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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>
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__ ==The Best New Books== '''Read [[Features:Category:New Reviews|new featuresreviews by category]].'''<br>__NOTOC__{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:Features|author=Katie Fforde (Editor)|title=Loves Me, Loves Me Not|rating=4the latest features]].5|genre=Short Stories|summary=What a feast is presented in these forty stories from well-loved and prolific romantic authors, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Romantic Novelists' Association. In a Who's Who of the genre, there are writers from every age group, including one or two who might even have been founder members of the RNA, back in 1960. My advice is to sip through the stories slowly, rather than gobbling them up quickly and suffering from indigestion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303373</amazonuk>}}'
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren OliverSylvie Cathrall|title=Before I FallA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=Samantha 'Sam' Kingston is, in many ways, your typical American high schooler whose concerns There are pretty predictable: boys, friends, fashion, weird parents, annoying little sisters. Today it's Cupid Day, few greater joys than a chance book which lives up to show off just how ''In'' you are at school, as measured by the number of roses you're sent, but Sam's not too worried about thata compelling premise. She knows she's part of a group who, by most definitions, would be called popular, and though sometimes inside she might feel on the inside a little like an imposter, on the outside, well, she's the definition And this is one of ''in''them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980893</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham 0008517061|title=Cloud Tea MonkeysDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Tashi and her mother live below a tea plantation in IndiaFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Usually Tashi goes along There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with her mumhis vet girlfriend, Livia and whilst mum picks tea leaves with the other womenher daughter Diana, Tashi sits under as moving in together would mean a tree lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and plays with a group of monkeys, sharing her fruit with them, allowing them relaxing life to groom her and playing move in with the little baby monkeys. One morning, Tashi's mum is too poorly to go Livia or does Livia move to work, so Tashi struggles with the big tea basket herself. The plantation owner derides Little Sky despite her, saying she reservations about whether or not this is too little to pick the tea, and Tashi is worried about how future she wants for herself and her mother will cope with no money to get her mum a doctor, or to buy food. daughter? She shares her worries with her monkey friends For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and somehow, at putting the end of future on the day, Tashi's basket is full of beautiful, fresh, fragrant tea leaves that are a very rare type of tea called 'Cloud Tea'back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406300926</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice Taylor1786482126|title=To School Through The FieldsJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=To School Through Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the Fields is site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the memoir bones of a farmer’s daughter who grew up in rural County Cork in the 1940s (though the book never mentions the date of when it is set)child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Taylor makes it clear at the beginning It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is writing pregnant with his child as a nostalgic look back at result of the era of her childhood, one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before the 'changing winds of time' and then presents a series of anecdotes about her parentslong, her family and some not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of the other characters who lived in her villagesickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224210</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Cassidy0008551324|title=Guilt TripThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Two years ago, Ali and her friends saved Daniel Feeny It's unusual for anyone from committing suicidethe Hardie family to approach the police. They became local heroes Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and were looked up he's prepared to as good examples tell the police where the body of modern day teenagers. Ali a missing person is buried and who was on responsible for her way to Cambridgedeath. This person, Stephen about to start his own businesshe promises, Jackson getting ready is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be reunited with transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his brother in Brighton where hesentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn'd also study history, t think so and Hannah joining her mothershe's hairdressing business. Then something dreadful happened. Five weeks later, Daniel was dead, even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and the gang of friends anyone who had been adjusting to life as heroes were responsibleworks with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407110705</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Chandler0008405026|title=Dark Secrets: Legacy of Lies and Don't TellA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=After It's sixteen years without seeing her grandmother, Megan receives an invitation since nine- or perhaps a summons year- to visit the old lady at Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her house in bed one summer night. She was never found and the town of Wisteriainvestigation ground to a halt. Reluctantly Now, she goes there to please her mother, but finds out that despite the invitationHelena, and her grandmother doesn't seem happy to see herfather are dead in their bed. Initially, and neither does her cute it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but sullen cousin Matt, whothere's currently living theresomething about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. More worryingly, Kerrigan is convinced that the house seems strangely familiar, because sheexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's seen it many times in her dreams..boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847388728</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Aird0571379877|title=Past TenseThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jan Wakefield was surprised to find herself arranging the refreshments for mourners after Edward Jevons is a funeralworking-class young man, not least because she had never met the deceased obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and was unaware that her husband was the next of kinStanza. Robert's a theatre