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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreview|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--><!-- van LENTE -->|author=Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees-|titlestyle='Twas the Fight Before Christmas"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: A Parodycenter;"|[[image:1683690346.jpg|ratinglink=3http://www.amazon.co.5uk/dp/1683690346/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] |genre=Humour|summarystyle=It's Christmas Eve and Mum has arranged everything"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente]]=== [[image:4star. All she now has to do is await the arrival jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] Comic-Cons are a place of the relatives wonder and sanctuary for many people, and the food shopping delivery. Little does Mum know when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's looking for both that those two elements alone have and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the potential to ruin everythingchance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex.However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator. [[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente|Full Review]]  <!-- Coulton -->|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472125118</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Ryan North|title=Romeo and/or Juliet-|ratingstyle=3"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473669588.5jpg|genrelink=Humourhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473669588/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  |summarystyle=For all those who think tragedy plots are too restricted and prescribed, read on"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Falling Short by Lex Coulton]]=== [[image:4star. In these pages you too will see that Romeo had lots of options en route to hitting the bottle. Likewisejpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], she could have turned away from her predestined path at no end of junctures. And to what result? Well[[:Category:Humour|Humour]], happy marriage and a kid called Ben, because the leads have just banged people[[:Category:Women's heads together Fiction|Women's Fiction]] Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and stopped the quarrellingrelationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, or Death by Tybalt (him) or is a long life running an establishment curing murderous womensixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, such as a Lady M (work colleague, and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her)mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old. [[Falling Short by Lex Coulton|Full Review]]|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356508536</amazonuk>}}{{newreview<!-- van LENTE -->|author= Gervase Phinn-|titlestyle= The Virgin Mary's Got Nits"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1683690346.jpg|ratinglink= 4http://www.amazon.co.5uk/dp/1683690346/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  |genrestyle= Humour"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"||summary= Christmas in our house is the time we tend to get on a plane and head to either sun or snow==[[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], anywhere that is far[[:Category:Humour|Humour]] Comic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, far away from the madness and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at homeSan Diego Comic-Con, last minute dashes to he's looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the shops on Christmas Evechance of maybe, and food cupboard stockpiles that would imply supermarkets are shutting for a monthjust maybe reuniting with his ex. However, nor when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a mere 36 hourslegendary industry creator. But I do remember the feeling of Christmas when I was younger, back when it was magical, and back when you knew exactly what the season would bring with carol concerts and school nativities and Christmas parties[[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente|Full Review]] <!-- Curran -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1683690133. This book is an anthology of those moments, and it took me right back to the wonder of Christmas as a childjpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1683690133/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  |amazonukstyle=<amazonuk>1444779400</amazonuk>"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|}}{{newreview|author= Kieran Crowley|title= Shoot|rating= 4[[My Lady's Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris]]===|genre= Crime[[image:4star.jpg|summarylink= I make something of Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] You are a habit lass of being late to discover good writerstwenty eight. Plucky, penniless and in this case getting Regency era London the race is on to Crowley after he is no longer with us. The result is that what is billed find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as ''an Feternal spinster.X. Shepherd mysteryAlong your journey you'' with all the optimism of there being more ll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to come has the poignancy of being, if not the last of save you from a short linelife alone, certainly one of and fired by a fewrogueish sense for adventure. F.X. Shepherd – he doesnWhen it comes to suitors though, you't like his first name ll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and prefers just "Shepherd" iswealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, technicallyrugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, a columnistor the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. HeWith orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artifcats along the way, it's been sacked by one New York newspaper and is writing a weekly column for anotherclear this isn't going to be an easy decision... I don't know much about journalism, but I'm guessing one column a week doesn't pay much as a rule…which explains why Shepherd[[My Lady's soap-washedChoosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris|Full Review]] <!