Hello from The Bookbag, a book review 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 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.
There are currently 16,120 reviews at TheBookbag.
Want to find out more about us?
New Reviews
Read new reviews by genre.
Read new features.
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Easy Rawlins is a little down on his luck, having just been laid off from his job and with a mortgage payment due. So when DeWitt Albright walks into Joppy's bar and offers him money for finding a young woman who has gone missing, it seems like the perfect opportunity for him to keep his house, as well as to pass some time. Of course, what Albright doesn't mention is that the reason he's looking for this woman is that she's run off with a large amount of someone else's money and quite a few people on the streets of Los Angeles are prepared to kill to get that money back. Full review...
The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka
This literary novel is a slow burner. But the very first page gives an insight into the beautiful language used throughout such as 'Medical people rarely used adjectives. They don't need to.' And later on there's another lovely sentence loaded with meaning and originality - 'Blood is a terrible gossip, it tells everything, as any laboratory technician knows.' The opening chapter is located in a consulting room where a rather tense conversation is taking place. The answer is extremely important to one man. Full review...
Day After Night by Anita Diamant
First of all, I really liked the unusual pitch for a Second World War novel, set in a detention camp in Palestine in October 1945, soon after the liberation of Europe. The war machine has ground to a halt, leaving millions of bewildered refugees to find their way out of chaos. With huge effort, hundreds of Jewish men and women reach their promised land, albeit as illegal immigrants. Though imprisoned again, Atlit camp is emotionally a halfway house between the past and the future for them. They are at least well-fed and humanely treated by their British captors. With no particular duties and in limbo for an indeterminate period, the women start to come to terms with how life will be for them in the future, safe at last from Nazi persecution, but having lost all their loved ones. Full review...
No Matter What by Wendy Kremer
Wealthy American Jason Tyler needs a wife fast to stop his cousin Calvin from taking over the family oil business. After responding to his advert English girl Amy Courtland meets Jason in London to discuss his proposal. Amy is desperate for the money Jason is offering her to be his wife so she can pay off the debts her father has left behind. Her feet barely touch the ground in Los Angeles before Amy finds herself with a new surname and new life as Jason's fake wife. But unlike the rest of Jason and Amy's families, Calvin is not convinced by the marriage and is determined to prove it is a sham. When Jason decides to take Amy into the Venezuelan jungle with him on a business field trip Amy soon finds her life in danger on more than one occasion, leaving Jason to wonder if someone is behind these strange events. Full review...
Thief by Maureen Gibbon
It’s summer, and school teacher Suzanne is renting a cabin by a lake. Spending her days reading and swimming, she also finds time to engage in some old fashioned letter writing with a stranger who responded to a personal ad she placed. He’s currently an inmate at the state penitentiary, but Suzanne’s not one to judge, and agrees to give their correspondence a shot. Then she finds out what he’s in for – and it’s not pretty. Breville is a convicted thief and rapist, and Suzanne herself was raped as a teenager, by a friend’s brother. That should be the end of it: any sensible person would cut off all communication and turn their back on the situation. But Suzanne is different and though she’s acknowledges that it might not be the healthiest of relationships, she maintains the back and forth with Breville. Full review...
Avenging the Dead by Guy Fraser
It's 1863 and the Superintendent covering the inner city area of Glasgow has his hands full. First off an alarming forgery scandal has just been discovered and no sooner has he drawn breath than one, two and counting suspicious deaths occur. Instinctively, I want to say that it's all good, clean fun. Because it is. The language Fraser uses is very much of that era which lends the book a particular old-fashioned and rather twee, charm. It's all over the book in spades. On almost every page. Let me give you just one endearing example of the flavour of the book 'None of Mrs Maitland's four regulars at her superior guest house for single gentlemen would even dream of taking another's seat ...' Full review...
Bitter Chocolate by Sally Grindley
Pascal and Kojo are best friends in a place where friendship is scarce. The boys work on a cocoa plantation in West Africa, far from their families. It's brutal work overseen by brutal men and the boys labour from dawn 'til dusk, rewarded by beatings, a wooden pallet to sleep on, and a bowl of corn paste. They're always hungry and tired. Kojo tries to keep up his spirits, looking forward to the day he can take his wages home and make a difference to his family. But Pascal isn't so optimistic. He knows they'll never be paid, and he suspects they'll never be allowed to leave. He's probably right. Full review...
The Blind Side of the Heart by Julia Franck
When I read the international bestseller on the front cover, as in this novel, my expectations are raised a notch or two. So, would this book meet those expectations? Franck gives the reader a short prologue and we see Helene, the main character of the novel, living in her middle-years. We know she has a husband who is carrying out some very important and crucial work for his country; his beloved Germany. The book is set in 1945 and Germany is in chaos. And Helen's young son has seen sights no 7 year old should witness. It's the stuff of nightmares. Their lives are also in chaos not to mention extreme danger and as a single parent who's at her wit's end she makes a monumental decision. Full review...
Venice: Pure City by Peter Ackroyd
Among Peter Ackroyd's recent works are 'biographies' of London and of the river Thames. Now he gives similar treatment to Venice, basically a history but enlivened with his elegant, literary style, and what a previous reviewer has called his love of 'psychogeographical investigation'.x Full review...
The Littlest Dinosaur and the Naughty Rock by Camilla Reid and Michael Foreman
After the littlest dinosaur's earlier adventures, Camilla Reid takes hold of the writing reins, whilst Michael Foreman offers up his beautiful illustrations as always. This time, the dinosaur is in a bit of a bad mood, being rude to his dad, shouting at his siblings, and ruining his meal. His mum sends him to sit on the naughty rock, but he's in for quite a surprise when he gets there... Full review...