director. He was working in South America 's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and not expected home uses Edward to run errands for some timehim. Josephine Short had obviously Edward has been a feisty character thoughin love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Despite being unmarried she Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had had a child (at a time when this would have been frowned begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon) and amassed the two of them kissing in a considerable fortune. Her grandson Joe was flying home from Lasserta for the funeraldark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007648</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=N K JemisinJo Callaghan|title=The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy)Leave No Trace|rating=54|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=A month after When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her mothersidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's deaththeir first live case together, outcast Yeine Darr having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is summoned by her grandfathera second body found crucified a few days later, king Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, unwanted attention to come their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the palace of Sky. There named one of his three heirs, along with her feuding cousinscase in time, she quickly realizes that without allies she or will surely lose Kat find herself taken off the contest for the throne. Thus begins an epic quest to find her mother's murderercase and, save her own lifepotentially, and fulfil out of a destiny she never knew she had.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498173</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Conway and Dubravka Kolanovic1399613073|title=The Secret To Teddy's HappinessMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=34.5|genre=For SharingThrillers|summary=When Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the toys discover an old, bedraggled teddy bear, they rack first day of medical school and their brains to find friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a way to mend his broken heartcentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to make him smile againbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. The velvet rabbit who knows everything offers to tell them Anjali is the secret free spirit of Teddythe group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's happinessgoing to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, but he wants them to do him a favour firstit's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862337624</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Kornberger 0241636604|title=Brand SocietyThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and FinanceAutobiography|summary=Brand Society is fundamentally not If you were to bring up an image of a business management book. This might come as some surprise given the title. Management bookscity banker in your mind, at least the 'you'how re unlikely to'' management books, tend to be simple think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and easy to follow. Buthis background is the East End, I suspect Kornberger would agreewhere he was familiar with violence, that's what limits their usepoverty and injustice. They are over There was no posh public school on his CV -simplified but he had been to the point London School of uselessnessEconomics. Rather, Brand Society takes an holistic approach to the subject of the prevailing nature Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of brands in today's world (at least the Western world)us can only envy. He suggests also realised that today's brands exist without a prevailing theory most rich people expect poor people to understand them or make sense of thembe stupid. So It was his ability at what Kornberger doeswas, after first looking at how brands transform management and organizationsessentially, is present a brand-centred conceptual map for thinking about things like politicscard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, ethics and aestheticsthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521726905</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Ball1035021803|title=The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We CanAntique Hunter't Do without it s Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Popular ScienceCrime|summary=It'We need s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to talk about musicthe English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, but it is harddead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Very few people can do it Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly.' So says Philip Ball after 400 pages Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of talking about music. Very few readers her life, who make it that far will disagree with his conclusion, but most will was murdered) and Freya and James have gained some enlightenment about how music works and why we enjoy itnow divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847920888</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam EnthovenSunny Singh|title=CrawlersHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=TeensThrillers |summary=Why are the men that want to take over the world using evil alien beings always so stupid? Steadman The Hotel Arcadia is stupid. Ever since the Great Fire of London trapped her a luxury hotel in an underground dungeon in 1666, the Queen unnamed city that has suddenly been neutralisedviolently taken over by a terrorist group. Even then Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, the great killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the powerful couldn't quite bring themselves hotel manager. As Abhi continues to kill her. She had too much potential. But they did have the sense try to keep her safely locked away. But now Steadman thinks he knows better. He thinks he can rule care remotely for the world through residents who are still alive in the Queen hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and hekeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's set happened through her a testphotography. If she passes Although they only ever talk over the phone, he their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will set her freebe rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552558702</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott Westerfeld1529153298|title=PrettiesThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=In the unnamed city of the futureIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, all the adults are prettyhonestly... ) TheyShe've had mental and physical surgery to make them calms not what's worrying Miv's family, placid and perfectly aesthetic human beingsthough. Women have been disappearing. If Well, they 've been murdered, but to have any trouble as young adults it is 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the problem of what to wear at parties, or