Book Reviews From The Bookbag

The Bookbag

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, 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 library, the charity shop and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'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 to us by publishers and we promise to tell 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 author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.

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Review of Burnt Island (Ben Kitto) by Kate Rhodes Crime The 5th of November was D I Ben Kitto's thirty-fifth birthday and the occasion for the usual bonfire celebrations, but it would be marred this year by the discovery of Professor Alex Rogan's body on a bonfire. He'd obviously been alive when he was put on the fire and can only have died a terrible death. The body was first discovered by Jimmy Curwen, better known on St Agnes as the Bird Man because he speaks little or nothing and his only concern is the welfare of the birds he looks after. His instinct is to cover Rogan's body and he uses his sheepskin coat to do this, with the result that he's the prime suspect. Full Review

Review of A Key to Treehouse Living by Elliot Reed General Fiction This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story. Full Review

Review of Black River by Will Dean Crime Tuva Moodyson returns - and this third book in the Tuva Moodyson mystery series delves deep into her personal life, returning her to the isolated town of Gavrik and into a desperate search for her missing best friend. With the Midsommar sun blocked out by the dark pines of the forest, Tuva fights to save her friend. But who’ll be there to save Tuva? Full Review

Review of Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds by Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster Animals and Wildlife I was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for Bird Love on a couple of on-line booksellers: exploring the sex life of birds it said. I very nearly passed over the book, but a closer examination suggested that the book is about the family life of birds, which is rather different. If the book was confined to the sex life of birds, you would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to-day, bring up their families and cope in the wild. Not only that, you have missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a wide variety of birds which run through this book from the first page to the last. Full Review

Review of You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce General Fiction Eccentric, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. Her will instructs her niece and nephew to enter her home and find the key to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: the last story she'll ever tell. Full Review

Review of The Pear Affair by Judith Eagle Confident Readers Set in the 1960's, this is a mystery adventure story, all about a little girl called Nell and her quest to find her nanny, Perrine (Pear) who left her very suddenly and then, after keeping in touch regularly by post, disappeared completely from her life, leaving Nell bereft. There's everything in this story, with underground tunnels as the playground of gangs of children, to travel and detective work, a mystery mould infecting Parisian bakeries, mysterious figures following Nell around, and a set of truly dreadful parents! Full Review

Review of Little Doubt (D I Kelly Porter) by Rachel Lynch Crime Ella Watson was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was out running in the park when she was randomly attacked and stabbed to death. Her husband, Thomas, and children, Jordan and Millie were devastated and Detective Superintendent Neil Ormond was outraged that a decent, middle-class woman should be the victim of knife crime. Despite being a golfing partner of Thomas Jordan he declined to distance himself from the case and told DI Kelly Porter that he would be taking a great deal of interest in how the case was handled. He wasn't anywhere near as interested when a second woman was stabbed to death a few hours later. Keira Bradley lived on the Beacon estate and Ormond's view seemed to be that anyone living there should expect this sort of thing to happen. He could hardly bring himself to mention Keira's name. Full Review

Review of Rules for Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson Crime Malcolm Kershaw was the co-owner and manager of the Old Devils Bookstore on Beacon Hill in Boston. The store specialises in crime novels, but Mal has given up reading crime. His life's been pretty chaotic of late: It's five years since his wife, Claire Mallory, died and he's never really got over it. She was driving whilst inebriated, having just been to see the man with whom Kershaw suspected she was having an affair. His interest in crime fiction comes back when he's approached by Special Agent Gwen Mulvey. She's interested in a blog post he wrote a few years ago: My Eight Perfect Murders. Full Review

Review of Bobby March Will Live Forever (Harry McCoy) by Alan Parks Crime In February 1964 Bobby March was on his way to London with fellow band members Tom, Scott, Barry and Jamie. He'd had to get his father to sign the contract for The Beatkickers, as Bobby wasn't old enough. And his father had been reluctant - he'd have preferred Bobby to get an apprenticeship, for the regular money. By July 1973 Bobby is back in Glasgow. The Beatkickers didn't survive and March is on his own, but hardly thriving. There's an obvious drug habit. Meanwhile, the police are consumed by the search for a missing girl, Alice Kelly. Full Review

Review of Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales by Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors) Fantasy Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as can princesses on the verge of marrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's no escaping it. Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, that demonised place, and that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong. Full Review

Review of Havenfall by Sara Holland Teens Maddie Morrow is supposed to spending the summer with her Grandma Ellen. But after a visit to her mother in prison, Maddie wants nothing more than to go to Havenfall to see her uncle, Marcus. It's the only place she feels truly at home. Maddie's father, understandably, is not keen on Maddie spending time with her mother's family - because the crime Maddie's mum is languishing on death row for committing is the murder of Maddie's brother... Full Review