--foulJester -->|-mouthed editor (read the book, you'll see what I mean) expects him to turn in some genuine journalism as well: front page, seat of your pants stuff. |amazonukstyle=<amazonuk>1783296518</amazonuk>}}{{newreview"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|author=Gray Jolliffe|title=The First Ever Christmas[[image: And Who to BlameJester_Forever.jpg|rating=5left|genrelink=Humourhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1510704361?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1510704361]]  |summarystyle=If I tell you "vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Forever After: a secret, will you promise not to tell anyone? Welldark comedy by David Jester]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], I really don't like Christmas[[:Category: it's my least favourite time of year Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fasntasy]] Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and whilst some people count down to gets made the day itselfoffer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, I look forward to that point when I can say that it's all over for another year. It's all too commercialised for me, with a coating of faux religion. I've never found it grim reaper and his friends Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the least funny - that is, until I found Gray Jolliffe's ''The First Ever Christmas: And Who's records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to Blame''sit on in their flat. Amazingly, I'd never encountered Gray Jolliffe either, but I'm a convert to his skills as a cartoonist (if not to the idea of Christmas) after reading this collection of Christmas[[Forever After: a dark comedy by David Jester|Full Review]] <!-- Stibbe -->|-themed cartoons from his archive.|amazonukstyle=<amazonuk>1445663503</amazonuk>}}{{newreview"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|author=Jonathan Pugh[[image:Stibbe_Xmas.jpg|title=Pugh's New Year's Resolutionsleft|ratinglink=4https://www.amazon.5|genre=Humourco.uk/gp/product/0241309824?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0241309824]]  |summarystyle=If there's one thing that's for certain, it's that the world is changing"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe]]=== [[image:4.5star. We're dating onlinejpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], we're communicating in ways [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that make email seem redundant– once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and when we're shopping we just tell a website where if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and when visit it can be delivered, and how much leeway they have get too friendly with it to want to swap our wishes for whatever eat it . Christmas, though, is they do bring us. But those changes are of course also supposed to be affecting us – we're supposed to use a smart watch to tell us if wetime of great boons. It're moving or nots cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, we have to keep up it was always a godsend for postmen with all the latest fads, and we're supposed thank-you letters to prick our ears up aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and take note when as for the proverbial 'makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they' change their minds about what we're supposed to eat.even try and sell them any other time of the year? [[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe|Full Review]] |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722885</amazonuk!-- Doescher -->}}{{newreview|-|authorstyle= Luke Rhinehart"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|title= Invasion[[image:Doescher_Will.jpg|ratingleft|link= 4https://www.amazon.co.5uk/gp/product/159474985X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=159474985X]] |genre= Humour |summarystyle=Super"vertical-intelligent furry aliens suddenly appear from another universe. And they've come to earth to have funalign: top; text-align: left;"|===[[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher]]=== [[image:4. Alien Louie follows fisherman Billy Morton home one day, and he and his family quickly come to love the playful alien5star. But when Louie starts using their computer to hack into government and corporate networksjpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] A long time ago, stealing millions from banks to give to othersin a galaxy far away, they realise that Louie and his friends mean trouble. As Billy and his family begin there was a roller coaster ride of fame and fortuneman called William Shakespeare, as well as who was able to create a ranking high on the FBI's series of dramatic histories full of machinations most wanted list, the Government soon decides that these aliens are terroristsfoul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and must be eliminatedheroines most sturdy. Whilst the aliens are playing games they hope will help humans to see You may or may not have noticed the insanity cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the American politicalactual script, economic and military systems, they soon come to realise that complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the Powers that Be family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't play games: they make war. |amazonuk=forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… [[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher|Full Review]] <amazonuk>1785651757</amazonuk!