134,828
edits
Changes
no edit summary
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
Want to find out learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711966151787333175|title=IcedYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Felix FrancisBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPopular Science|summary=Miles Pussett used I 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 Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the three-quarter-mile Cresta RunNHS, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hourhumour and autobiography. He was in St Moritz ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same weekend as White Turf - that's high-class horseracing on the frozen lake elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling work of the horsesa psychiatrist. It's seven years since he put horseracing behind him I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and he swore that he'd never go back to itis always delivered with empathy and understanding. But when he sees that something suspicious is going on}}{{Frontpage|author=Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Disappearing Act|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, Miles canStepanova't help but look s message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for answersa literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, even when it puts him M eventually offers to step in dangerfor a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show.The train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=147228612XB0GFQ81YQK|title=The Late Train to Gipsy HillHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Alan JohnsonStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=We all know Before people like Gary Nelsoncame and joined the animals, although we probably haven't taken much notice of themthere was only the sky and the earth. They live Everything was quietuntil the earth and the sky began to tal to each other. First, uneventful lives and stay mostly under the radarearth created bodies. In a city like LondonAnd then, that's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himthe sky breathed life into them. The highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on These were the train each morning: he'd love first humans and they belonged to ask her for a date but he doesn't have the courageboth earth and sky. ThenAnd so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, on his homeward commuteespecially how they came to be. When they grew old and died, Arina speaks their bodies returned to him the earth and asks for his helptheir life returned to the sky. Before long he finds himself on And that is why the earth and the run from mobsterssky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is why people must pay attention to, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan policecare for, both.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire McGowanB0GHPMNF6P|title=I Know YouThe Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary=When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the family'Then:s farm zoo. He'' Casey returns from s not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a walk with the baby, Carsoncave in New Zealand, and comes across three bodiessuddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, almost but a whole family taken down. ''dragon! Now:'' Rachel is out for a walk with her doghe, Edgar, Brandyhis mother Abi, when she comes across a body in and the woodszoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of scales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and not being able to tell anyone about it.|isbn=1542019974But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before imagined…
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529148251Stephanie Zabriskie|title=MisfitsHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: A Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela CoelFrom the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=''How am I able Maasai Women Spoke to be so transparent on paper about rapeCows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from itTanzania.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008433631Livi Michael|title=Next of Kin|author=Kia AbdullahElizabeth and Ruth|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersHistorical Fiction|summary=It was ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the sort life of thing that happened every daythe Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, although not to Leila Syedbest known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the treatment of the working class published under a pseudonym. SheThe 'd never driven 'Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in her nephew, Max, to school before but his fathernovel as Pasley, Andrew Hanson, had rung her in a panic. He young Irish prostitute who was supposed to be taking Max to school but he'd been called into work abandoned as a child and the delay finds herself in getting there could lead to financial losses. As the school was only five minutes out of LeilaManchester's wayNew Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life. Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, could she drop him off? Of course, she could the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into interrogates the back of her car. On extent to which the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her work too, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at riskwealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaMakenna Goodman|title=Everybody Toots! (Everybody Potties!)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Toots, trumps, farts. Whatever your word for them, find us a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny to talk about and joke about, that is. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go at the wrong time. In class, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At you. Justine Avery's latest entry in her ''Everybody Potties!'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently and calmly, with the familiar humour attached, explains that tooting is perfectly normal. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1784165263|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma CurtisHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew It could be argued that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dot, despite the fact that she was actually painting one pervading theme of their properties prior this book is malaise - a hard-to it being let-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. If she didn't get homeThe protagonist, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and confined to a wheelchairhis relationship, but don't be too quick to be understandingembodies this feeling. He was also However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a very unpleasant personforce which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he once told Eliza 's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as 'you're good at being a disappointmentan entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. All this was Although she lives in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrivedan assisted living facility now, unannounced, at Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted reader gets the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being availablesense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1784742775B0GCB1MQ7D|title=A Change of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)Why My Mother Went Away|author=Susan HillAlan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Drugs hadnI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It't really been s not often that much of you find a problem in Lafferton book that gives the full backstory, and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as rarely do you discover a bit of a waste of time. They still were, to a great extent, but Serrailler knew memoir where the telling is so perfect that something had to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport the drugs you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the operation running pleasure the county lines was tightwords give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions. A mule might know It's the story of how a boy from the name (although it probably wouldn't be Midlands, born at the correct one) beginning of the person who Second World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, he was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up in one of the organisation. The police might catch a few founders of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher updepartment.