Review of Ghosted: The Treason House Trilogy by Baye Hartshorne Fantasy 'Julia Crawley has lost her job on Celebrity magazine and so she decides to cut her losses and return home to the village of Monmouth Cove on the Jersey Shore, hoping to return to her harder hitting journalistic roots via local news. She'll be staying with her grandmother - a woman always ready to help younger relatives in need of a hand. There's only one problem with that: creepy Uncle Dex, who doesn't always keep his hands to himself. Full Review

Review of Clara Colby: The International Suffragist by John Holliday Biography The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening. Full Review

Review of Nine Ways to Empower Tweens by Kathleen Boucher and Sara Chadwick Confident Readers 9 Ways to Empower Tweens is a self-help book for tweens, setting out to show them vital #lifeskills. Don't groan! I know there is a market glut of such books for we grown-ups and for young adults too, but there is a needful space in an increasingly technological world accessible to younger and younger children for material for tweens too. Full Review

Review of A Springtime Affair by Katie Fforde Women's Fiction I've wanted to read author Katie Fforde for ages and this was pretty much exactly what I was expecting - a warm, cosy read focused on romance, family and friendships. This provided two romances for the price of one, but it was actually the family element as opposed to the romance that I really enjoyed. Full Review

Review of Guess What I Found in the Playground! by Victoria Thompson For Sharing Tilly is excited. She's just come dashing out of the classroom, pigtails flapping behind her and a big grin on her face. Dad's come to collect her and her brother and he has to try to guess what she found in the playground today, although she concedes that he will never guess. Dad wants to know how school was, but obviously that's not important. Could Tilly have found more collectable things for her scrap box? (Isn't that so much more sensible than a scrap book?) Well, actually, Tilly did find exciting stuff. There are sequins, glittered paper and all sorts of other things in her pocket, but that's not what she wants Dad to guess. Full Review

Review of Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed Teens We might give it our all and crash and burn. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for, don't you think? Jaime has been spending his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for a special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassing, he can't think of anything worse. However, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician and decides there is no time like the present to conquer his fear of speaking to the public. Maya is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who is having the worst summer of her life. Her parents are going through a separation, she has zero plans for the summer to help take her mind off things and her only close friend is permanently busy. To help occupy her, her parents offer to buy her a car if she agrees to go canvassing. The pair could possibly be the worst canvassing duo in history, as neither of them really want to be there, but as the campaign goes on they discover that they care, a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each other? Full Review

Review of Into The Fire by Gregg Hurwitz Thrillers Grant Merriweather is a forensic accountant. Or rather, was. He was brought into an ER room after an alleged car crash, his friend pleading with the medics to keep him alive. He was needed alive just long enough to give up a name. His cousin, Max. Full Review

Review of When You See Me by Lisa Gardner Crime For Janet and Chuck, it was a hiking break in the Appalachians in Georgia and pure chance that Chuck went off the beaten track to find a stick. What he found was a human bone and SSA Kimberley Quincy was called in, along with Sergeant D D Warren. Both women were experienced in this type of rather gruesome work but they also called on the services of Keith Edgar, a computer analyst, and Flora Dane who brought something unique to the table. Flora had been kidnapped and held for 472 days by the notorious killer, Jacob Ness. If Ness had anything to do with the current discoveries then what Flora had to say could be invaluable. Full Review

Review of A Window Breaks by C M Ewan Thrillers Tom Sullivan and his wife Rachel are having problems. It's not just the usual growing apart after more than a decade of marriage. Their son, Michael, was killed in a car crash some months before: he was driving his father's Audi and at sixteen wasn't legally entitled to drive. Not only did he kill himself when the car rammed into a tree, but he also killed his girlfriend, fifteen-year-old Fiona Connor. Tom can't think about Michael without a sense of shame and guilt. Rachel is broken, but she wants to forgive Michael. To give some space, Tom's moved out of the family home, but stresses to his thirteen-year-old daughter, Holly, that it is only a trial separation. Full Review

Review of The House on the Lake by Nuala Ellwood Thrillers We know that something has gone wrong - badly wrong - when the woman who was alone in the house is taken away by the police, but it's going to be a while before we learn exactly what has happened. Full Review

Review of Orphans of the Tide by Struan Murray and Manuel Sumberac (illustrator) Confident Readers In the last city on Earth, anyone can be the vessel of The Enemy - the god who drowned the world - who has come to wreak havoc on the last of humanity. When a mysterious boy is pulled from the corpse of a whale, the citizens immediately believe him to be the Vessel - all except for young Ellie Lancaster, a girl inventor. As the ruthless Inquisition prepares to execute the boy, Ellie must prove that he is innocent - even if it means revealing her deepest, darkest secrets... Full Review

Review of The Guest List by Lucy Foley Crime The boat trip out to Inis Amploir, off the Irish coast, might have been enough to put some guests off, but it was the wedding of the year. Will Slater (television personality, if not yet a celebrity) was to marry Jules Keegan, online magazine publisher, in the ruined chapel on the island. The bride's sister, Olivia, would be her only bridesmaid and the wedding planner and chef are Aoife and her husband, Freddy. They gave a huge discount to get the couple to the island, but surely it would be worth it for the publicity? Full Review