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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=Philip BallSylvie Cathrall|title=The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can't Do without it A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=Popular ScienceFiction|summary='We need There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to talk about music, but it a compelling premise. And this is hard. Very few people can do it.' So says Philip Ball after 400 pages one of talking about music. Very few readers who make it that far will disagree with his conclusion, but most will have gained some enlightenment about how music works and why we enjoy itthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847920888</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil Daniels0008517061|title=Phil Daniels: Class ActorDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=If we were asked to nominate the archetypal Cockney actor on large or small screen over the last twenty years or soFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, Phil Daniels would undoubtedly come high on the listhas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Born in Islington in 1958 There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and raised her daughter Diana, as moving in Kings Cross, he was together would mean a graduate lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the Anna Scher Theatre future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the 1970spresent and putting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847376207</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Enthoven1786482126|title=CrawlersThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Why are the men that want to take over the world using evil alien beings always so stupid? Steadman is stupid. Ever since the Great Fire of London trapped her in Builders were demolishing an underground dungeon old house in 1666, Norwich - the Queen has been neutralised. Even then, the great and the powerful couldnsite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury't quite bring themselves to kill her. She had too much potential. But apartments - when they did have discovered the sense to keep her safely locked awaybones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. But now Steadman thinks he knows better Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. He thinks he can rule the world through the Queen and he It's set her difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a testresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. If she passes Her condition will be obvious before long, he will set her freenot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552558702</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott Westerfeld0008551324|title=PrettiesThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=In It's unusual for anyone from the unnamed city of Hardie family to approach the future, all police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the adults are prettyother. TheyBut Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he've had mental s prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and physical surgery to make them calmwho was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, placid is someone big and perfectly aesthetic human beingsit will be worth the police doing what he wants. If they have any trouble as young adults it And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the problem remainder of what to wear at parties, or how his sentence and to get rid of their hangovers when they wake up at 5pman early parole date. UnfortunatelyNot much to ask, one of these bright young things is our heroine, Tally, one of it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the few people in the world to have learnt how damnably horrid other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and sapping the life of Riley can beanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389074</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Suzanne Bugler0008405026|title=This Perfect WorldA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Laura Hamley sees herself as a fortunate womanIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She has was never found and the investigation ground to a successful husbandhalt. Now, two beautiful childrenher mother, Helena, a big house and her father are dead in a good neighbourhoodtheir bed. Initially, and it looks like a coterie straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of friends who fall nicely into the category of people like us. She's always beautifully turned out, bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her position in the social pecking order is never less than highboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. She simply shrugs off the occasional moments of dissatisfaction - what on Earth could she have What looked as though it was going to complain about? And then Mrs Partridge makes be an unwelcome phone call.open-and-shut 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>023074401X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jill Newton0571379877|title=Crash Bang Donkey!The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Farmer Gruff spends all Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his time chasing the crows from his corn. Eventually he needs to sleepupper-class friends, so all the animals tiptoe around, making no noise whatsoeverRobert and Stanza. What Robert's this coming over the hill with a crash and a bang? Oh no! It's a donkey with a drumtheatre director. How He's Farmer Gruff going also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to get his sleep? If run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he can't sleep, s drunkenly confided howhe feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he ever going 's not like most men: Edward is left to be able to keep stumble upon the crows from his corn?