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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crimenon-fiction, cookery & children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books reviews and recommendations Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life - [[: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. It's the bag we take to the libraryWith author interviews, the charity shop features and the bookshoptop tens. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times thereYou'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent sure to us by publishers and we promise to tell find something 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|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 want to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] pagehere.Dig in!

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|isbn=00082147000008551375|title=Cut to the Bone When Shadows Fall (DI Meg DaltonD S Max Craigie)|author=Roz WatkinsNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5

|summary=DI Meg Dalton and Ds Jai Sanghera are dealing with Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the case result of a missing teenagertragic accident. Violet Armstrong is well-known She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as a vlogger - championing she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the cause of meat-eatinglast year. She barbeques meat wearing only a bikini All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and has attracted sensible people. None of the attention of animal rights activists'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. The meat-eaters (They were all alone when they wear meat suits) are determined that Meg Dalton died: DS Max Craigie is corrupt certain there's a killer on the loose.}}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=Dysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and not running a decent investigation (Society|summary=''obviouslyIt is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' she only got  Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the job because she's new generation, a woman) because she's new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a vegetariansign of political apathy. As if Rather, it is the case wasnproportional, valid response to ''t enoughthe epistemological and political crack we are living through, Megand the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi's father '. The whole text is coming framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to stay with her despite having had little to do with her for fifteen years and Jaiemerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''s convinced that his girlfriend. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, Sukior mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, doesnPreciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform't like his children and that she wants more, but he doesn't.|isbn=1804271454

|isbnauthor=1784385166Samantha Harvey|title=The Third Reich Orbital|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in 100 Objects: A Material History the lives of Nazi Germanya group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=Roger MoorhouseG M Stevens

|genre=HistoryLiterary Fiction|summary=What Our unnamed narrator is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate about to begin a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but train journey with his companion Django. Where they are emblematic 're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the Third Reichfloor somewhere''s fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar has persuaded our narrator to youaccompany him. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to illustrate the period of station by coach and the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefactstrain is a steam locomotive. 

|isbn=14091874380008551324|title=The First LieDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=A J ParkNeil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=On It's unusual for anyone from the second of October 37-year-old barrister, Paul Reeve, returned home at 9 pm Hardie family to find his house in darkness and approach the front door openpolice. His wife was in Neither side likes or has any respect for the bedroom other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in a state of shock prison and in he's prepared to tell the police where the bathroom there was body of a dead man missing person is buried and who had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck with Paul's paper-knifewas responsible for her death. In that moment Paul takes a decision that This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be irrevocable: worth the police doing what he decides that wants. And what he and Alice are not going wants is to be transferred to an open prison to ring serve the police remainder of his sentence and tell the truthto get an early parole date. TheyNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she're going s even prepared to bury do the body other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Vaim|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in woodland Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and go on as though nothing has happenedEline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829

|isbn=15294018011035043092|title=Grave's End The Killing Stones (DS Alexandra CupidiJimmy Perez)|author=William ShawAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5

|summary=Gram Hickman, I can't have been the only person who worked for an estate agent, took his girlfriend, Angela Boothwas sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a house which his firm was marketingnew life on Orkney. Guildeford Hall was an old Kentish oast house It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and was on their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the market for millions daughter of poundshis former partner. Gram was hoping that he could get Angela into bed Willow's also his boss, and heshe ''should''d brought a bottle of prosecco along. It was be on maternity leave, but when searching for somewhere to chill the bottle that he found the body of a man popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the freezer in the garageaftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. DS Alexandra Cupidi and DC Jill Ferriter are on He'd been battered about the casehead with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweThea Lenarduzzi|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightThe Tower|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at ''How unctuous are the trauma and heartache fats of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is another''Ogadinma Ors life, Everything Will Be All Righthow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. Ogadinma is  In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the eponymous heroine identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story. We are with her in every scene and it is her narrative voice that leads being told, the storyof a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, although Olisakwe writes in the third person. This provides daughter of a sense of detachment for wealthy family in the reader and highlights the isolation 19th century, who died of Ogadinmatuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. She is exiled from her fatherAnnie's home and sent to Lagos where she fate is married , above all, an enticing story to an older man named TobeT. Their marriage descends into violence It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and indignities knowledge, and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapein service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=19116481601804271799

|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered HopesBig Kiss, Bye-Bye

|genre=Graphic NovelsLiterary Fiction|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone Everything in the second half of their teens has other prioritiesthis book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, you knowis steeped in anguish and distortion. I certainly didn't know of the weeks Even a kiss, usually a symbol of protests intimacy and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the Tank Man imagenarrator cries out internally, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest'come over here and kiss me, and I didn't know more ' it is less an invitation than a spit about the people involved on either sidedesperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. This book The imagined recipient of this plea is practically flawless in giving Xavier, her ex-partner, a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=16840569931804271934