-- Goss -->}}|-{{newreview| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Goss_600.jpg|author=Rod Greenleft|titlelink=Only Fools and Horseshttps: The Peckham Archives|rating//www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785942719?ie=4|genreUTF8&tag=Entertainment |summarythebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785942719]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Doctor Who: Now We are in the world Are Six Hundred: A Collection of one of the country's most famous and well-loved sitcoms – even if it was sort-of killed off for Christmas 2003Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies]]=== [[image:4.5star. Yes, there have been specials since, and more repeats to clog up the BBC schedules than is really pukka, but very few people failed to succumb to its charms at one time or another. Ijpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Children'm sure there have been books before now celebrating the stony-faced reception of s Rhymes and Verse|Children''that'' drop through the open bar hatch, s Rhymes and ''that'' chandelier sceneVerse]], but this is much more meaty. Purporting to be the family archives, found dumped in Nelson Mandela House[[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] Consider the documents here Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were passed from pillar he to post, from one council worker keep in a department touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a clumsy acronym to anotherfew novelty gifts for some of them, say, from them to for example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the police – life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and now here they are being published for their social history worthenemies. Will enough readers find them of worthAs luck would have it, as he has the series quietly celebrates its 35th birthday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849909245</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mara Wilson|title= Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and Accidental Fame|rating= 5|genre= Autobiography|summary= Mara Wilson has always felt get himself ready. And if you're working on a little young and a little out of place: as the only child on shorter timescale, with a film set full of adultsshorter lifespan, the first daughter in a house full of boysand thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the sole clinically depressed member same. [[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of a cheerleading squad, a valley girl in New York Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and a neurotic in California, and an adult the world still remembers as a little girl. Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the set of ''Melrose Place,'' to losing her mother at a young age, to getting her first kiss (or was it kissesRussell T Davies|Full Review]] <!-- Ingram -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Ingram_Kammie.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785451995?) on a celebrity canoe trip, to not being cute enough to make it in Hollywood, these essays tell the story of one young woman's journey from accidental fame to relative obscurity, but also illuminate a universal struggleie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785451995]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: learning to accept yourself, and figuring out who you are and where you belong. left;"||amazonuk=<amazonuk>0143128221</amazonuk>==[[Conversations with Kammie by Annie Ingram]]===}}[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{newreview{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Pets|author= Tony StuartPets]], [[:Category:Humour|title= Writing LinesHumour]]|rating= 4.5|genre=Humour|summary= George Gordon Wentworth (1946-2011) lived a humdrum life. He It was something of a barely adequate teacher in a fairly world renowned independent school in Kent relief when I encountered Annie Ingram and kept a copious diary of his quotidian existenceher cocker spaniel Kammie. Most of what he recorded was dross. HoweverYou see, amongst all the utterly uninteresting tailings Annie knows something which has been self-evident to me for a long time: dogs are perfectly capable of his life there were some nuggets communicating with humans and grains to catch the attentionnot just on a level of food!, walk! or play!. Author Tony Stuart has created these amusing anecdotesYou do require extensive training to become fluent, panning them out over twenty six episodes which but most dogs will be perfectly willing to give us the best of Wentworth – comedy gold. From losing their time to teach you and all the pupils in his charge on a school trip you have to being arrested on suspicion do is listen. Annie has studied hard: Kammie has trained her well and the pair have allowed us to share some of terrorism; from waking up in bed between the married couple the morning after their wedding, to destroying a ski run; from appearing fullconversations. [[Conversations with Kammie by Annie Ingram|Full Review]] <!-frontal naked in a sheep-farmers' gazette to triggering an airHarris --sea rescue; Wentworth was, blinkered and befuddled, the subject – of these and so many more unlikely but highly amusing events.