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862337209</amazonuk>two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Olga GrushinJo Callaghan|title=The Concert TicketLeave No Trace|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=''The Concert Ticket'' follows When a man is found crucified on the lives top of a family hill in Soviet Russia who have grown desperately distant from one another. Sergei, the fatherNuneaton, is a frustrated musician who longs to play the pre-revolutionary masterpieces of composers like Igor Selinsky but is forced DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to play the kind of patriotic ditties he despises. His schoolteacher wife, Anna, longs for his love, but is never quite able to get his attention with case alongside her shy gestures. Their shiftless sonsidekick, Alexander, has quietly given up going to school and spends his days hanging around the park, consorting with undesirablesAI detective Lock. Also living in their house is Anna It's silenttheir first live case together, elderly motherhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918482</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aatish Taseer|title=The Temple-Goers|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Aatish Taseer But when there is probably best known for his journalism, publishing regularly in the Indian press, in Prospecta second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and perhaps most prolifically in Time magazinea very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. He has won acclaim for his memoir: Stranger Will they be able to History solve the case in which he, raised by his Indian Sikh mothertime, traces his absent Muslim father across or will Kat find herself taken off the border in Pakistan – case and also for his translations , potentially, out of the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto.a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918504</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Saunders1399613073|title=BeswitchedMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Flora Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is furious at being sent away to boarding schoolruthlessly ambitious, even one which is very progressive with luxurious facilities and school rock bandsa bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Her parents need to sell her grandmother's house in Italy and build Laura is a granny flat at home, perfectionist and Flora is resentful at having her life turned upside down for a grumpy, unpleasant old womantrauma doctor. On Anjali is the free spirit of the train, group and she falls asleep becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and wakes up it's going to find herself end in another eratragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Trendy 21st century Flora is horrified to find herself in a hideous pinafore dress with a childish haircut and no make up Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. What has happened to her Ipod This time, mobile phone and brand new laptop?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407108972</amazonuk>it's their teenage children who are involved.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Cohen0241636604|title=Nina Jones and the Temple of GloomThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionAutobiography|summary=A sign If you were to bring up an image of a good bookcity banker in your mind, for me, often relates you're unlikely to how easily I can put it downthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. And then how much I want to pick it back up again. Nina Jones was a particular challenge for me as after reading it for an hour whilst my toddler napped I kept my thumb in A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the page whilst getting her out of bedEast End, snuck her downstairs still saving my page, put on Cbeebieswhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and then sat next to her injustice. There was no posh public school on the sofa his CV - but he had been to carry on reading for at least another hour, if not a little bit more than that. I then kept it in the kitchen so I could sneak a few more pages in between stirring the spaghettiLondon School of Economics. And then once my daughter was in bed I went on to absently ignore my poor, tired, overStevenson is bright - extremely bright -worked husband (who got bored and went for he has a bath) so facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that I could read on most rich people expect poor people to the end of the storybe stupid. I found myself mentally yelling It was his ability at a fictional character (I hope it what was mentally and I wasn't actually shouting out loud...we have very thin walls), I swooned over the heroessentially, sniggered often and I even cried a little bit toocard game which got him an internship with Citibank. SoEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a book that induces such family neglect and an emotional roller coaster of emotions is definitely a good read!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755341414</amazonuk>trader.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken Bruen1035021803|title=The GuardsAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=A woman makes an unlikely choice by asking Jack Taylor It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to investigate the apparent suicide English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her teenage daughter in Galwaybeloved aunt, Carole. Jack Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is ex Irish police (Garda) but also a known alcoholic with nothing much else in his lifedead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. His approach Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to investigation is haphazard - he doesn't really have a method beyond asking direct questions andthe village: Arthur, if necessaryshe feels, using his fistslet her down badly. Predictably Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, there is more she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the suicide case than first meets profession she loved. After the eye and Jacksplit, aided by his unsavoury friendshe worked in a cafe, Suttonmet and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, uncover some very disturbing secrets who was murdered) and levels of corruption within the city. ''The Guards'' is not your conventional crime thriller; it's darker Freya and has a grim realismJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224105</amazonuk>
