Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

Joey Driscol and his wife, Shauna, left Ireland for Australia on a 'wet May morning in 1968'. It was supposed to be a new start. It is now 1978 and the dreams of an idyllic escape have slowly crumbled, and Joey is forced to admit that 'a fresh start cannot last forever'. Marti, their eight-year-old son, watches his parents' marriage collapse firsthand, yet he asks the same question as the baffled reader: why? But before he has had time to answer this conundrum, his mother whisks him off to Ireland. The rashness of the move ensures Joey must follow his son, and so begins his frightful odyssey back to the Old Country. You see, 'Marti was his son, the one pure and good thing in his life', and he wasn't going to let Shauna just take him. But why Ireland, a place they both hated, a place to which they vowed never to return? Full review...

The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls by F E Higgins

Once again, I’ve jumped right in here – going straight to the second book in a series. As it happens, A Game of Ghouls is not a bad one to do that with. You’re never left confused because you haven’t read the first one (A Tangle of Traitors) because they keep you up to date enough for it to be a fairly good stand alone. You want to find the first one though, because if it’s going to be anywhere near as good as this one it’s a book you want to read. Full review...

The Never List by Koethi Zan

Crime

Friends since childhood, Sarah and Jennifer had always admitted that they were so cautious it was daft. They'd even composed their own 'Never List'. As long as they stuck to it they'd be safe, and safe they were until that one night. The night after the college party they forgot 'Never get into the car'. They did. The next thing they're aware of is waking up in a dark cellar with two other girls; four of them altogether but only three of them will emerge. A decade later, Sarah is safe once again, living under a new name with all connections to the past wiped. But then the letter arrives; he's coming for her. It's not over after all. Full review...

The Summer We All Ran Away by Cassandra Parkin

This is a summer of running away. Davey runs away from home, beaten and drunk. He meets Priss, a sixteen year old, who is also running. Tom and Kate accept them both into a huge, mysterious house, a house that doesn't belong to any of them. Thirty years ago, Jack Laker bought the house to run away from his superstar lifestyle. Young girls, drugs, and touring had caused him to take an overdose. As his agent tries to convince him to tour with the new album he has written, Jack meets a young actress at the house party being thrown in his honour. The same party he is desperately trying to avoid. Full review...

After Flodden by Rosemary Goring

Scotland 1513: Louise Brenier believes her family to be cursed. Her father dead, her elder sister dying during childbirth as the result of an affair with King James IV and now her brother Benoit missing after the Battle of Flodden. It would be easy to believe Benoit dead too, but, whatever state he's in, Louise must know what happened. This is what drives her on a journey across a land ravaged by war, providing more challenges than answers and encounters with those for whom Flodden remains a recurring nightmare. Full review...

Master of War by David Gilman

Young Richard Blackstone is accused of the rape and murder of a village girl and sentenced to hang. Protestations of innocence on his behalf mean nothing and the fact he's a deaf/mute means even less. His elder brother Thomas has protected him as much as possible throughout their lives but can do nothing this time. However, help is at hand; Sir Gilbert Killbere ensures that the judge changes his mind and Richard is released but not completely. Richard and Thomas are excellent archers so they're rescued in order to join the army that the King is amassing. It's not an easy option: the year is 1346 and the conflict that history will call 'The Hundred Years War' is about to begin. Full review...

Woodworking for the Weekend: 20 Projects Using Reclaimed Timber by Mark Griffiths

Crafts

I realised a long time ago that there's a great deal to be said for reclaimed timber. Not only is there virtue in reusing wood (and it's often hardwood) which might otherwise end up on a bonfire or in landfill, it has character, with marks and shadings which speak of its history. Used in the right place it can sing as no completely new piece could ever could - but the trick is in knowing the right place and how to use the wood. Mark Griffiths has come up with twenty projects, most of which are likely to be complete in a weekend and all of which will give pleasure to the woodworker and to the people who use the end results. Full review...

The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones

Small Town America. What's the betting you already have it pictured? The downtown area. The upmarket suburb. The downbeat housing district. The High School with all its little league (in every sense of the expression) dramas and drama queens. Full review...

Goldblatt's Descent by Michael Honig

Dr Malcolm Goldblatt has just started another temporary Senior Registrar's role in yet another hospital. However this time it's different. This is his last attempt to springboard his career into a consultant's grade. Whether he succeeds or not depends on so many factors: his two-faced, murderously ambitious colleague, the patients and Fuertler's Syndrome, a condition that may be obscure and comparatively unimportant but still has the power to make or break him. Full review...

