Difference between revisions of "Forthcoming Publications"

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=='''8 DECEMBER'''==
+
=='''25 APRIL'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Lauren Martin
+
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=The Book of Moods
+
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary= I was in a great mood when I first learnt of this book, and because sarcasm doesn't always translate well into writing, imagine the word ''great'' being delivered with an eye roll and a sigh, through clenched teeth. I had spent the best part of a rainy, windy weekend afternoon out on the water at our local sailing club in the rescue rib, on standby in case anyone who was racing needed support. It's a volunteer duty we all do during the year, and normally I'm happy to, but that day the weather was miserable and I was miserable, and it all came to a head that evening when I noticed on the website that we had been thanked for our time as "Dave and wife". Wow. I had never needed this book more.
+
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|isbn=1538733625
+
|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
=='''10 DECEMBER'''==
+
=='''9 MAY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008214468
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=A Time to Lie
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Simon Berthon
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
 
|summary=A workman has a nasty surprise when he pulls a package out of an excavation on a building site.  It's wrapped in part of an old shower curtain and is a hand, severed above the wrist.  It's been there for about twenty-five to thirty-five years.
 
 
Robin Sandford - generally known as Robbie - is Prime Minister.  He's married to heiress Carol van Koon and they have two daughters, Becca and Bella.  Sandford's determined to be a better type of politician: he wants ''a government that is not just practically good, but morally good.''  One of the ways he's planning on going about this is to ban arms sales to dubious regimes.  Henry Morland-Cross, the Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, wishes that he'd been warned about this: it's easy to see that he wouldn't have been in agreement.
 
}}
 
 
=='''7 JANUARY 2021'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author= Deborah O'Connor
 
|title= The Captive
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Thrillers
 
|summary=Hannah knows the cage, intimately. It lurks in the corner of her eye. Soon, it will be occupied. Then what? What if he speaks to her? What if he escapes? What if he hurts her? What if she hurts him?
 
|isbn=1838772650
 
}}
 
 
=='''15 JANUARY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Alex Wheatle
 
|title=The Humiliations of Welton Blake
 
|rating=2.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We meet Welton Blake at the worst of times – only they should be the best of times.  He should be getting a text from the most bae-worthy girl in school in regards to a cinema date, but his phone has packed up, he's chundered last night's meal and his breakfast over another girl in class, who's duffed him up in response, and the wanna-bae seems to actually be with someone else anywayOn a bigger scale he's living with his mother and not much income now that the dad has left the picture – yes, things are so bad they're resorting to having cabbage for dinnerI know, right? But surely this is just a blip, a day at school to forget, and everything (like his vomit) will all come out in the wash?  This can't be the start of a most nightmarish time for young Welton?
+
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every directionAnd yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|isbn=1781129495
+
|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
=='''23 MAY'''==
=='''21 JANUARY'''==
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=David F Ross
+
|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title= There's Only One Danny Garvey
+
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Years ago, Danny Garvey was a footballing prodigy playing for his local club. Everyone predicted a bright future – but his career in professional football never quite worked out. Thirteen years on, convinced to return home by his "uncle" Higgy to visit his dying mother, Danny takes over the shambolic and once-great team he used to play for and tries to reform them.
+
|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainNow Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her.  Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing soMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empireCan she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|isbn= 1913193500
+
|isbn=0861546873
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
 
|title=Kokoschka's Doll
 
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it.  I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on.  It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too.  But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by themSo what happened?
 
|isbn=1529402697
 
}}
 
 
 
=='''2 FEBRUARY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Anna Carey
 
|title=This is Not the Jess Show
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Jess is a normal 90's teenage girl, just trying to navigate the usual stresses of school, and boys, and parent troubles. But strange things seem to be happening in her small town, with a mystery flu keeping lots of people indoors, and a strange metal device, with an apple on it, that slips out of her friend's bag, but that her friends just won't talk to her about. Jess feels like she might be hearing voices, and her sister (who is very ill) seems to be responding to her in strange ways sometimes. Is there something going on beneath the surface of Jess' life?
 
|isbn=1683691970
 
}}
 
 
 
=='''4 FEBRUARY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Helen Fisher
 
|title=Space Hopper
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Faye lost her mum when she was very youngShe was raised by some elderly neighbours after her mum died from a cold that got worse, and although they were kind and very good to her she of course missed her mum enormouslySo when, unexpectedly, she discovers a time travel conduit (via an old space hopper box in her attic) that takes her back to the 70's and her mum, she revels in the chance to create some memories and get to know the woman who meant so much to her.  The time travelling, however, is neither easy nor safe, and Faye fears that her husband won't believe what's happening and so lies to him insteadThe lies grow more tangled, and Faye begins to wonder if it's safe for her to return one last time to the past.  Should she try to see her mum one last time before her mum's death, or will it change her own future forever to attempt it?
 
|isbn=1471188663
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
=='''13 JUNE'''==
=='''28 FEBRUARY'''==
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob Keeley
+
|isbn=1635866847
|title=The Treasure in the Tower
+
|title=The Lavender Companion
|rating=4
+
|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary= Rob Keeley is back! Hooray! We here at Bookbag Towers are always happy to read a new adventure from Rob - his stories combine fast pace and lots of action, an easy to read style, an unerring eye for children's friendships and rivalries, and always a good dollop of naughty humour. They're all present here, in ''The Treasure in the Tower''. The chance purchase of a book during a school trip sparks the whole adventure. Who can follow the clues best and find the treasure? Jess, her brother Mason and their friend Kessie through sheer persistence? Or spoiled brat Perdita with her money and tech gadgets and willingness to cheat?
 
|isbn=1800461321
 
}}
 
 
 
=='''4 MARCH'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Saima Mir
 
|title=The Khan
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Jia Khan has alway lived by the motto be twice as good as men and four times as good as white men. This has served her well in her rise through the criminal justice system and by the time she is called home for her sister's wedding after fifteen years in self-imposed exile, she is at the top of her game. Returning to the city of her birth, to old scars and fresh wounds, Jia must confront her past and reconcile her visions for the future with her sense of honour and duty.
 
|isbn=1786079097
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)
 
|title=If You Kept a Record of Sins
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.
+
|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage.  I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned.  You get to fold down the corners of pages.  You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
|isbn=1939810965
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
 
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You can work your way through the newest review, category by category, starting [[Newest Animals and Wildlife Reviews|here]].
 
You can work your way through the newest review, category by category, starting [[Newest Animals and Wildlife Reviews|here]].

Latest revision as of 10:03, 22 March 2024

25 APRIL

0356522776.jpg

Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

9 MAY

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

23 MAY

0861546873.jpg

Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

13 JUNE

1635866847.jpg

Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

It's strange, the things that make you immediately feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading The Lavender Companion, I visited the author's website and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I loved this book already. Full Review

You can work your way through the newest review, category by category, starting here.