|authorisbn= Joan He0008405026|title= Descendant of A Stranger in the CraneFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey

|genre= FantasyCrime|summary=It''Heroes cannot be forged without villains''Princess Hesina of the kingdom of Yan has s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never wanted found and the throneinvestigation ground to a halt. Instead of craving power Now, she has always considered the crown her inescapable duty mother, Helena, and shrank away from the responsibilities of being Queenher father are dead in their bed. To her Initially, it has always been looks like a distant, faraway future. Until straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that is, it isn't. When makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her beloved father suddenly dies, she is thrust into rulingboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. But contrary to the official report, Hesina knows all is not What looked as though it seems, her father didn't die. He was murderedgoing to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder.Determined to seek Kerrigan is convinced that the truth and discover her fatherexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's killer, Princess Hesina will stop at nothing to find justiceboss, even committing treason. Under the cover of darkness, her feet lead her to a soothsayer to learn what happened that day and who killed the KingUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1789094046

|author=Pat GrantAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City GriftersOther Girl

|genre=Graphic NovelsAutobiography|summary=Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes ''We were born from the punk bandssame body. There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters I've never really wanted to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factory. You could say that yoghurt would tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the only culture aroundmost intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a placefew months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, but everyone is interested in small things that growand 2 years before the author was even born. For The large and instant void created by the only money jarring concept of writing to be had – the only fortunes to be found an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in Falter City – come from algaeher life, gunk an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845}}{{Frontpage|author=Maxim Gorky and other crud that – wellBryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies are often seen as the use form of life-writing which offers less colour; it is never really made clearcan be seen as more objective and less personal. Once thereI think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, the two brothers set themselves each up with and offers a guide – Lippyvibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the more forward-thinkingfirst section of this book, industrious Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of the tworeal life as it is, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hairbut of what you yourself imagine it to be. But which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in Whom would it help to know how I see this dystopiantower, that sea, semior that Tartar -Apocalyptic hellholewhy should it interest anyone?Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=16030946601804271977

|authorisbn= Ashley Poston1529077745|title= Bookish and the BeastThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating= 34.5|genre= TeensCrime|summary= Set after A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the ExcelsiConpark near Rosebank, we are introduced a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to Rosie Thorne, work a Small Town, USA girl shift the night before but who has recently lost had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her mother and only clue is entering her final the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year of high school-old Chloe Spencer. Things keep piling up Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for Rosie, and when she follows a stray dog into what she the death but Vera thinks this is an abandoned castle in her town, things just get worse. Rosie accidentally destroys a rare book and with her motherunlikely as the girl's hospital and funeral costs diary makes it clear that she has no money to cover the damageadored Josh. She finds herself working for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty on a paparazzi escape, knows that she has to repay the debt.  For most Starfield superfans this would be a dream but Rosie soon realises Vance is a jerk - and he isn't too fond of her either. However, as the two are forced find Chloe to get to know each other, their guards begin discover what happened to lower and they discover that maybe this situation might not be so terrible after allJosh. |isbn=1683691938

|authorisbn=Justine Avery and Daria YudinaB0FK5LHKD9|title=Baby Trolls Get a Bad Rap (Underrated Babies Book 1)The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden

|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary= HoratioIt's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, Saul and Grizelda are three baby trolls who are fed up that everyone forgets about baby trollsso we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. They are ignored in books and TV shows and films in favour Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of their very scary grown upsMoney''. Our three heroes want equal rights for baby trolls. They want to be seen and heard and theyWe like this running theme in an author've started s work - take a petition about mystery but give it that they want you to signdifferent flavour and atmosphere each time. But how should they go about it? |isbn= B07XGN4LGY}}

|author= Samira AhmedOlga Tokarczuk|title= MadHouse of Day, Bad and Dangerous to KnowHouse of Night|rating= 3.5|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=''In What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the endancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a murder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, we all become storieshas been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1836284683|title=The Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian Fiction|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!