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{{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=Elizabeth SpellerSunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The 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, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The Return List of Captain John EmmettSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Laurence Bartram has survived the warIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, but his life has changed dramaticallythough. It will never be the same againWomen have been disappearing. ItWell, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared's almost as if he doesn't recognize himselfsound quite so frightening. Domestic life is now non-existent and he has no-one Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to please but himselfmove the family 'Down South'. He When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is unsettled and edgya frightening, foreign place, best avoided. War has obviously left its mark. He retreats graciously For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and wonders what heshe'll do with anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the rest of his lifedangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086070</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Salman Rushdie1398524085|title=Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticisms 1981 - 1991Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=We read some authors because we know weCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband're going to enjoy thems fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. OthersHer children, we feel somehow obliged to readsons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. If we consider ourselves ''readers'' Shortly afterwards, Etty and certainly if we have any pretensions (I use Greg, find the word advisedly) to being ''well-read'body of Greg'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 couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there are some books 's little else they can do but get on with their lives and more particularly some authors with whom we are required to become familiarwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542250</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neel Mukherjee1035906708|title=A Life ApartDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Ritwik Ghosh grows up in India in the 1970's, one of two children We tend to think of an abusive mother. In the 1990'sMaria Callas as Greek, finally escaping the country after her death, he comes but she was born to England to study at OxfordGreek parents in Manhattan, then moves to London. ThereNew York, he looks after 86 year old Anne Cameron in exchange for free accommodation, while looking for work, December 1923 and for sexual encounters with other menonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. He also writes a novel - the extended story of Miss Gilby, a character in Rabindranath Tagore Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's novel Ghare Baire. Miss Gilby becomes English teacher to Bimala, make it more manageable in the wife of a minor official States. When she was back in 1900's Bengal just before Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Partition Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the provinceher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901101X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark Sperring and Leo TimmersChristopher Edge|title=GreenBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Clive loves wearing green. ItLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole's all he ever wears. He thinks he looks mighty snazzy All big movie fans, but his big sister (boo! hiss!) takes every opportunity they're looking forward to call him a cabbagelots of exciting films, mossand many, a sprout or a toad. Clive keeps wearing his green clothesmany snacks! However, as the movie starts, certain they very quickly realise that hesomething about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn'll have t even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the last laugh next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and get one over on his sister.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845394534</amazonuk>1839942738
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{{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=Josephine WilkinsonJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Early Loves of Anne BoleynPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already Things have been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on a bit sticky for the scaffoldEarthlings. The first was her Irish cousin James ButlerAI and automation have been proceeding apace, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time intended to marry in order accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to settle a family dispute over the title all this technological change and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came starting to an end in the face think of legal obstaclesother, she became betrothed new ways to Henry Percyspend time, heir to the Duke of Northumberlandalong came an awful pandemic. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the DukeLife was pretty much shut down and, who had little time for his sonalong with it, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this all the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealedmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott WesterfeldMatthew Tree|title=UgliesWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary="This city is a paradise, Tally. It feeds you, educates you, keeps you safe. It makes you pretty." And that's meant literally. As soon as they're sixteen years old, ugly people like Tally are completely rebuilt - no Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more freckles, dull eyes, rough skin, or ideas about biting their fingernailsthan to be different from his father, and made a pretty. It's scientific, drunk and obviously chronic underachiever whose dreams of benefit, considering the parties, status being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and love afforded to prettieswho had endless crises of self confidence. But is it essential? When her best friend is prettified Tally finds a new friend, Shay, who has secrets to share in the few weeks before the operation they're due So Tim applied himself to have on the same day. Secrets of another place, another wayhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and of people staying forever ugly - through choiceset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847389066</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Preston Rutt and Ben RedlichA G Slatter|title=Tortoise vs. Hare - The Rematch!Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingFantasy|summary=Harry 'The Hurricane' Hare has been licking his wounds since There'Steady' Eddie Tortoise beat him in the famous races 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. It's time I just want to enjoy it for a rematch, and Harrywhile.'s been training hard. Eddie couldn't possibly win again, could he?