nephew and heir denies all knowledge of the will There was no skull. So Isabel and Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth are sold to the Locktons and taken to New YorkGalloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The Revolutionary War is underway and New York It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a dangerous placeresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. The Locktons are loyalists Her condition will be obvious before long, but the patriots are in control not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of the citysickness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747598061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lorraine Jenkin0008551324|title=Chocolate Mousse and Two SpoonsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=From It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the first sentence: other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he'With one hell s prepared to tell the police where the body of a crash, Lettie Howell’s dinner service hit the wall…', I knew that I missing person is buried and who was going to enjoy this taleresponsible for her death. An opening thus full of expletive This person, he promises, is someone big and resounding Welsh Voice immediately makes it clear who’s will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the boss remainder of his sentence and I can relax, knowing I’m in competent handsto get an early parole date. Welcome, Lorraine JenkinNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to my handful of favourite chickdo the other thing that Hardie demanded -lit authorsmake certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1870206959</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Wolfe0008405026|title=The Bonfire of A Stranger in the VanitiesFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=In his own mindIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, bond trader Sherman McCoy is it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there'Master s something about the positioning of the Universe'bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. He has a pleasant wife, a beautiful mistress, What looked as though it was going to be an open-and -shut case is now a sweet six year old daughtercomplex double murder. Henry Lamb Kerrigan is a black student from convinced that the projects. Under normal circumstances, itexplanation lies in Rosalie's clear that McCoydisappearance: others (such as Derwent's world boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and LambStanza. Robert's world would never overlapa theatre director. But when McCoy He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and his mistress Maria Ruskin end up lost entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in the Bronx, love with Stanza since their university days - and an accident leads he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Lamb being hit by McCoyRobert. Most men in Robert's Mercedes, position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a chain relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of events start which will lead to his downfallthem kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548798</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michelle HarrisonJo Callaghan|title=The Thirteen CursesLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Red When a man is back, but she's trapped found crucified on the top of a hill in the fairy realm. Having swapped places with Tanya, she is bound thereNuneaton, but is still desperate DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to get both the case alongside her and her brother back into sidekick, the human worldAI detective Lock. She must seek an audience It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with the fairy court, but the realm is full of deception and cruelty – it will be a challenge just to get thereseveral cold cases. And guess what happens But when she gets there? She is set another challengea second body found crucified a few days later, twisted Kat is suddenly struggling with the cruelty a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of the Unseelie (Boo! Hiss!) courtunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Whilst Will they be able to solve the journey goes oncase in time, she reflects on her past: or will Kat find herself taken off the car crash that killed her parents case and her time at the children's home. Meanwhile, Tanya has returned to Elvesden Manor for half term and let's just say that her ability to see fairies comes back into use when the new housekeeper and her pesky parrot land her and Fabian and the whole Manor crew into trouble with the little people.potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384501</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Cole-Adams1399613073|title=Walking to the MoonMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionThrillers|summary=We meet Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the main character Jessicafirst day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, or Jess as she which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is usually called, deep in an emotional black holea perfectionist and a trauma doctor. She can see no light at Anjali is the end free spirit of the tunnelgroup and she becomes a GP. And right from the start, right from page one, When we have first meet them they're at a sense of the beautiful drug and poetic language of Colealcohol-Adams. 'Time fuelled party and I have a new arrangement. We leave each other alone.it' And indeed time is not important s going to end in this noveltragedy. We have all don't know who suffered the time in tragedy or the world would probably consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the motto of the medical staff - if they had onethree friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161348</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nancy Farmer0241636604|title=The Islands of the Blessed (Sea of Trolls Trilogy) Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=In this third adventure, Jack, If you were to bring up an image of a fourteen year old Saxon apprentice bardcity banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and Thorgilhis background is the East End, a bad-tempered shield maidenwhere he was familiar with violence, follow the Bard Dragon Tongue poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on a quest his CV - but he had been to quell the draugr London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - the malevolent spirit and he has a facility with numbers which most of a drowned mermaid mistakenly summoned us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to Jack's village and who seeks revenge for her earlier ill treatment be stupid. It was his ability at human handswhat was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738630X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie McKenzie1035021803|title=The Hostage (Medusa Project)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Teenagers NicoIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, KittyCarole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, Ed is dead and Dylan were implanted with the Medusa gene when they were babiescircumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Now they're adolescents, Arthur was the intended psychic abilities are coming reason why Freya had not been back to the forevillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Nico Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the power of telekinesis - he can move objects with his mindprofession she loved. Ed can read other people's thoughts. Dylan has an invisible protective shield After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and no weapon can harm married James (on the rebound from the love of herlife, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. Kitty has visions that predict the future. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385265</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.''