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524634441</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Graham Fulbright-|titlestyle=Driving Mad"width: Maniacs, Morons and the Advanced Motorist's Club10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Harris_Glass.jpg|ratinglink=3http://www.amazon.co.5uk/dp/1908943823/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] |genre=Humour|summarystyle=I passed my driving test when John F Kennedy was in the White House and I've recently had to reapply for my driving licence having achieved a venerable age"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Breaking of Liam Glass by Charles Harris]]=== [[image:3star. When I started driving the roads were kinderjpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], more forgiving places - or put another way[[:Category:Humour|Humour]] Teenager Liam Glass is mugged and stabbed yards from his Camden flat. As the boy lies comatose, desperate journalist Jason Worthington scrabbles for the idiots were fewer and further between. I don't know how long Graham Fulbright has been driving, but he certainly knows his motoring morons and in ''Driving Mad'' he brings us inside scoop, tired police officer Andy Rockham searches for a fictional sample of their eccentricities. Wellmissing tape, I'm pretty certain that they'harried politician Jamila Hasan fights for re fictional - but these days you never know.election, distraught mother Katrina Glass waits by her son, and gym-owner Royland simply finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.We follow this host of ensemble characters in a bleak, kaleidoscopic satire of modern media.[[The Breaking of Liam Glass by Charles Harris|Full Review]] |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783062584</amazonuk!-- LENTE -->}}{{newreview|author=Mario Giordano-|titlestyle=Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|rating=4[[image:Lente_10.jpg|genrelink=Crime|summary=Poldi had not long been widowed when she decided to move from Bavaria to Sicily with the intention of drinking herself to deathhttp://www.amazon. She could, of course, have done this in Germany, but she felt that a sea view was essentialco. Once there, new friends, family already resident on the island and the corpse of a young man, his face blown off by a shotgun, whom she found on the local beach, intervened to give her life some meaninguk/dp/1683690222/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Ten Dead Comedians: A Murder Mystery by Fred Van Lente]]=== [[image:4star. For a while she was jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] Nine comedians are invited to a suspectremote Caribbean island under the guise of working with Dustin Walker, but that (and her wig) were no obstacle to her falling for Commissario Vito Montana who was assigned to investigate a comedic legend. Each fits neatly into one of the case. Assisting him (or having him assist her) came naturally to Poldi and before long there was an investigative and personal partnership. At least so archetypal comic stereotypes: Steve, the washed-up has-been who has fallen far as Poldi was concerned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524693</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Grady Hendrix|title= My Best Friend's Exorcism|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary=1988from his early days; Zoe, the rising female star with a new stand-up special coming soon; Dante, Charlestonwho went from being a kid on the streets to the hardest working road comic in the business; Oliver, South Carolina. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinnythe child-dipping goes disatrously wronglike prop comic who can't get any respect from his peers; Janet, Gretchen begins to act...different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby. Abby's investigation leads the insult comic who is past her to some startling discoveries - and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusionprime; TJ, the fate of Abby nightly variety show host with a reputation for harassing his female colleagues and guest acts; Ruby, the ultra-feminist YouTuber and Gretchen will be determined by Blogger with a single question: Is their friendship enough to beat chip on her shoulder; and William, whose redneck character ''Billy the devil?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594748624</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Kevin MacNeil|title=The Brilliant and Forever|rating= 3Contractor'' is a far cry from his real personality as a posh millionaire.5|genre= Humour|summary= You know sometimes when someone tells a jokeOf course, everyone else laughsall nine agree because ''when God almighty walks down on a beam of light and asks for your help, and what the hell else are yougoing to say?'re sat there wondering what was so funny?' [[Ten Dead Comedians: A Murder Mystery by Fred Van Lente|Full Review]] |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973376</amazonuk!