Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
__NOTOC__
=='''4 FEBRUARY25 APRIL'''==
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529378648|title=Slough House (Jackson Lamb 7)|author=Mick Herron|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Someone is killing secret service agents, past and present, from the Slough House team. Jackson Lamb can't understand it. Well, what he actually can't understand is why, having seen them, anyone would bother. But the deaths are mounting up and something needs to be done. After all ''when things went awry on Spook Street, they generally went the full Chris Grayling.'' Over at Regent's Park, Diana Taverner is quietly jubilant about an operation which saw the perpetrator of a Novichok poisoning in the UK (three people seriously injured and one dead) dispatched. It isn't just the message that was sent: she's also delighted that she managed to fund the operation off the books. Some private money was brought in. She won't always be so jubilant about this.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008379300Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Shadow Man|author=Helen Fields|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=Fergus Ariss is in his late thirties and he knows that he's dying. His body is giving up on him, his internal organs beginning to putrify but before he dies he wants a wife, a child and a brother. He's been on the lookout for the perfect people and he's made certain preparations. The flat where the family will live is prepared and even windows with curtains, and pictures in frames have been painted onto the walls. Angela Fernycroft was A Letter to be his wife. Her husband, Cal, had taken the children - a boy of seven and a girl of five, away for the weekend. Unfortunately, it doesn't go according to plan and Angela dies.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178089905X|title=Serpentine|author=Jonathan KellermanLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=It wasn't exactly the case Lt Milo Sturgis had been dreaming about: There are few greater joys than a death from thirty-six years ago and the daughter of the woman who died wanted some answers. She had money and money translated into clout and so the problem was dropped onto Milo's toes. Dorothy Swoboda was twenty-four years old when she died in a car book which went off a cliff on Mulholland Drive and burst into flames. It turned out that she wasn't actually married lives up to the man with whom she'd left her daughter but Dr Stanley R Barker, optometrist, was a good man and he took out adoption papers for Ellie - and she took his namecompelling premise. Ellie was three when her mother left her with Dr Barker and she has nothing of her but And this is one photograph of her mother and father and a necklace made of serpentinethem.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
=='''9 MAY'''==
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471191303
|title=The Invisible
|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=This is the story of Isobel, a little girl who made a big difference. Isobel lived with her parents in a house - a very cold house, because her parents couldn't afford to put the heating on:
 
''Ice curled across the inside of the window and crept up the corner of the bedpost.''
 