Spending the summer in Paris sounds like I do love it when I open a dream for most peoplebook, especially art-loversit's nothing like I expected it to be, but Khayyam can't relax and stop thinking about the mess she left behind in Chicagoit takes me on a wild ride. On a chance encounter And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to ruin a descendant similar experience for any of Alexandre Dumas, Khayyam finds herself on a historical journey with him you reading but I'll have to unveil at least set the truth about scene. Once that's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the 19th century Muslim woman who may have crossed paths with Alexandre Dumaschessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byronas her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. As Among the two teenagers travel the city they not only discover themselvesmany relationships woven into this story, but uncover the true story of central one for readers to unravel is the woman fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and why it was one that should never have been forgottenPeter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=03490035560571365469

|authorisbn= Hazel Barkworth1036916375|title= HeatstrokeJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating= 3.54|genre= CrimeAutobiography|summary=''Too hot Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a book to sleep. Too hot settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think straightof simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. Too hot to go back' I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.}}

During {{Frontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a British heatwave 15-year-oldkeen player of video games, Lily Dixona conscientious student, has left home a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is reported missingan aspiring writer. Rachel English is a teacher his favourite lesson at Lily's his school , Marlowe Park, and the mother of Mia, Lily's best friendone at which he excels. As LilyThis hasn's family t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and the police struggle she has suggested to find any evidence Will and his mum that may lead to Lily, Rachel takes it upon herself to start looking for clues. Howeverhe spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, as the case goes on Rachel becomes fixated on finding Lily and finds herself crossing boundariesStation Road, breaking trust and facing some impossible choiceswhere his ability might be better extended. Will they find Lily? Does Lily want to be found? And will life for Rachel ever be the same again?|isbn=1472265602

|isbn=15387317381009473085|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful LifeThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author= Sarah Ban BreathnachAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)

|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society|summary=Someone once said: Sometimes it's not selfsimpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-indulgence2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, itthen this isn't the book for you. If that's therapy! what you're looking for, I don't think they were talking about shoppingAnthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, but it probably can be applied bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most thingsimportant. In my caseThis book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, it applies to writing about things because I want tothe changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Valentine|title=Us in the Before and After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, rather or more than because I can sell it or because Ithat even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other've got s contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something to sellterrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585

|authorisbn=Frederic Gros1787333175|title=A Philosophy of WalkingYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse

|genre= Politics and SocietyPopular Science|summary= I confess I picked this one up from was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the library in my pre-lockdown forage workings of random stuffthe NHS, humour and autobiography. Now I have ''You Don't Have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down be Mad...'' promised the pages I have marked same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and return to its varying wisdom when the work of a psychiatrist. I need did wonder whether it was acceptable to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me be looking for humour in this setting but the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking laughter is not directed at a situation rather than a sport''person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.|isbn=1781688370

|isbnauthor=085752612XMariana Enriquez|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?|author=Curtis SittenfeldA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=45|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=I was tempted to read ''Rodham'' Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by the success basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''. That book wasn't marketed as being a portrait of Laura Bush, but the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed disused refrigerators due to occur very regularly in reviews. How would ''Rodham'' compare? Unfortunatelyan urban planning mishap, there is an overcrowded homeless shelter and a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bush, which gave the book a freshness which the first third of ''Rodham'' lacks. We've crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all heard the stories, read the books - about Hillary and particularly about Billwithin Argentina. It's still an interesting concept, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's career, if she hadn't had to carry the burden The circumstances of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't left her own run at the presidency characters are so late? Could she have done better without plausible that the Clinton surname?supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |isbn=1803511230

|isbn=07278892301529934753|title=The Red, Red SnowProtest|author=Caro RamsayRob Rinder

|summary=In GlasgowFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, Eric Callaghan the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour had been to his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the ice show nick of time, complete with his wife, Geraldine two wives and daughtersix children, Lisa when he was stabbed in Planet Burgerone of whom filmed what happened. He died within minutesBeing an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but his murder seemed motiveless and it was fortunate that there were no clueswas a record of the protest. He was Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a genuine man chair and a talented artist: those investigating his death had hit a dead endproceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. There were two deaths It seemed to investigate in the north be part of an ongoing series of Scotland: it wasn't thought wise to involve the local murder team as someone on the Glen Riske police force blue-face' attacks, but this was indirectly involved in the casedifferent. Christmas - The can had been laced with cyanide, and a lot of snow were rapidly approachingSir Max Bruce was dead.

|isbnauthor=B07S6DBCFTAriel Saramandi|title=Little Girls Tell Tales|author=Rachel BennettPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=In 2004 Rosaliethis powerful collection of essays, Beth and Dallin were walking in Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the boggy wetlands wounds left by Rosalie colonialism and Dallinslavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting''s cottage. Beth and Dallin, both twelve-years-olda blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, got ahead of ten-year-old Rosalie environmental degradation and it wasn't long before she realised that she was lostgovernmental dysfunction. Trying to find her way back to the main path she found Each essay in this collection serves as a skeletonkind of diagnostic, but when she finally got to charting the road she could never find her way back to the bog when she'd seen various diseases afflicting the body. Most people didn't believe her, putting the story down to her vivid imaginationisland state.|isbn=1804271616