how to get rid of their hangovers when they wake up at 5pmfamily 'Down South'. UnfortunatelyWhen you're from Yorkshire, one of these bright young things Down South is our heroinea frightening, foreign place, Tallybest avoided. For Miv, one of the few people in move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the world dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to have learnt how damnably horrid and sapping the life of Riley can beanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389074</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Suzanne Bugler1398524085|title=This Perfect WorldHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Laura Hamley sees herself as a fortunate womanCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. She has a successful Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, two beautiful childrenAlec, a big house in a good neighbourhoodis not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and a coterie of friends who fall nicely into Greg, find the category body of people like us. SheGreg's always beautifully turned outfather, Duncan Ackerley, and her position in the social pecking order is never less than highriver. She simply shrugs off It was an easy assumption for the occasional moments of dissatisfaction - what on Earth could she have police to complain about? And make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then Mrs Partridge makes an unwelcome phone call... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>023074401X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jill Newton|title=Crash Bang Donkey!|rating=3|genre=For Sharing|summary=Farmer Gruff spends all his time chasing the crows from his corn. Eventually committed suicide when he needs to sleep, so all couldn't stand the animals tiptoe around, making no noise whatsoeverguilt. What The Salter children are not convinced but there's this coming over the hill little else they can do but get on with a crash their lives and a bang? Oh no! It's a donkey with a drumwonder about what really happened. How's Farmer Gruff going to get his sleep? If he can't sleep, how's he ever going to be able to keep the crows from his corn?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862337209</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Olga Grushin1035906708|title=The Concert TicketDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Concert Ticket'' follows the lives We tend to think of a family Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Soviet Russia who have grown desperately distant from one another. SergeiManhattan, the fatherNew York, is a frustrated musician who longs in December 1923 and only moved to play the pre-revolutionary masterpieces of composers like Igor Selinsky Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but is forced her father changed it to play 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the kind of patriotic ditties he despisesStates. His schoolteacher wife, Anna, longs When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for his love, but is never quite able to get his attention with her shy gestures. Their shiftless son, Alexander, has quietly given up going to school voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and spends his days hanging around the parkmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, consorting with undesirables. Also living in their house is Anna's silent, elderly motherJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918482</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lucas 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'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this 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 next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?
|isbn=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=Kate SaundersJames Sherwood Metts|title=BeswitchedPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Flora is furious at being sent away to boarding school, even one which is very progressive with luxurious facilities and school rock bands. Her parents need to sell her grandmother's house in Italy and build Things have been a granny flat at home, and Flora is resentful at having her life turned upside down bit sticky for a grumpy, unpleasant old womanthe Earthlings. On the trainAI and automation have been proceeding apace, she falls asleep often replacing jobs they're paid to do and wakes up other tasks that took time to find herself in another eraaccomplish. Trendy 21st century Flora is horrified Just as they were beginning to find herself in a hideous pinafore dress with a childish haircut get used to all this technological change and no make up. What has happened starting to think of other, new ways to her Ipodspend time, mobile phone along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and brand new laptop?, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407108972</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julie CohenMatthew Tree|title=Nina Jones and the Temple of GloomWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=A sign of a good book, for me, often relates to how easily I can put it down. 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 the page whilst getting her out of bed, snuck her downstairs still saving my page, put on Cbeebies, and then sat next to her on the sofa to carry on reading for at least another hour, if not a little bit Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than that. I then kept it in the kitchen so I could sneak a few more pages in between stirring the spaghetti. And then once my daughter was in bed I went on to absently ignore my poorbe different from his father, tired, over-worked husband (who got bored a drunk and went for a bath) so that I could read on to the end chronic underachiever whose dreams of the story. I found myself mentally yelling being exceptional at a fictional character (I hope it was mentally any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and I wasn't actually shouting out loudwho had endless crises of self confidence...we have very thin walls)So Tim applied himself to his studies, I swooned over the hero, sniggered often cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and I even cried a little bit tooset himself high but achievable ambitions. So, a book that induces such family neglect and an emotional roller coaster of emotions is definitely a good read!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755341414</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.