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845394186</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicole Dryburgh1529900360|title=Talk to the HandThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book ''The Way I See Ithadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, which she wrote at eighteen, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and -shut cases which detailed her battles with cancer and didn't need the loss help of her sighta psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. We loved She knew that the warts-and-all picture of her life involvement was something that the man she gave us thenloved needed. The next case did look simple, and so we though. Two lovers were really pleased murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to see that an Italian shoe empire and sheis married to an extremely rich man and it's written a second booknot the Italian. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Man Secret Life of Passagea Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Ian MathieSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn's association with Africa began t want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father 's life. When he was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was in a convent vet and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he convinced this was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africansjob for him. Even when Before long, he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didnat Liverpool University. It hadn't realise it! He - as with so many students - been his dream since he was taught in the local language and grew up with the local childrena child. It was his home and was If anything, he'd wanted to be the centre of his life for decades to comea professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=K A S Quinn0861541774|title=The Queen Must Die (Chronicles A Nye of the Tempus) Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=In this historical time-travelling extravaganzaDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Katie Berger-Jones-Burg (I knowDanny Maik, it's has taken a mouthful, but stay short holiday in Singapore to meet up with me) is the daughter of Mimi, an ex-girl band member who has been married three timesold ally, so far, hence Katie's hyphenated nameGuy Trueman. Katie has come home from school to find Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that Mimi has gone off he was facing a man armed with another man, Dr Fishberg, a knife - and as she begins to stress about the potential new addition to her surname she crawls into her hidey-hole space beneath her bed to escape for he killed a little whileGhurka. Here she keeps her diary and her stash of books, and she curls up to read her latest bookInitially, he faced a compilation charge of letters from Princess Alice, Queen Victoria's youngest daughtermanslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. She starts to feel a bit sleepy, but is suddenly startled awake by a flash of lightNow he could be facing the death penalty. She finds herself in Victorian England, underneath Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a sofa diplomatic incident and staring into the eyes of Princess Alice, who is just as startled as she iswouldn't help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873700</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert WilliamsAlexander McCall Smith|title=Luke and JonThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Luke's mum died The 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 car accident more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while ago and since then his father has let things go. The house has been repossessed Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and they are forced so jumps at the chance to move come home to a new townEdinburgh. The And so begins this new place is falling down - it's all they can afford after story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the debts were paidIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Neither Luke nor his father are really that bothered Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- what can a house be when making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's no mum to fill it with always her brightness very helpful (and vivacity and love? The bottle of whisky that has begun rather handsome) neighbour, William, to live in his father's hand though - that's lend a worry for Luke; that makes him feel rather sick inside. hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571249639</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melanie Rose0811771741|title=Coming HomeInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrafts|summary=We meet the narrator Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of this story drinking coffee knits from a thermos in a laytoys to blankets. Some will be quick knits -byothers are of the 'long, on a cold grey daycosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. All her worldly possessions The projects are travelling with her in her cardivided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, including her catten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. She has clearly made some momentous decisionAll the projects are attractive, modern and is on her way to somewhere newuseable. I assumed perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that as story unfolded, I'd learn more about her and where she was goings me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561063</amazonuk>
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesParanormal|summary=If ''Cut on the Bias'' Benny is in your local bookshophaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, you will surely be won over by the feisty coverand his house gets trashed. Stories about women Oh, and their clothes are about identitysomeone has delivered a really weird, so what better start disturbing coffin-sized object to a set of short stories than a fashion statement cover featuring the bags in which said clothes arrive his home?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784132</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Hornby|title=Juliet, Naked|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=A clever, comic delight, pitch-perfect, astutely observed, particularly insightful, must-read. Crumbs. Whatever else is there to say about Nick Hornbyand it's latest book possible that isn't already plastered on this newly-published paperback edition? whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! I can only report that ''Juliet,'' ''Naked'' bowled me over with yet another Hornby strike.