-- Scott -->}}{{newreview|author= Christopher Fowler-|titlestyle= Bryant and May"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: Strange Tidecenter;"|[[image:Scott_Eliz.jpg|ratinglink= 3http://www.amazon.5|genre= Crimeco.uk/dp/1788037006/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  |summarystyle= The thirteenth outing for Bryant "vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Elizabeth, William... and May is looking very much like it will be their lastMe by S Lynn Scott]]=== [[image:4. Arthur Bryant is on compassionate leave whilst tests are continuing, which are likely to confirm that he is suffering from Alzheimer's5star. His condition is worsening almost by the day, memory lapses are morphing into full-scale hallucinations.jpg|amazonuklink=<amazonuk>0857523422</amazonuk>Category:{{{rating}}}Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]]{{newreview|author=Kevin Smith|title=The Voyage Ally is an ordinary woman with teenage children, a husband and a job. Then comes the day when ordinariness flies out of the Dolphin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Dublin 1916: Among window. It's not a coincidence that it's the same day she finds Queen Elizabeth I in the unrest pantry and anti-British feeling worsened by the threat Bard of conscription into a war seen as nothing to do with the IrishAvon in her bath. What's she going to do? Well, Elizabeth and Will have their own ideas about that! [[Elizabeth, Trinity College faculty has other distractionsWilliam.. They'd like a trophy; the skeleton of an Irish 'giant' to be precise. The only glitch is that the main trophy contender, Bernard MacNeill's skeleton, is somewhere difficult to access and all seasoned explorers are otherwise engaged. There may be hope though. They turn to Fitzmaurice, a student not good enough for anything elseMe by S Lynn Scott|Full Review]] <!-- Rodford -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Rodford_Surgeon.jpg|link=http://www.amazon. Fitzmaurice agrees, picking his friends Crozier and Rafferty to go with him. So… ''Gentlemen, lace up your strongest boots and pack your warmest underwear – we're all off to the bloody Arctic!'' Whether battle cry or epitaph, three men and a dog… and an iguana… are going anywayco.uk/dp/178565005X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  |amazonukstyle=<amazonuk>1910124826</amazonuk>"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"||amazonus=<amazonus>1910124826</amazonus>==[[The Surgeon's Case: George Kocharyan Mystery 2 by E G Rodford]]===}}[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{newreview|author=Tony Hawks{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|title=Once Upon a Time in the West… CountryCrime]], [[:Category:Humour|rating=3Humour]]|genre=Travel|summary=I have often complained in In the second instalment of this series, Private Investigator George Kocharyan has been hired by a jokey voice to my partner about life in the sticks, and the way she moved me from an innerwell-city flat known local man to slumming it in the suburbs with fewer bussestrack down some missing valuables. Bill Galbraith, no takeaways within walkinga world-and-keeping-food-hot distance, and no famous surgeon at Cambridge's Addenbrooke'Polish' shops for s Hospital who hosts a can of beer whenever you fancy one. Things are different with Tony Hawkspopular medical television programme, as here he has purposefully decided had his briefcase stolen by his live-in domestic servant, Aurora. According to up sticks from London to SomewhereGalbraith, Devon – a tiny village where the people who built their own homes decades ago still live in them, where slugs are a lot more this briefcase contains confidential notes concerning an important patient of a problem for his at the wannabe lettuce-grower than they are for hospital. George agrees to look into the metropolitan commutertheft, and where village halls have the power to turn you into both assuming it will be a Pol Pot dictator if you get on their committee relatively easy and into a quiveringstraightforward case – little does he know, bruise-inducing wreck if youhe're the wrong gender at s about to enter a Zumba class…|amazonuk=world of deceit and dysfunction. [[The Surgeon's Case: George Kocharyan Mystery 2 by E G Rodford|Full Review]] <amazonuk>1444794809</amazonuk!-- Jordan -->}}{{newreview|author=Marian Keyes-|titlestyle=Making It Up As I Go Along"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Jordan_Tiny.jpg|ratinglink=4http://www.amazon.co.5uk/dp/1760293814/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  |genrestyle=Entertainment"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"||summary=Oh==[[Our Tiny, how the book reviewing gods like to give, and equally like to take awayUseless Hearts by Toni Jordan]]=== [[image:5star. Here before me is a brand, spanking new collection of journalism by the wonderful Marian Keyes – but itjpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's a proof copyFiction]], so there[[:Category:Humour|Humour]] As predicted by Caroline and Janice's mother on Caroline and Henry's no photo of the author. Even if wedding day, their marriage is over the , albeit 15 years I have stopped reading her novelsand two daughters further along than predicted. Indeed, I have always turned to the author picture to remind myself such sights exist in this world. Himself is definitely not a lucky man, good weekend for sureJanice to be babysitting at Caroline's house. But beyond sounding like a letch, what can I say about this – the beautyThere's third large dose the split and the awkwardness of essays, web columns and the girls' schoolteacher being the other journalism? I can woman for a start with agreeing . Then there's that I am not mistaken identity moment involving the target audience, neighbours. At least Janice is well adjusted and over her ex-husband Alec. She still dreams of him, yes, but it's easy enough to see from these pages exactly what so over! Just as well really… guess who's at the target is. So much like that test you do – you know the onedoor? [[Our Tiny, that formulates decisions about the age and commonality of all things in space to come up with how many billions of planets are likely to have alien life on – you can narrow things down quite readily here, and still come up with a huge number.Useless Hearts by Toni Jordan|Full Review]] <!