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FS89KX9Jeremy Cooper|title=Fall On Me|author=Penelope PottsDiscord|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=Life should have been good for HollieDiscord: She was just going into a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the final year novel, as with most instances of her veterinary degree discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and - three years later - was still working at BB's dinerEvie Bennet, are as different as they come. Bob Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no- nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the owner - regarded her fondly: he was musical scene as a good boss. Hollie had moved in precocious saxophonist, oozing with her boyfriend, Marcus: her mother thought he was great talent and he was doing well in his careercharm. Hollie wasnThe two, predictably, don't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted always see eye to control her eye, their approaches different and most of all he wanted her to leave her job Evie's progressive views at the dinerodds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. Then there was However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the fact that he would be violent, both to her and to other peopleclamour.|isbn=1804272264
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=John GwynneTom Percival|title=The Shadow Of The GodsWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods Will's life is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Sagadifficult, set in the era a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarokwrong shoes', when he has the Gods wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have battled and their bones lie scattered enough money for all to see. This story is even the ultimate in High Fantasymost basic of things like food, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to his dad can't work because he lost his job at the genrecollege, with mythical creatureswas working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, archaic language and battles galoreWill's life seems bleak in every direction. This And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is a thick bookgood at art, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that are woven together to create feel like a light at the end of a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battlelong, dark tunnel.|isbn=03565142181398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09HTWX47XEdward W Said|title=Endless Obsession|author=Dai HenleyRepresentations of the Intellectual |rating=4.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=ItEdward Said's some years since we last caught up with Andy Flood, formerly ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is less a DCI in the Met but now strict theory of what intellectuals are and more a well-respected private investigatorpassionate argument for what they should be. He's married to Laura, formerly his DS in Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the Murder Squad but now working in intellectual as a forensics laboratorydetached expert speaking only to other specialists. Flood's daughtersInstead, Gemma and Pippa, have flown he insists on the nestintellectual as a public figure, Pippa to Australiaoften awkward, from where she has very little contact with the familyabrasive, and Gemma unpopular, who speaks truth to married life. She's had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy and Laura hope that married life will provide the support she needs. Flood's business power even when it is going well and that was why he felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Blackinconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Peter PapathanasiouSylvie Cathrall|title=The StoningA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=In There are few greater joys than a town sleazy enough book which lives up to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolley, and she's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumpscompelling premise. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place And this is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it's only fair, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival one of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law..them.|isbn=15294169730356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08Z8BMZ7H1786482126|title=The Mystery of HealingJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=A P McGrathElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the second century of the common era and hesite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's the physician on duty at the munus apartments - when they discovered the games put on for the amusement bones of the populacea child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. The remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor Was this a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to liveritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when we first see themdifficult as Ruth knows, theybut Nelson doesn're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressive. The sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives t, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the wild animalsone night they spent together some three months ago. TodayHer condition will be obvious before long, it's the crocodilesnot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall0008551375|title=The Beatryce ProphecyWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Leanne Wilson''Stories have joy and surprises in them'', we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story, which feels an instant classic with s body was found at the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with bottom of a group of monksScottish mountain, seemingly the Order result of the Chronicles of Sorrowinga tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingtoo, trampling when she posted her intentions on and biting the poor BrothersFacebook. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked but it looked like she was living her past from her memorybest life now. Elsewhere sits a King Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in his castle, desperate to find the girllast year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for it is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne what they were doing and cause great changesensible people. Who foretold that revolution but the Order None of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. But how can They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?|isbn=1529500893killer on the loose.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FFJF8YSPaul B Preciado|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)|author=Justine Avery and Kate ZhoidikDysphoria Mundi|rating=34.5|genre=For SharingPolitics and Society|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" It is a cry (never too late to embrace the big-girl kind!) revolutionary optimism of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.childhood''