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken Bruen1529900360|title=The GuardsGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=A woman makes an unlikely choice by asking Jack Taylor It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to investigate the apparent suicide of her teenage daughter in Galway. Jack is ex Irish police (Garda) but also a known alcoholic with nothing much else in ask for his lifehelp on difficult cases. His approach to investigation is haphazard assertions that there were only open-and- he doesnshut cases which didn't really have need the help of a psychologist only worked for a method beyond asking direct questions andwhile. Finally, if necessaryit was Robin, using his fistsDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. Predictably, there is more to She knew that the involvement was something that the suicide man she loved needed. The next case than first meets did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the eye and Jack, aided by his unsavoury friend, Sutton, uncover some very disturbing secrets and levels swimming pool of corruption within a remote property in Bel Air. He was the city. ''The Guards'' heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is not your conventional crime thriller; married to an extremely rich man and it's darker and has a grim realismnot the Italian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224105</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Speller1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Return Secret Life of Captain John Emmetta Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Laurence Bartram has survived Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the war, but strain that being on-call put on his father's life has changed dramatically. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. It will never be the same againBefore long, he was at Liverpool University. Ithadn's almost t - as if he doesn't recognize himself. Domestic life is now nonwith so many students -existent and been his dream since he has no-one to please but himselfwas a child. He is unsettled and edgy. War has obviously left its mark. He retreats graciously and wonders what If anything, he'll do with the rest of his lifed wanted to be a professional footballer. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086070</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Salman Rushdie0861541774|title=Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticisms 1981 - 1991A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=3.54|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=We read some authors because we know weDCI Domenic Jejeune're going s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to enjoy themmeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. OthersInitially, we feel somehow obliged he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to readmurder the man. If we consider ourselves ''readers'', and certainly if we have any pretensions (I use Now he could be facing the word advisedly) death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to being ''well-readhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'', then there are some books and more particularly some authors with whom we are required to become familiart help Danny at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542250</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neel MukherjeeAlexander McCall Smith|title=A Life ApartThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Ritwik Ghosh grows up The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in India in the 1970'sEdinburgh, one of two children of run by Ness and operating as an abusive mother. In alternative to all the 1990'sonline apps in providing a more personal, finally escaping tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the country after her deathbusiness, he comes as Ness is planning to England take a trip to study Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at Oxford, then moves the chance to come home to LondonEdinburgh. There And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, he looks after 86 year old Anne Cameron in exchange for free accommodationbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, while looking for workthanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, and for sexual encounters but with other mensome new characters who quickly begin to charm. He also writes Katie has no experience in running a novel business, or in match- the extended story of Miss Gilbymaking, a character but Ness has full confidence in Rabindranath Tagoreher abilities, and there's novel Ghare Baire. Miss Gilby becomes English teacher always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to Bimala, the wife of lend a minor official in 1900's Bengal just before the Partition of the province.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184901101X</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Sperring and Leo Timmers0811771741|title=GreenInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrafts|summary=Clive loves wearing green. ItMelissa Leapman's all he ever wears''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. He thinks he looks mighty snazzy Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, but his big sister (boo! hiss!) takes every opportunity cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to call him a cabbagecomplete - less than five hours, mossfive to ten hours, a sprout or a toadten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. Clive keeps wearing his green clothes All the projects are attractive, certain modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that he'll have the last laugh and get one over on his sisters me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845394534</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian Whybrow and Lynne ChapmanDean Koontz|title=Stinky! Or How The Beautiful Smelly Warthog Found A Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=For SharingParanormal|summary=Stinky the warthog lives in Benny is having a neighbourhood with the Crocodile familyterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, the Monkey family and the Littlebird familyhis house gets trashed. One by one they invite Stinky round Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to play with their childrenhis home, but and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his foul odour and house! The thing is, Benny is the flies buzzing around him cause very last person to deserve all manner of problemsthis bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Will he be able So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to find his house is a new friend? , a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person...Well Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, yesBenny, it says so in the titleand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1862337594</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Josephine WilkinsonAdam Stower|title=The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on the scaffold. The first was her Irish cousin James Butler, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one time intended to marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title Murray and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came to an end in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Scott Westerfeld|title=UgliesBun