-- Taylor -->|-|amazonukstyle=<amazonuk>0718182529</amazonuk>}}{{newreview"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Taylor_Scilly.jpg|authorlink=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178475515X/ref=nosim?tag= Jeanthebookbag-Yves Ferri21]]  |titlestyle= Asterix and the Missing Scroll (Album 36)"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|rating= 5|genre= For Sharing|summary=Asterix is those rarest =[[The Life of book series; one designed for kids which is actually even funnier when you are an adulta Scilly Sergeant by Colin Taylor]]=== [[image:4.5star. I used to love Asterix as a child, but now that I reread them I can't help but wonder whyjpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Travel|Travel]], because they are so full [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] Meet the Isles of hilarious jokes that Scilly. (I definitely wouldn't have understood when I was younger. I laughed loud and hard know they should be called that – the author provides a handy guide to myself twice within the first two pages etiquette of Asterix their name, their nature and the Missing Scrolllocation, so I'd definitely say that this was a hitetc.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1510100458</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Spadge Whittaker|title=Braver Than Britain) For our more distant readers, Occasionally|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=In which Spadge researches Britainthey's top ten fears and faces them all over re several chunks of granite rock out in the course of a yearAtlantic, where Cornwall is pointing, with just 2,200 permanent residents. WeThey're quite a fearful societybig on tourism, you know. And and big on growing flowers in the tropical climate the things we fear most are, in order: heights (acrophobia)Gulf Stream bequeaths them – although the weather is bad enough to turn any car to a rust bucket within years. They're so wee, snakes (ophidiophobia)and so idyllic-seeming, public speaking (glossophobia)especially at night, spiders (arachnophobia), small spaces (claustrophobia), mice (musophobia), needles (trypanophobia), flying (pteromerhanophobia), crowds (agoraphobia) and clowns (coulrophobia)you can be mistaken for thinking there would be no need for a police presence. But there is – at least two working at any one time.|amazonuk=And one of them in recent years has been Colin Taylor, who has done his official duty – alongside maintaining a well-known online existence, which has brought to life all the whimsical comedy of his work. [[The Life of a Scilly Sergeant by Colin Taylor|Full Review]] <amazonuk>0993429904</amazonuk!-- Lloyd -->}}{{newreview|author= Mike Bullen-|titlestyle= Trust"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|rating= 4[[image:Lloyd_Twas.jpg|genrelink= General Fiction|summary= Greg and Amanda are happyhttp://www. Unmarried, but together thirteen years and with two young daughters, they are very much in loveamazon. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunateco. Their marriage is going through the motions, and they're staying together for uk/dp/1472125118/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[['Twas the sake of their troubled teenage son. Following a business conference away from home, one bad decision sends a happy couple into turmoil, Fight Before Christmas: A Parody by Josie Lloyd and turns an unhappy couple into love's young dreamEmlyn Rees]]=== [[image:3.5star. As secrets and betrayals threaten to send both relationships out of control, there's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apartjpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: TrustHumour|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559253</amazonuk>Humour]]}}{{newreview|author=Dan Rhodes|title=When It's Christmas Eve and Mum has arranged everything. All she now has to do is await the arrival of the Professor Got Stuck in relatives and the Snow|rating=4food shopping delivery.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Two people are on a train on their way Little does Mum know that those two elements alone have the potential to, of all things, a WI meeting where ruin everything. [['Twas the ladies of All Bottoms will be lectured on the nonFight Before Christmas: A Parody by Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees|Full Review]] <!-- Phinn -existence of God. One of the two people is Professor Richard Dawkins, rampant atheist, hectoring scientist chappie, and all-round devotee of ''Deal or No Deal''. The other is Smee, his mono>|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-named assistant, amanuensis or 'male secretary'align: center;"|[[image:Phinn_Virgin. Smee will come to the fore when the weather sets in and the train journey has to be abandoned some way short of its ultimate destination, Upper Bottomjpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co. Instead the pair fetch up at the isolated yet friendly community of Market Horton, and the only option for accommodation is taken – yes, the dieduk/dp/1444779400/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-inalign: top; text-the-wool non-believer has to be housed align: left;"|===[[The Virgin Mary's Got Nits by a retired vicar and his wifeGervase Phinn]]=== [[image:4.5star. This clash of titanic opinions, peppered with social faux pas aplenty will provide for a particularly English kind of farcical comedy, but one with the legs to go as far as any other Good Books have reached in the past…jpg|amazonuklink=<amazonuk>1910709018</amazonuk>Category:{{{rating}}}{{newreviewStar Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|author=Rob