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettSamantha Harvey|title=Locked Out LilyOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Lily isIn 2024, or wasSamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', or has been, very ill, and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – lives of a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing to do with. But on tracking back home for word group of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents, and astronauts aboard the babe-in-arms, already installedInternational Space Station. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get Through a narrative lens that mirrors the family back intactastronauts' orbital perspective, even if it's not the family Lily wants – and all she has Harvey invites readers to help her see our planet in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snakea wholly new light.|isbn=14711948331529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Greg James and Chris Smith295967572X|title=The Great Dream RobberyPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Maya's father Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a professor who invented an amazing dream machinetrain journey with his companion Django. But something went wrongWhere they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, and now he canis uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere't wake up. Or at least, that's what Maya and has been toldpersuaded our narrator to accompany him. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friend, and discovers that Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the only way pair travel to save her dad may be the station by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams coach and reality collide...reallythe train is a steam locomotive...and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004644950008551324|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of MathsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Emma SmithNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he'Babies seem s prepared to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in tell the police where the womb, being aware body of quantities at seven hours olda missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, assessing probability at six months oldhe promises, is someone big and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months oldit will be worth the police doing what he wants.'' Did you know this? I didn't! How about: ''Maths ability on entry And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to school is a strong predictor serve the remainder of later achievement, double that of literacy skillshis sentence and to get an early parole date.'' I didn't know this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children a good start in literacy - reading stories Not much to ask, teaching pen grips, singing rhymes - gives children a solid foundation when they start school. But do we think the same way about maths, beyond countingis it? I don The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think we do, in part because so many of us are afraid of maths. But why are we? Most of us use maths in daily life without realising and it follows she's even prepared to do the other thing that giving our children a similar preHardie demanded -school grounding will be just as beneficialmake certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293793851035043092|title=The Madness of Crowds Killing Stones (Chief Inspector GamacheJimmy Perez)|author=Louise PennyAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In I can't have been the Canadian village of Three Pinesonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, we're post-pandemic: the scars are still there but Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life is starting to get back to normalon Orkney. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the Aubergedaughter of his former partner. They're visiting each otherWillow's homes and having friends and relatives to stay. A young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor also his boss, and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people to ''should'' be around - on maternity leave, but when the body of a bit like Vincent Gilbertpopular islander, Archie Stout, is found, known in the village as aftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the Asshole Sainthead with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09F4CTKJRThea Lenarduzzi|title= Flights The Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for Freedomtruth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799}}{{Frontpage|author= Steven BurgauerClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=It's the later stages of World War I Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and the United States has just entered the conflictdistortion. Petrol Petronus is Even a kiss, usually a young American who has signed up symbol of intimacy and joined the 17 Aero Squadroncloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. This company was When the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canadanarrator cries out internally, the first to be attached to the RAF ''come over here and the first kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combatconfirm her emotional numbness. But before that can happenThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, Petrol has a ghost she conjures to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Cameltest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=183885410X0008405026|title=The Dark RemainsA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=William McIlvanney and Ian RankinJane Casey|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Bobby Carter It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a lawyer halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and consigliere to one of the major crime families her father are dead in nineteen seventies Glasgowtheir bed. DC Jack Laidlaw is on Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the CID team charged with positioning of the investigationbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. I say ''on the team'' but Laidlaw never really seems What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a part of itcomplex double murder. He does his own thing, goes his own way and ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers Kerrigan is convinced that the truth of why Bobby Carterexplanation lies in Rosalie's body was found behind one of Glasgowdisappearance: others (such as Derwent's seedier pubsboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1942410255|title=Tokyo Zangyo Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (Detective Hiroshitranslator)|authortitle=Michael PronkoThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=''Zangyo: overtime work, often unpaidWe were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414254251529077745|title=The Man Who Died TwiceDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Richard OsmanAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Elizabeth Best was A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a little surprised when she received man in the letterpark near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. It came from a The dead man whose body she had helped was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to pull from work a shift the Thames and night before but who had never