I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Garth NixSunny Singh|title=Into Battle (The Seventh Tower)Hotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensThrillers |summary=We've made it to book five in Garth Nix's Seventh Tower series, so a quick recap: The Dark World Hotel Arcadia is blocked from the Sun by a luxury hotel in an enchanted Veil created unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by Tal's forebears to protect it a terrorist group. Hiding from the creatures terrorists who inhabit Aenir - are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a spirit land full of magic wartime photographer and magical beastsAbhi, the hotel manager.Aenir is lit and warmed by As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the Sunhotel, but the Dark World uses sunstones - crystals grown and charged he forms a bond with light Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and heat in Aenir. Some inhabitants keeps on venturing out of the Dark World - the Chosen - also bind some of Aenirher room to try to capture what's creatures happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to themselves as spiritshadows or spiritguardssee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007261233</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Don Felder1529153298|title=Heaven And Hell: My Life in the Eagles, 1974 - 2001The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=EntertainmentGeneral Fiction|summary=In terms of record sales It's 1979 and income from live toursMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, hardly anyone matched but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the Eaglesfamily 'Down South' rate of success during the 1970s. Yet the constant search to better themselves with each recordWhen you're from Yorkshire, the in-fightingDown South is a frightening, the drugs and egosforeign place, soon got the better of thembest avoided. They say it is tough at For Miv, the topmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and nobody is better equipped she'll do anything to tell prevent that. She's not worried about the often painful story than their former guitarist Don Felderdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753826771</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Grimson1398524085|title=The Isle of Man: Portrait of a NationHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=To many of usCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, the Isle of Man is probably best known for the Tynwaldsons Niall, the annual TT motorcycle racesPaul and Ollie and her daughter, and as a holiday resortEtty. I must admit that my knowledge of it extended little further than thatare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, and therefore found this book invaluableis not. In these 550 pagesShortly afterwards, profusely illustrated with photographs Etty and mapsGreg, I imagine that few if any questions on find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the subject are left unansweredriver. John Grimson has lived there It was an easy assumption for nearly forty years, the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and as well as working with several of then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the islandguilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's local authorities, was active as a long-distance runner little else they can do but get on with their lives and cyclist until his early seventieswonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709081030</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ru Freeman1035906708|title=A Disobedient GirlDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A Disobedient Girl'' follows two women struggling We tend to retain control think of their lives Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in the face of servitude. Latha is a servant girl to the affluent Vithanage familyManhattan, whose daughterNew York, Thara, is Latha's age. As children, the girls are the best of friends, but they are destined in December 1923 and only moved to be separated by class, which is made painfully obvious Athens when boys come into the pictureshe was thirteen. Meanwhile, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband who beats Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another manfather changed it to 's love child. BisoCallas's husband murdered her lover to make it more manageable in a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair and the States. When she realises was back in Athens - supposedly so that she must escape his house if she and could get appropriate training for her children are to live. Latha too seeks escape, but voice - she finds it in was raised under the arms of Thara's boyfriend Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and this sets off a chain made no secret of events that will echo far into her futurepreference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Debby HoltChristopher Edge|title=Recipe For ScandalBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=There's evidently Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a market for scandalous talesmovie marathon at their local cinema, or else many a womenplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole's weekly would have gone out of business by now. All big movie fans, but this book, though full they're looking forward to lots of scandalexciting films, is slightly different. This isn't council estate scandal or even trashy celebrity scandaland many, it's juicymany snacks! However, firmly middle class scandal of as the type [[:Category:Zoe Heller|Zoë Heller]] might write movie starts, they very quickly realise that something aboutthis new film format is very different, and itthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn's wickedly captivatingt even imagine.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847396542</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dana Fowley|title=How Could She?|rating=4| But as they lurch from one film genre=Autobiography|summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of the same. She was raped by her mother's partner and taken to the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them and others. At other times she was forced to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abused. Did her mother not know next, can they figure out what was on earth is going on? Did she turn a blind eye? It was neither of those. Her mother was a willing participant in Will they ever get back to the abuse cinema, and organised much of it.