The Engagements by J Courtney Sullivan

Although you might not immediately realise it, this is the story of a ring, the people associated with it and of one particular real woman who created something of which few people can be unaware. That woman was Mary Frances Gerety, a copywriter with Ayer and Son - one of of the eminent advertising agencies in the nineteen forties. Under some pressure to come up with a phrase for de Beers adverts, Frances scribbled A Diamond is Forever - one of the most memorable lines in advertising. Frances never married but was probably single-handedly responsible for diamonds being the favoured stone in engagement rings. Her story weaves its way through the stories of our fictional couples. Full review...

Up In Flames by Nicole Williams

Teens

Elle Montgomery has spent her whole life doing exactly what she's supposed to - what everyone else thinks is how she should live her life. Outside, Elle is smiling politely and perfectly happy with her perfect-fit boyfriend. Inside, Elle is screaming for the chance to do something a bit wild. Full review...

Scrum by Tom Palmer and Dylan Gibson

Steven has a pretty good life. His parents are divorced, but they get on well. He sees his Dad every day and has a good relationship with his Mom and her partner, Martin. True, he would like his parents to get back together, as most kids would, but things aren't too bad as they are. He has good friends, a happy home and a real shot and breaking into the Rugby League teams. His whole world is turned upside though when Mom announces she is going to marry Martin. Soon Steven finds himself in a new home, with a new school and new friends, but he adjusts and makes the best of things. He even has a shot at playing Rugby at county level, but there is one problem and it is major one. The new town is in a Rugby Union area. Steven has always played Rugby League and to his father, switching sides will be a betrayal. Full review...

Heroes (Most Wanted) by Anne Perry

Trench warfare has widely been acknowledged as one of the most soul destroying forms of combat. It broke men physically and mentally. Death seemed inevitable for many, and life was so horrible that at times it must have come as release. So what is one more death among the multitudes? To Chaplain Joseph Reavely every death counts, but he can not let this one go. Morton was not killed by enemy fire - he was murdered and Joseph will not rest until justice is done. It sounds pretty straight forward, but there is far more to it than this and justice is truly poetic in this case. Full review...

Fox Friend by Michael Morpurgo and Joanna Carey

Clare loves animals. Her best friend is her horse, and she loves all the lambs born on her family farm as well. This natural affection for animals easily extended to the fox she saw strolling through the farm as well. Her father however despises foxes saying the only good fox is dead fox. Clare's Father says the foxes had already killed ten lambs that year, and it was only March with the lambing season in full swing. (I did find these figures quite high - but then again, maybe they owned a lot of sheep). When Clare finds an injured and orphaned cub after a fox hunt, it is obvious she can not turn to her parents for help. But regardless of her father's feelings, Clare is determined to save this helpless little creature. Full review...

Moose Baby by Meg Rosoff

Jess is a pretty average teenage mother - except for one thing. Instead of giving birth to a normal little girl as she was expecting, she ends up delivering a 23lb moose calf by C-Section. It seems there has been a cluster of non homo-sapien births to human mothers. For some unexplained reason, a number of women have given birth to animals - mostly moose. Jess feels confident she can cope with the trials and tribulations of teenage parenthood. She can handle the midwives' harsh looks, her mother's disappointment and her boyfriend's parents' disapproval. But giving birth to a moose instead of a human may be more than any mother can adjust to. Full review...

Space Pirates: Stowaway by Jim Ladd

It's a weird place where Sam lives. The planet P-Sezov 8 is just a nothingness in the middle of nowhere, and is home only to his scientist parents and a whole spaceport full of bickering, nasty pirates. Both groups only use the place as a departure point for more interesting things elsewhere, his exploring parents leaving Sam with his computerised tutor. But when he gets word they are stranded on a fully gold world the pirates would be interested in, Sam must muscle in with the worst of them and try and help. Full review...

Familiar by J Robert Lennon

Is there a greater change in the life of a middle-aged woman than the death of her teenage son? Elisa might have thought not, having been forced to bury fifteen year old Silas, and try and move on with her husband Derek and the year-older son, Sam. But a greater change occurs on the way back from her annual, solo pilgrimage to his grave – something very weird happens to the universe. She pops from one car to another, from under a cloudless sky to a slightly greyer one – and from her self as Elisa to a world where people call her Lisa, where she is plumper, in a different job, stiil married to Derek in the same home – but still the mother of two young men… Full review...