existed turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but then this her only clue is the sort disappearance of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on a regular basisone of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. When she visits Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the sender of the letter (he's moved into death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the Coopergirl's Chase Retirement Village) diary makes it comes as no surprise clear that she adored Josh. She knows that it's someone with whom she has a long professional history - and who used to be her husband. He's made a bad mistake - something find Chloe to discover what happened to do with a mask being removed within the range of a CCTV camera on a raid, a missing twenty-million pounds in diamonds and a few death threats. He's now in hiding with a young woman called Polly, who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitressJosh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew SharpOlga Tokarczuk|title=The ChefHouse of Day, the Bird and the BlessingHouse of Night|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - is, in his mind, ''What's the head chef good of a safari business catering to VIP guests world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to his task and he puts all it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for shifting realities - the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is to become small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American city. Even shift from day to win a Michelin starnight, however quotidian, causing chaos. He is thwarted in this ambition by his bossBut, Mr Bin (Ben to you and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest the constant in his guests and - shockthat image is the house, horror - his allowing of bush animals into stoic against the houseancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=B09926MK8H1804271918
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Foulkes1836284683|title=Rules for VampiresThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersDystopian Fiction|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) Well! This is a Vampire. She drinks blood, she sleeps during the day, and she can Grimwalk (turning into murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a flock of bats to travel aroundbook, although not all of them remember it's nothing like I expected it to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Nowbe, and it takes me on the night of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her first humana wild ride. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanageAnd that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. Oops! And I don't want to make things worse, the ghosts ruin a similar experience for any of one of the orphans and the evil master of the orphanage come back to haunt her. So, not only does Leo you reading but I'll have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of at least set the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, she has to do it all while hiding it from her familyscene. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, thereOnce that's a reason why there are rules done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for vampires…|isbn=147119955Xyourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tori BovalinoSally Rooney|title=The Devil Makes ThreeIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction |summary= Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she Sally Rooney has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is studied the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, chessboard of life and is something of a man Tess hatesgrandmaster at putting it into words. As a petty act of revenge for making her find Her dialogue is gripping and deliver such a large requestso brilliantly frustrating, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the booksmany relationships woven into this story, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think ofcentral one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. They're never meant to reach himIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like thiscontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, and then take them all off before delivering thema successful lawyer living in Dublin. No harm done… Or it would beFollowing their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, if someone hadnthe brothers't delivered them for heralready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=17890981300571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09BG8V3Q61836285493|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadRob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary= ''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!'' Will is the latest release in the ''Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Averya keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. This series But most of fun picture books aims to take the pain out of potty training children all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and replace it with some funone at which he excels. ItThis hasn's t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a worthy aimweek at a different school, as any frustrated parent will tell you. Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B098FFFBH91009473085|title=SnowcubThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Graham FulbrightAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=FourteenSometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-year2024 -old Rachel is her school14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's animal rights project leader a compelling read and she and her friend are producing a competition entry should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to highlight politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the way seventh book in a series which human beings exploit looks at the animal worldimpact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. She gets This book follows the well-established format: a great deal series of support experts from her family: father Pip Harrisonvarious fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate the changes that occurred and her twin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia situation in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Angharad WalkerJenny Valentine|title= The Ash HouseUs in the Before and After|rating= 5|genre= Confident ReadersTeens|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his nameElk and Mab are best friends, or why he more than that even, their friendship is there but he is used to the system, used to different places and different facesa once in a lifetime connection. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him the rules of The Ash House. These rules centre They meet as children one day on a variety of Nicenesses set trip out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a hive in but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the smouldering shadows of The Ash Housetime. But soon their easy peace is shattered by the arrival of the Doctor. By the end of the storythen chance brings them back together, lives will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be the same againthey are inseparable.|isbn=1912626977}}{{Frontpage|author=Yancey Williams|title=Crosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years Something has happened though, something terrible andtragic, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughternow they must work through their grief, finds himself living - or imprisonedand their friendship, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's worktogether.|isbn=09860316581471196585
}}