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009952225X</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=Nick WadleyJames Sherwood Metts|title=Man + DogPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourConfident Readers|summary=Throughout my life I've lived with dogs or deeply regretted Things have been a bit sticky for the fact that I lacked a canine companionEarthlings. Watching a dog – or better stillAI and automation have been proceeding apace, the interaction between dogs – is infinitely better than anything on television often replacing jobs they're paid to do and it's sheer joy other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to see how man all this technological change and dog interacts starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and how, so oftenalong with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they hold a mirror up to each otherdepend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1564785521</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jules StanbridgeMatthew Tree|title=A Date in Your DiaryWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=Harry knows that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but she also knows there's a difference between what we need and what we want – and she Timothy Wyndham wants a bloke. More specifically, she wants a date for the latest in a string of friend-and-family weddings, a wedding where, thanks nothing more than to a 'tricky' seating plan, she will be sitting on the same table as her most recent ex...and different from his new girlfriend. With no prospects in sightfather, Harry comes to the conclusion that internet dating might be the way to go. At best, she'll find a guy who ticks drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all her boxes failed miserably and will joyfully accompany her who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to the wedding before they live happily ever afterhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and at worst, well, she might get a story out of it, never a bad thing for a magazine journoset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755347137</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=Helen Black1529900360|title=DishonourThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Modern lives. Lily Valentine is heavily pregnant It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and trying even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to get her own law firm up ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and running (having been sacked from her previous job -shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a tendency to be a trifle too while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware''independent'' – or maybe just disorganised)s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. Ryan is a boy from She knew that the involvement was something that the sink estatesman she loved needed. ThinThe next case did look simple, angry, rebellious, but with an ability to charm and though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a serious talent for art that gets lost remote property in his gansta-speak Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and tendency she is married to skive off schoolan extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224Lailla |title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Aasha are good Muslim girlsWildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Hard-working, sober, appropriately dressed, dutiful His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to their families. They're also English teenagersfollow in his footsteps, with a fair dose of what particularly when he considered the strain that normally impliesbeing on-call put on his father's life. Jack is a copper, overlooked for When he was seventeen he took the interesting cases (like murder), good at child protection, in love opportunity of doing work experience with Lily, addicted to a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the jobfor him. Before long, always trying to do the right thing, and not always succeedinghe was at Liverpool University. His current cleanIt hadn't - as with so many students -living and caring attitude is driving Lily been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to distractionbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847560725</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Panos Karnezis0861541774|title=The ConventA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Our Lady of Mercy is DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a small convent on the Spanish sierra made short holiday in Singapore to meet up of a handful of devoted nuns who live their lives simplywith an old ally, carrying out their daily duties like clockworkGuy Trueman. However things change when Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a suitcase containing knife - and he killed a newborn baby is left mysteriously outside the convent doorsGhurka. The Mother Superior Initially, Sister Maria Ines, believes the baby to be he faced a miracle and plans charge of manslaughter but evidence came to keep him in the convent, but the other sisters do not agree. During the events light that follow the true characters of the nuns inside the convent are revealed and the peace suggested that the sisters enjoy is stripped away he might have planned to show murder the tension that has been bubbling away under man. Now he could be facing the surfacedeath penalty. Domenic 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>0224079344</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe MenoAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Great PerhapsPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Jonathan Casper faints when he sees clouds. His wife Madeline worries about everythingThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, not least run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the way online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the pigeons that she business, as Ness is studying are murdering each otherplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Their seventeen year old daughter Amelia wants to overthrow the evil empire Katie is coming out of capitalism and is making her own bomba break up with a bad boyfriend, while fourteen year old Thisbe is looking for God and praying so jumps at the chance to come home to himEdinburgh. Jonathan's father And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, seventy six year old Henrybringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, is planning his disappearance. Jonathan thanks to 44 Scotland Street and Madeline may be on the verge of splitting upIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to the dismay of both daughterscharm. 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>0330512471</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruno Vincent0811771741|title=Grisly Tales from Tumblewater InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=Daniel Dorey comes Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the vast and decaying city 'long, cosy afternoons in front of Tumblewater with high hopesthe fire' variety. He wants The projects are divided by the time they'll take to studycomplete - less than five hours, become a surgeonfive to ten hours, work hard ten to twenty hours and make a better life for himselfmore than twenty hours. But when All the school he enrolled in turns out to be a deserted building, his money is swindled from himprojects are attractive, modern and heuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's framed for breaking into a shop, hesocial-media-worthy projects's ready to turn round and go back to the country. His last hope is to collect a volume of local stories for a back-alley publisher. One by one, he hunts down the tellers of these grisly tales and records their words, but it soon becomes evident that he's hiding a dark secret of his own..me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330479512</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dervla MurphyDean Koontz|title=The Island That Dared: Journeys in CubaBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=TravelParanormal|summary=In her latest literary outingBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, the