The family didn't go to the cinema or on holidays but they had each other and they were happy. Then the day came when they couldn't afford the rent for the house and they had to move to the far side of the city. This part of the city was cold, sad and lonely and Isobel felt invisible.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Helen Fisher
|title=Space Hopper
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Faye lost her mum when she was very young. She 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 enormously. So 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 instead. The 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
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787477800
|title=The Night Hawks (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The night hawks are metal detectorists and they're out on Blakeney Point where they suspect that there's treasure to be found. Unfortunately, the youngest of the group, twenty-one-year-old Troy Evans, finds the body of a man floating on the incoming tide. After pulling it ashore, they call the police. DCI Nelson thinks that it's probably the body of an asylum seeker but there's no evidence of any activity to be had from the coastguard. The dead man turns out to be Jem Taylor, a North Norfolk man recently released from prison.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Francesca Simon and Steve May
|title=Two Terrible Vikings
|rating=4
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary=In a small Viking village there live two twins, Hack and Whack, who are eager to be the very worst Vikings ever! Nothing can stop their mad marauding, as they cause havoc at a birthday party, chaos whilst tracking a troll, and undertake a grand journey to raid Bad Island with their friends! They get up to all kinds of mischief and naughty behaviour, along with their wolf-cub Bitey-Bitey, and their crazy cast of friends.
|isbn=0571349498
}}
=='''18 FEBRUARY'''==
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471187179
|title=A Beautiful Spy
|author=Rachel Hore
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a nice young man to marry, produce children and spend the rest of her days looking after her husband and their home. Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. As a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for the Communist Party.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah Gold
|title=The Last Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=AprilWill's fatherlife is difficult, in a scientist, multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has been given a job on a remote island called Bear Island'the wrong shoes', and he accepts has the job deciding to take wrong shoes because his daughter April with him. They live alone anyway, since Aprildad can's mother died some time before, t work and he feels it will be educational doesn't have enough money for her to experience even the island and all its natural beauty. April already has an affinity with naturemost basic of things like food, and shehis dad can's excited to travel with her fathert work because he lost his job at the college, thinking of all the fun things they will be able to experience together was working a cash-in-hand job on the islanda building site and had an accident. But when they get there, her father finds Throw into that mix the fact that his work monitoring mum and recording the temperatures just takes up too much of his timedad are separated, and so April is left to explore by herselfWill's life seems bleak in every direction. Her father had reassured her that there were no longer any bears living on Bear IslandAnd yet, but one day April thinks she catches he still has a glimpse tiny amount of onehope. He is good at art, and so she sets out clings to find the Bear, and then moments of joy when she sees he is injureddrawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, to befriend and help himdark tunnel.|isbn=000841128X1398527122
}}
 =='''4 MARCH23 MAY'''==
{{Frontpage
|author=Saima MirOnyi Nwabineli|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 Allow Me 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 SinsIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|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 Anuri spent 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, childhood on display to the lad's childhoodworld, and see just what he has thanks to tell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=1939810965}}{{Frontpage|author=Mary H.K. Choi|title=Yolk|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary= Jayne Baek is a fashion student that's barely getting by. She drinks. She smokes. She makes bad decisions about the men she sleeps with. She's an allstep-round messy character; and thatmother Ophelia's her charm. June, increasingly popular presence on the other handsocial media, is a complete contrast to Jayne. She's a typical older sister: where sheposted every step of Anuri's smartchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, thinks she knows it allbasically, and has a successful jobmonetary gain. She constantly criticises Jayne for Now Anuri is in her life choices, twenties and the two have barely kept in contact despite living in the same city for the past two years. This is until June finds out she's sick, and Jayne is the only person she can turn slowly trying to. The two sisters have regain her confidence and to come together and decide how far they'll go get her life back, suing her step-mother to save each other's lives – even if it means swapping identities.|isbn= 0349003696}} =='''18 MARCH'''=={{Frontpage|author=Danny Wallace and Gemma Correll|title=The Day take down the Screens Went Blank|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Stella and content about her family. They're just innocently trying to have a Sunday evening in togetherAnuri is battling alcoholism, watching a film – using three different screens failing to watch three different things, mind – when ''poof'' everything goes blank. And it's not just their home, but the entire south-western village of Mouseholestart her PhD, undergoing therapy and not just that, either, but the whole country, if not world. Suddenly secretly abusing people are constantly on their phones – hoping they're first to get a screen back, online and not what they were constantly receiving money from them for doing on them beforeso. Toasters can toastMost importantly, but TVs cannot do the V part of their job, and no computer can show its computations. You might think this she is going to be a social comedy desperately worried about people stuck in such a Luddite experience against their will, but no. For the family finally remember Stella's grandma, and see if they can get across country to her. Hence this has to go down as a road-trip book. But not just thatlittle sister, a slapstick road-trip comedy. And more than that, too – for it's a slapstick, high-drama, high-octane road-trip comedy with oodles of cuddly heart that kids of all ages will love.|isbn=1471196887}} =='''23 MARCH'''=={{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Other Emily|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=Our hero David Thorne who is an author, who shares his life between the two US coasts. Itnew focus of Ophelia's the western coast we're concerned with, a place he has to return to, and a place he has to be able to leaveonline empire. David lost contact with his partner there ten years ago, when Can she vanished from a remote road late at night. He's paying for contact with the man he thinks the only suspect, a lifer now, who went a bit Hannibal Lectersave her sister, and has a dozen perhaps herself and more unfound Jane Does on his record. David is trying to pry her relationship with her father at the connection between the murderer and his girl from the man's mind, but to no avail. He's also having a recharge ready for his next hit novel when into the restaurant walks the sheer spitting image, the very embodiment, the virtual resurrection, of his love. What is a man to dosame time?|isbn=1542019958}} =='''1 APRIL'''=={{Frontpage|isbn=B08R7LXQ9S|title=Remy: A book about believing in yourself|author=Mayuri Naidoo and Caroline Siegal|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Remy is feeling miserable. He's let himself down ''again''. The school bully Jayden, together with his sidekicks Ryan and Brandon, have been laughing at Remy, calling him names because he is short and has small eyes. They are mean but they are not stupid. They are careful to wind up Remy when nobody can see and then push him just that little bit further when the other kids are around. So, when Remy reacts, it looks as though he was the instigator. And then he gets into trouble at school and the teachers don't believe him when he tries to explain what happened.0861546873
}}
=='''13 JUNE'''==
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ruth Hogan1635866847|title=Madame BurovaThe Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionLifestyle|summary=This It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book lets us discover several people in different stages of life in the early 1970s, all vaguely connectedfor you. So we have a bullied half-cast boy (as he would have been called then), a girl in a humdrum job wanting to become a singer, and chiefly, Imelda, the third generation of Madame Burova, Before I started reading ''Tarot-Reader, Palmist and ClairvoyantThe Lavender Companion'', to use her familyI visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's seaa picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts -front boothbut I wanted that cake viscerally. The singer, the scryer and the sufferer(There's mother will all become staff at a revamped holiday camprecipe in the book, but just before then we see Imelda fly solo for which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the first time book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the family stallmargins are sanctioned. We also see her on her last day, fifty years later, in possession You get to fold down the corners of a pair pages. You suspect that smears of letters that will change everything for butter would not be a woman called Billieproblem. Just who is she, and who delivered the secrets about her to Imelda, and why did it have to remain a secret all I ''loved'' this time?|isbn=152937331Xbook already.
}}
 