|isbnauthor=0008273790Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Remain Silent|author=Susie SteinerLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse

|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=When we first meet Matis and DimitriIt's the eighteenth century, Matis is in a bad way, vomiting time of discovery and obviously traumatisedBritain is expanding its foreign trade. When he's able Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to speak he tells Dimitri that ''Lukas is dead''. Lukas was the Andaman Islands in his late teens and he and Matis had come to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuaniaendeavour. They'd answered an advert offering good money Along with his son, Peter, and accommodation in return for their labour: cat, Michi, they could have set off on a decent life ''and'' send money home perilous voyage to their familiesthese faraway lands. Sadly, it doesn't work out like that. When they arrive The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the UK - on an oldislanders' leader, uncomfortable busAarav, - they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have is keen to share rooms and sleep on dirty mattresses on the floor. It's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersestablish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3

|author=Amin MaaloufHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The DisorientedLili is Crying

|summary= Adam has lived First published in 1953 in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact, he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend this novel is dying…or as Adam prefers to think a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of him a former-friend, perhaps not its readers just as harsh as an ex-friend, or maybe. The falling out was a long time agoBessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, and Adam's partner has no idea what it was aboutdisjointed, even so she urges him to go knowing that he'll regret not doing sotruncated. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants toLike the lives of her characters, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next planethey are often left tragically incomplete. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1804271675

|author=Anstey HarrisTom Percival|title=Where We BelongThe Wrong Shoes

|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= IWill've always believed that places and buildings absorb what happens within them and reflect it back; this s life is how we can tell that difficult, in a sacred space is sacredmultitude of ways. Cate Morris believes a similar thing, she believes that He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'A house absorbs happiness, it blooms into he has the wallpaper, wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the wood most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the window framescollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the bricks: fact thathis mum and dad are separated, and Will's how it becomes a home.'' She is having these thoughts as she packs up her homelife seems bleak in every direction. She And yet, he still has to leavea tiny amount of hope. A combination He is good at art, and clings to the moments of circumstances means that joy when he is not only redundant but also homeless. With nowhere else to godrawing, she has called on her late husband's family for help. Just for that feel like a light at the end of a few weekslong, dark tunnel.|isbn=14711738361398527122

|isbnauthor=1787477681Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)|author=Martin WalkerLetter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=It was There are few greater joys than a couple of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from his son. Gaston's father had sold the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy book which he had used to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlat, owned by a Russian oligarch. Before he even got lives up to go there he died, apparently of a heart attack, and the retirement home collected the proceeds of the policy and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just the contents of the farmhousecompelling premise. The family hadn't exactly fallen out, but Gaston lived some way away and Claudette had fallen out And this is one of favour when she announced that she was gay, but they weren't expecting to be almost completely disinheritedthem.|isbn= 0356522776

|isbn=B083Z3ZZ611786482126|title=Broken Silence The Janus Stone (DS Nikki Parekh 2Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Liz MistryElly Griffiths|rating=4.5

|summary=When we first meet him Stefan Marcovici has been Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the UK with his daughter Maria for site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a whiledoorway. He came expecting to work as a gardener and Maria There was to be no skull. Was this a nannyritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Stefan ends up doing slave labour in It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a chicken factory: you can imagine what happens result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to an eighteen-year-old girlsudden bouts of sickness.

|author=Justine Avery Guadalupe Nettel and Daria Yudina|title=This Book Is Alive! Rosalind Harvey (Living BookTranslator)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Books ''want'' you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readers. Books ''want'' to be read. This is the key message in Justine Avery's latest offering, ''This Book Is Alive!''. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book and young reader, she's sending an invitation to all - pick me up, read me, be my friend, we can go on a journey together. It's a great message, don't you think?|isbn= 1948124416}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0241984653|title=I Made a Mistake|author=Jane CorryThe Accidentals

|genre=ThrillersShort Stories|summary=We know from the very beginning that there's a tragedy about to happen. On a January evening on a very crowded platform 3 of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under an oncoming train. That man is Matthew Gordon. Much later we see Poppy Page This collection was truly enchanting in the witness box all senses of a crown court, getting a very rough ride from the prosecuting barrister.}}{{Frontpage|author= Maryse Condé|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live in a post-worldword: post-colonialismspellbinding with its fantastical, post-modernism, post-truth. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- magical elements and charming in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novel, ''The Wondrous and Tragic Life its gentle portrayal of Ivan nature and Ivana'', Condé human relationships. Guadalupe Nettel writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan intelligently and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupeprecisely, her stories structured by a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesworld.|isbn=16428606971804271470