now elderly and increasingly opinionated travel writer his house gets trashed. Oh, and veteran cyclist Dervla Murphy describes someone has delivered a series of trips really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to Cuba. The opening section deals with a family trip in late 2005. Readers who have followed Dervlahis home, and it's books from possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the beginning will have grown up with Rachelthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the author's daughter, who accompanied her on very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a number of trips between the ages of five and eighteennice person. A really nice person. Now Dervla travels with Rachel and Rachel's three young daughters, Clodagh, Rose and Zea, known So fortunately for ease throughout Benny it turns out that the book as ''the Trio''. The middle section sees Dervla return alone delivery to spend several months trekking in places such as the Sierra del Escambray mountainshis house is a new friend, and in the final third of the booka bad weather friend called Spike, Dervla returns who has been sent to the city of Santa Clara help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for the commemoration being a good person. Spike is going to take care of the fortieth anniversary Benny, and will certainly take care of the death of Ernesto Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'Che'' Guevaras wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190601146X</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth KostovaAdam Stower|title=The Swan ThievesMurray and Bun|rating=24.5|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers |summary=1999 – A renowned painterMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, Robert Oliverone who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, goes madwell, attacking a painting with whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a knife. Hebad magician's arrestedcat, and sent to so his favourite bun has been turned into a psychiatrist who is also an artist. The psychiatristhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, Andrew Marloweand the catflap they both use can chuck them out, can't get his patient to talk to himnot into the regular back garden, but tries to investigate what drove him to this by talking to his wife into a world of frightening adventure and his girlfriendwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, and reading some letters Oliver seems obsessed with. 1879 where a troll hunter is expected – Beatrice de Clervalwell, aspiring artistone much bigger than Murray was, corresponds with her uncle-by-marriage Olivier Vignot, a more experienced painter. Their letters will to be found by Robert Oliver, 120 years laterhonest, but he's turned up and will lead he'll have to his loss of sanity.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442404</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim BowlerB0C47LV1PC|title=Blade: Mixing It|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=We last saw Blade back in the Beast - the city where it all began. In a last ditch attempt to rescue Jaz, the little girl with whom he's made a genuine connection, he's worked the biggest scam of his life and he's risked taking up the knife again. He's also put himself back into the firing line of his greatest enemy, the Hawk. And he's had to make contact with the police. Everything is closing in. But Blade doesn't just have a hostage, he also has experience, skill, knowledge and a willingness to risk everything... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192755994</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFragility|author=Atiq Rahimi|title=The Patience StoneMosby Woods|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Set in Afghanistan, Can you make a ''The Patience StoneYo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is a partly allegorical tale of a Muslim wife tending to her comatose soldier husband who has been shot in the neck. As she cares for him, for the first time ever she question should you make it? Or is able to speak to him without fear of censorship and he becomes, for her, like the mythical Patience Stone to which question if you tell your troubles and when did, would it land? The catch is that the stone finally bursts, you are free from your tormentsanswer for both could well be.... But also this might mean the Apocalypseno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184167</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pamela Freeman1529431735|title=Full Circle (Castings Trilogy)The Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=Pamela FreemanIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'return all the more surprising. He'Castings'' trilogy is written in an unusual way d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a fantasy noveldecade. It tells the story from the charactersThe return has come about because he' points of view, in s had a style more common to the chickletter from his ex-lit novels of Josie Lloyd wife, saying that she's ill and Emlyn Reeshasn't long to live. This interrupted the flow of the story quite noticeably in ''Blood Ties'It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the first of the trilogy, but didn't seem quite so much boot of a distraction in the second part, ''Deep Water''stolen Ford Sierra. Unfortunately, this time around Is it works against the story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497037</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Dickinson|title=WE|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected a warning from the World Ear in readiness for a mission that will last Spanish gang or a lifetime. Sent problem closer 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 return. Gravity 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>home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jim Lahey Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|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 The Glorious Race 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 rising.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066304</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Amy V Fetzer and Shari Aaron|title=Climb the Green Ladder: Make Your Company and Career More SustainableMagical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Business and FinanceConfident Readers|summary=With Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the abject failure of evening a helper at the Denmark Climate Change Conference fresh in our mindsdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, it too – for there is perhaps time to turn away from a generation missing in the politicians and look back toward what we can dofamily. The Conference may have finally got A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the likes of the USAtitular race, India and China to acknowledge that they a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to join navigate the world in if we are going the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to save the planet as pair – but when a benevolent place for our species bad incident at the eatery leads to livea confession from gran, but there Eli knows his only hope is still too much posturing and not enough commitment. Clearly our governments and 'leaders' are not going to do this for us; we have dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to do it for ourselvespossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>047074801X</amazonuk>0571382231
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