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141020644</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joanne Owen|title=The Alchemist and the Angel|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=When Jan's parents die of the plaguething is, he Benny is sent the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the great city of Vienna delivery to live with his aunt and uncle. His uncle house is a distinguished alchemistnew friend, anda bad weather friend called Spike, hoping who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take the boycare of Benny's mind off his griefenemies, hires him as his apprentice. Jan loves the workif he, learns quicklyBenny, and soon the two of them Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are on the verge of perfecting a serum said to bring the dead back to life. But then his uncle is found dead, and Jan is being whisked off to Prague by his vain and calculating aunt. She has her own plans for the serum, and she will stop at nothing to accomplish them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444001507</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom ConnollyAdam Stower|title=The Spider TrucesMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers |summary=The title of this debut novel by Tom Connolly Murray is enigmatic, mysterious. It draws the reader in - just like a fly supposed to be a spider's web. And in fairness 'The Spider Truces' does exactly what it say on the tin as the main characterhumble, Ellistidy and friendly cat, one who is obsessed able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and terrified in equal measure, well, whatever takes his fancy next of spidersthe two. ... But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and when you live in an old housethe catflap they both use can chuck them out, as not into the O'Rourke family doesregular back garden, there are plenty but into a world of spiders frightening adventure and other creepy crawlies aboutwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956251528</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William HusseyB0C47LV1PC|title=Witchfinder: Dawn of the DemontideFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This story is set in Kyoto, Japan, starting in June 1978. Fourteen year old Sarah Rexford and her Japanese mother, Yoko, have come back from the US to stay with family for Can you make a few weeks. Sarah was born and brought up in Japan but has lived in the US with her mother and white American father for five years. She is very conscious of the differences between life in Kyoto and in Fielder's Butte, California. Here in Kyoto'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the women, including Sarah and her mum, go shopping every day for food, and question should you make it? Or is the food is very different – in an opening scenequestion if you did, Sarah would it land? The catch is trying to explain to her grandfather what she normally has that the answer for breakfast in the US, and becoming aware of the gulf between her life in Japan and in Californiaboth could well be.... no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847392334</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick 1529431735|title=TimecatcherThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Jessie Minahan It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a pretty average fictional twelve year old girl: she has wanted drug smuggler for a dog side-kick named Duff and she craves adventuredecade. One day, when her scatty mother The return has an urgent need for buttons Jessie discovers the abandoned Dublin Button Factory in an old mill, now inhabited by two detectives, who have come about because he's had a big, big secret. She also meets G who is not your average fictional twelve year old boy letter from his ex- for onewife, hesaying that she's dead. His worst enemy is Greenwood – a large ghost who lives in the mill ill and is full of rules. Greenwood is also involved in this big secret which Jessie and G soon discover is the Timecatcherhasn't long to live. It opens every seven years for three days and reveals the past - 'shadow days' and 'shadow people'. It s hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is about abducted, stripped to open again his underwear and there is sent to a ghostly villain named Sullivan Ellz'mede who would do anything to have watery grave in the power source at its heartboot of a stolen Ford Sierra... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556770</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rose TremainAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=TrespassThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you haven't been to Grubtown before, then feel welcome. It's Eli is a busy lad – by day an auspicious day for apprentice in the town of grubby and inept people wondrous library we start by visiting with names like Rambo Sanskrithim, and Mango Claptrap, as wellin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. For today Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the day of film star Tawdrey Hipbone's gala charity premierefamily. But thereA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to be no gala, and little charity either, when a pelican (and not the town mascot eithertitular race, but a different one) comes and steals globe- yes, steals - the beloved dog Snooks - yes, Snooks - from trotting adventure where he was living the fine life in Tawdrey's hair - yes, hair.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124792X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christi Phillips |title=The Devlin Diary|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by King Charles II's advisors and forced entrants have to use her skills to treat his mistress, Louise de Keroualle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pauline Fisk|title=In navigate the Trees|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Since his mother died, Kid has been staying with Nadine and flipping burgers world in the company of a fast food joint after schoolmagical beast. It's not an exciting life, This has made the race anathema to the pair – but he isn't unhappy. And then Nadine gets when a boyfriend and bad incident at the flat gets rather cramped. And then eatery leads to a box of confession from gran, Eli knows his mother's possessions arrives. Insideonly hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, he finds a photo of with the sole aim the father he's never met and a copy prize of his birth certificate, which tells him that his father comes from Belize. And suddenly, Kid makes a decision. He's going nowhere fast in London, so he's going to head out to Belize and find magic at the man in end – the photo. He's on a plane within daysonly thing to possibly save his gran. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571236200</amazonuk>0571382231
}}