The Sorrow of Angels by Jon Kalman Stefansson

Literary Fiction

Our decidedly unheroic main character has been at the café for three weeks now, so we are following on very closely from Heaven and Hell. After the tragedy and soul-searching of that first book, he seems settled in the ridiculous family that has formed around him there, finding employment, enjoying the literature, yet being very intrigued by the female body. The man who is still young enough to be known only as the boy might have latched on to stability for once, and replaced the family and best friend he had lost. But everything is restless in this environment, and once again he might just be tempted to go on a journey, with another male companion, despite the harshness of the surrounds. Full review...

Heaven and Hell by Jon Kalman Stefansson

Literary Fiction

Iceland, a hundred years ago. From a place that is the very definition of rural and remote, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row to a profitable bank. It carries six men on the way out, and five on the way back. The deceased is the best friend – or perhaps only friend – of the main character, who is still young enough to merely be known as boy. When he returns to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existence, wondering just how much life is an answer, and for what, after the tragedy he has witnessed. Full review...

Ernest and Celestine: The Picnic by Gabrielle Vincent

For Sharing

Ernest, a large bear, and Celestine, a small mouse, have made themselves a beautiful picnic. Everything is packed and ready to go for when they get up tomorrow morning. However, when morning comes it's raining very heavily. Ernest says that unfortunately they can't have their picnic after all but poor Celestine is distraught. Is there any way Ernest can make things up to her? Full review...

She Rises by Kate Worsley

Imagine, if you can, a lifelike eighteenth-century seafaring epic (something along the lines of Carsten Jensen's We, the Drowned or Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie) crossed with Sarah Waters's Fingersmith. If you then added in touches of Charles Dickens's Bleak House, plus shades of the rest of the homoerotic Waters oeuvre (especially Night Watch and Tipping the Velvet), you would just about have Kate Worsley's debut novel, She Rises, in a nutshell. Full review...

Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's Inferno by Michael Haag

Entertainment

Here be spoilers. Not so much in my review, but certainly in its subject, a very quickly produced companion guide to the latest Dan Brown blockbuster. It's not so much a page-by-page guide, but certainly serves as an educational and intelligent look at the background to the biggest-selling book of 2013. Full review...

A Crumpet Calamity (Pip Street) by Jo Simmons

This is not Dip Street, nor Chip Street, this is Pip Street, and it's where Bobby and his best friend Imelda live – but how long Bobby stays depends on his father getting more income at his crumpet factory so they can afford living there. Bobby's idea is to have an open improve-the-crumpet competition, which is immediately popular around town. Also immediately popular, especially with Imelda, is the new boy on Pip Street, who claims to have no interest in cooking crumpets. But is he as perfect as he seems…? Full review...

The Son by Philipp Meyer

Literary Fiction

Philipp Meyer's second novel, The Son, is an epic, multi-generational saga of Texas life. Tracing the McCullough family from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day, Meyer joins those writing today's masterpieces of American 'dirty realism': Ron Rash, David Vann, Richard Ford and especially Cormac McCarthy. Like McCarthy's Blood Meridian, The Son is a gory Western that transcends a simplistic cowboys-versus-Indians dichotomy to draw broader conclusions about the universality of violence in a nihilistic world. Full review...

Memory: She's Dying to Remember by Christoph Marzi

Teens

Jude can see the dead. His life has changed immeasurably since he saw his first ghost about six months ago. He's lost interest at school and become even further distanced from his father, who works away a lot. Instead, he spends most of his time in Highgate Cemetery with the shapeshifting vixen Miss Rathbone and a circle of dead people headed by ex-rock star Gaskell. Jude feels more at home with ghosts than he does with the living. Full review...

My Funny Family Gets Bigger by Chris Higgins

We've met Mattie Butterfield before in My Funny Family and My Funny Family on Holiday. Mattie is the worrier of the family although she is doing her best to get out of the habit and only makes her worry lists when she feels under pressure. Mattie worries about people - not because there's anything bad going on. You see the Butterfield are a lovely family: they don't have a lot of money but they do their best to be happy and to look after their extended family. They don't have a lot of expensive toys or go on foreign holidays - but they're the sort of people you'd like to live next door to - only you can't, because that's where Uncle Vesuvius lives. He was Mum's foster dad when she was young. Full review...

Walk Me Home by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Women's Fiction

Carly and Jen’s mother is dead and they have no other living relative. Scared that they will be placed in care in separate homes, the sisters decide that they have to find their mother’s former boyfriend, Teddy, one of the only people to have shown them any care and affection in their short lives. The only problem is that they are not sure where he is now, other than in California, and have no money or means of getting there. They decide to walk but how long will it take and what will they find waiting for them when they finally reach their destination? Full review...

Mistress of the Sea by Jenny Barden