TempleHumour]], [[:Category:Anthologies|title=Very British Problems AbroadAnthologies]]|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=MeetChristmas in our house is the time we tend to get on a plane and head to either sun or snow, if you haven't alreadyanywhere that is far, far away from the phenomenon of the Very British Problem. In this format they're in pithy little comments (ofmadness at home, last minute dashes to the shops on Christmas Eve, ooh, about 140 characters in length, for some reason…) and detail the minor things in life food cupboard stockpiles that we like nothing more than to inflate to would imply supermarkets are shutting for a month, nor a major factor mere 36 hours. But I do remember the feeling of life. They can involve mannersChristmas when I was younger, staring at things until they mend themselves, hitting things dittoback when it was magical, or and back when you knew exactly what the fact that nobody apart from you season would bring with carol concerts and school nativities and I know how to queue properlyChristmas parties. And if the idea hits the world outside our shoresThis book is an anthology of those moments, then – well, you certainly have and it took me right back to the wonder of Christmas as a book full of content regarding our attitude and ineptitude abroadchild.[[The Virgin Mary's Got Nits by Gervase Phinn|Full Review]] |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751558494</amazonuk!-- North -->}}{{newreview|author=Fraser McAlpine-|titlestyle=Stuff Brits Like"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|rating=4[[image:North_Romeo.jpg|genrelink=Humourhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0356508536/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  |summarystyle= With over 100 chapters on different aspects of Britain "vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Romeo and Britishness, this book is both fascinating and hilarious/or Juliet by Ryan North]]=== [[image:3.5star. Just looking at the list of subjects is enough to produce a sardonic twist of that stiff upper lipjpg|link=Category: the chapters cover topics that range from offal to curry, from pedantry to banter{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] For all those who think tragedy plots are too restricted and prescribed, from conkers to rugbyread on. There may be many chapters but this is no academic tome - each chapter is just two In these pages you too will see that Romeo had lots of options en route to three pages longhitting the bottle. Likewise, each is written with endearing affection, each is easy she could have turned away from her predestined path at no end of junctures. And to what result? Well, happy marriage and satisfying - a kid called Ben, because the leads have just banged people's heads together and quirkily funny - to readstopped the quarrelling, or Death by Tybalt (him) or a long life running an establishment curing murderous women, such as a Lady M (her).[[Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886348</amazonuk>Full Review]]}}{{newreview|author= John Samuel|title= What I Tell You in the Dark|rating= 3.5|genre= Humour|summary=A man called Will is fighting fiercely against corruption – desperate to expose his company's dodgy dealings to the press. Overcome with doubt and fear, he goes to kill himself. But, at the exact moment he attaches his noose to the back of the door, he is saved. By a curious housemate or a concerned girlfriend? No, by an Angel. Not the white-feathered guardian Angel you may expect, but one who wishes to help Will achieve his ends, and so possess the body of the hapless Will in order to finish what he started. It goes without saying that the Angel is hoping things go better than they did with the last guy he possessed – a hapless young man from Galilee called Jesus…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715650505</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= John Niven|title= The Sunshine Cruise Company|rating= 4.5|genre= Humour|summary= Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham live in a small Dorset town. Friends since school, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has a lovely house and a lengthy marriage to accountant Barry, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old people's home. When Barry is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeon, it transpires that he has been leading a hidden life for years, and his expensive fetishes lead to the bank moving to take Susan's home. Struck by both desperation and a sense of injustice, Sue and Julie conspire to rob a bank, taking along their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due to lack of money and a terminally ill grandson, and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of the nursing home longing for adventure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023183</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Marie Phillips|title=The Table Of Less Valued Knights|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Sir Humphrey has been demoted from King Arthur's Round Table to the Table of Lesser Valued Knights. The only way to get his comfier seat back is to redeem himself via a quest. Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help to find her kidnapped fiancé, Humphrey and his ward, the teenage giant Conrad, eagerly set forth. Meanwhile in the kingdom of Tuft, new Queen Martha has run away after a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwin. She may not realise it yet, but she too will have a job for Humphrey!<!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555875</amazonuk>}}