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary="This city Murray is supposed to be a paradisehumble, Tally. It feeds youtidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, educates youwell, keeps you safewhatever takes his fancy next of the two. It makes you pretty." And thatBut he's meant literally. As soon as theya bad magician're sixteen years olds cat, ugly people like Tally are completely rebuilt - no more freckles, dull eyes, rough skin, or ideas about biting their fingernails, and made so his favourite bun has been turned into a pretty. It's scientifichyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and obviously of benefitthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, considering not into the partiesregular back garden, status but into a world of frightening adventure and love afforded to prettieswhiffs. But is This time round it essential? When her best friend drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is prettified Tally finds a new friendexpected – well, Shayone much bigger than Murray was, who has secrets to share in the few weeks before the operation theybe honest, but he's turned up and he're due ll have to have on the same day. Secrets of another place, another way, and of people staying forever ugly - through choice.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847389066</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Nesbo1529431735|title=Doctor Proctor's Fart PowderThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=LisaIt's best friend has moved away. The neighbourhood bullies, Truls February 1991 and Trym TraneEssex is bitingly cold, are causing havocwhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Her dad is getting ready He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for Norwaya decade. The return has come about because he's Independence Day celebrations. Ohhad a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and therehasn't long to live. It's an anaconda on the loose in the sewers. Then Nilly moves into her streethard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the two boot of them meet Doctor Proctor and discover his amazing fart powdera stolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386539</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicole Dryburgh|title=Talk to the Hand|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book ''The Way I See It'', which she wrote at eighteen, and which detailed her battles with cancer and the loss of her sight. We loved the warts-Alex Bell and-all picture of her life that she gave us then, and so we were really pleased to see that she's written a second book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian Mathie|title=The Man of Passage|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ian Mathie's association with Africa began when his father was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School was in a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africans. Even when he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didn't realise it! He was taught in the local language and grew up with the local children. It was his home and was to be the centre of his life for decades to come.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=K A S QuinnTim McDonagh|title=The Queen Must Die (Chronicles Glorious Race of the Tempus) Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In this historical time-travelling extravaganza, Katie Berger-Jones-Burg (I know, it's Eli is a mouthful, but stay with me) is busy lad – by day an apprentice in the daughter of Mimi, an ex-girl band member who has been married three times, so far, hence Katie's hyphenated name. Katie has come home from school to find that Mimi has gone off wondrous library we start by visiting with another man, Dr Fishberghim, and as she begins to stress about in the potential new addition to her surname she crawls into her hidey-hole space beneath her bed to escape for evening a little while. Here she keeps her diary and her stash of books, helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and she curls up to read her latest book, a compilation of letters from Princess Alice, Queen Victoria's youngest daughterruns. She starts to feel a bit sleepyEli lives with his lovely gran, but too – for there is suddenly startled awake by a flash of lightgeneration missing in the family. She finds herself in Victorian EnglandA few short years ago, underneath a sofa and staring into the eyes of Princess Alice, who is just as startled as she is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873700</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Williams|title=Luke and Jon|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=LukeEli's mum died in a car accident a while ago and since then his father has let things go. The house has been repossessed and they are forced to move parents were both lost to the titular race, a new town. The new place is falling down globe- it's trotting adventure where all they can afford after entrants have to navigate the debts were paid. Neither Luke nor his father are really that bothered - what can a house be when there's no mum to fill it with her brightness and vivacity and love? The bottle of whisky that has begun to live world in his father's hand though - that's a worry for Luke; that makes him feel rather sick inside. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571249639</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Melanie Rose|title=Coming Home|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=We meet the narrator company of this story drinking coffee from a thermos in a lay-by, on a cold grey day. All her worldly possessions are travelling with her in her car, including her catmagical beast. She This has clearly made some momentous decision, and is on her way the race anathema to somewhere new. I assumed that as story unfolded, I'd learn more about her and where she was going.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561063</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P C Cast|title=Divine by Choice (Goddess of Partholon)|rating=3|genre=Fantasy|summary=A few months after the Formorian war, Shannon Parker is living pair – but when a bad incident at the high life. Hailed as Goddess Incarnate, married eatery leads to a man (wellconfession from gran, centaur) who was born Eli knows his only hope is to dare to love herenter what he most hates, carrying her first child, the next daughter of Epona and royally spoiled with amazing jewels and clothes, life really can't get much better.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303586</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephanie Tillotson|title=Cut on the Bias|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=If ''Cut on sole aim the Bias'' is in your local bookshop, you will surely be won over by prize of magic at the feisty cover. Stories about women and their clothes are about identity, so what better start to a set of short stories than a fashion statement cover featuring end – the bags in which said clothes arrive 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 only thing to say about Nick Hornby's latest book that isn't already plastered on this newly-published paperback edition? I can only report that ''Juliet,'' ''Naked'' bowled me over with yet another Hornby strikepossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141020644</amazonuk>0571382231
}}