=='''15 APRIL'''==
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Holland
|title=Sistersong
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sistersong is part of a genre I particularly enjoy, the modern retelling of folk and fairy tales. These stories, for most of us, are a cornerstone of childhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdated, fleshing out characters, examining relationships and re-evaluating the role of women. Sistersong is a perfect example of a modern retelling done well, the plot is handled with care, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters to come to life, to feel real and human, most importantly they feel relatable in a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live in. This is a masterpiece of storytelling and I was captivated from beginning to end.
|isbn=1529039037
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Goldy Moldavsky
|title=The Last Girl
|rating=5
|genre=teens
|summary= Rachel Chavez is the new girl at Manchester Prep. A school filled to the brim with the richest children in the city – and Rachel doesn't belong. She's not rich, she has no ties to some royal family in Serbia, and most of all, she spends the majority of her spare time watching horror movies as a source of comfort. She struggles to find anyone to connect with, until one day she stumbles upon the Mary Shelley Club. A secret society with one aim: pull off the best prank in true horror movie style, and unless someone screams, you have failed. Rachel becomes immediately engrossed in the competition. But as the pranks escalate, and Rachel finally feels like she has found her place in this school, things start to go wrong; a masked figure keeps showing up to the pranks, and people begin to get hurt. When the competition then takes a deadly turn, Rachel must figure out who this masked figure is before it's too late.
|isbn=0755501527
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Sultoon
|title=The Source
|rating=2.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=1996. Essex. Thirteen-year-old schoolgirl Carly lives in a disenfranchised town dominated by a military base, struggling to care for her baby sister while her mum sleeps off another binge. When her squaddie brother brings food and treats, and offers an exclusive invitation to army parties, things start to look a little less bleak...
|isbn=1913193594
}}
 
=='''27 APRIL'''==
{{Frontpage
|author=Kristen O'Neal
|title=Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Having recently been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Priya has to come to terms with the fact that she may be in constant pain for the rest of her life. She joins ''Oof Ouch My Bones'', an online support group where she talks to a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnesses. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond to the chat for a while, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive to Brigid's house to check up on her. But what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in the basement – and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking to online for the past few months.
|isbn=1683692349
}}
 
=='''29 APRIL'''==
{{Frontpage
|author= Jennifer Saint
|title= Ariadne
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Women's Fiction
|summary= This re-telling of the myth of Ariadne and the Minotaur is interesting and unusual. Jennifer Saint presents the story in a way that is sympathetic to its origins but also appealing to a modern audience. Saint's narrative is told predominantly through the viewpoint of Ariadne, spanning from her childhood to her death, allowing the reader to really connect with Ariadne as a character in her own right rather than just a prop in the heroics of Theseus.
|isbn=1472273869
}}
 
<!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->
You can work your way through the newest review, category by category, starting [[Newest Animals and Wildlife Reviews|here]].

Navigation menu