How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom
How much would you pay for a jumper that used to belong to Brad Pitt? What about if I had it dry cleaned for you first? Chances are, if you were considering the first offer, you've just been put off somewhat. But why? The jumper hasn't changed, after all. Do you honestly and rationally, believe that dry cleaning would destroy some of Brad's 'essence', thus making the item less valuable? Full review...
Hailey's War by Jodi Compton
At the beginning of the book, Hailey Cain is a 23 year old cycle courier living in San Francisco. The story then takes a step back in time and we discover that she had to leave West Point Military Academy during her final year, for reasons she prefers to keep to herself. I continued to read under the assumption that Hailey had done something which forced her to leave. Her next move is to L.A, where she spent the latter part of her childhood. During these years, her mother with whom she has, at best, a very strained relationship is no source of comfort and Hailey develops a very close attachment to her cousin CJ. Aspects of this relationship make for uncomfortable reading at times. Full review...
The Lord of the Changing Winds (Griffin Mage) by Rachel Neumeier
When a delegation of diplomat, mage and soldiers enter the mountainous, rural areas to the east of the country to investigate - and remove the cause of - rumours of a host of griffins laying waste, the last thing they expect to meet is one of their own kin, a shy teenager at that, helping the beasts out and magically healing them. But then Kes, the young woman in question, never expected to be there herself. She would never have assumed she had any powers, but when a mysterious man enters her village to whisk her away and teach her to tend the battle-wounded fabulous creatures, she finds herself entering an unspeakably strange world. Full review...
The Space Crime Conspiracy by Gareth P Jones
Thirteen-year-old Stanley Bound is an ordinary boy from south London who lives above a pub with his bad-tempered half-brother Doug. He is bullied at school, and the situation only gets worse when he discovers that the popular new boy Lance has been both lying and stealing. Lance gets his revenge by framing Stanley, and now no one trusts him, even his grumpy brother. Little wonder, then, that our sad and lonely hero dreams of travelling to distant places to escape his miserable life. But as we all know, that is a dangerous desire: Stanley should have remembered that people who get what they wish for often regret it. By the end of the book he has travelled the universe, been accused of murder, and met more bizarre characters than even his wildest dreams could have created. Full review...
Jezebel by Irene Nemirovsky
Gladys Eysenach stands in the dock accused of murdering her young lover. She apparently took a gun from her handbag and shot him in the early hours of Christmas Day in her own home. What happened is clear – Gladys makes no attempt to deny it – but why it happened is less obvious, and Gladys doesn't seem inclined to offer much in the way of explanation. But gradually, oh so teasingly, we find out what really happened and why. Full review...
The Hoozles: My Magical Teddy by Jessie Little
Willow and her brother Freddie have gone to stay in Summertown with their Aunt Suzy whilst their parents are away for the summer. Aunt Suzy owns a toy shop in town, and she makes her own special Hoozle soft toys. Willow and Freddie each have a Hoozle of their own that their Aunt made for them - Willow has Toby the teddy bear and Freddie has Wobbly the Lion. Willow loves Toby dearly, but it isn't until she is staying with her aunt that she discovers that Toby can come to life and talk to her and she can talk to him! And so begins a summer full of magical adventures for Willow and the Hoozles. Full review...
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Seventh Bullet by Daniel D Victor
In 1911, author, journalist and celebrated dandy David Graham Phillips was shot multiple times by Harvard educated musician Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, who then committed suicide. The journalist had received on the morning of his death a threatening telegram signed with his own name, but had shrugged it off as during his career as a 'muckraker', to use the term coined for him by Theodore Roosevelt, he'd made many enemies. Full review...
The Opposite of Falling by Jennie Rooney
It is 1862 and when wealthy Liverpool girl Ursula Bridgewater finds herself single and restless after her fiancée Henry Springton leaves her for another woman, she soon turns to travel as a means of escape and sets off on her first expedition. But she has agreed to stay friends with Henry and cannot quite escape him completely as they continue to write to each other. Ten years later and Ursula has travelled all over the world and is about to embark on a trip around America, but this time she decides to take a companion. Full review...
The Folding Knife by K J Parker
Bassianus Arcadius Severus – call him Basso – is a man of many talents. All but guaranteed a life of ease as his birthright, he instead finds himself driven to excel, first as an executive trustee in his father’s bank, and then in the realm of politics. His rise to the zenith of public life is meteoric, fuelled by ambition, ruthlessness, and above all his ability to turn any defeat into a resounding victory. But with the Republic – and Basso’s own position and even life – under threat from enemies old and new, will his fall prove equally thunderous? Welcome to The Folding Knife, the latest fantasy epic from K.J. Parker. Full review...
Too Pickly! by Jean Reidy and Genevieve Leloup
It's Too Purply! with food. That about sums it up, but for those of you who haven't already fallen in love with Jean Reidy's tale of getting dressed, Too Pickly! looks at a little boy (and his hamster) deciding what to eat. Dish by dish, he rejects them for being too pickly, too wrinkly, too burpy, too stringy, and so on, until he finds the one that's just right. Full review...
Die Twice (David Trevellyan) by Andrew Grant
The title is very much at home and in keeping with the thriller genre and it's both eye-catching and also has a perfectly reasonable explanation which comes right at the very end of the story. I must admit to thrillers generally not being my most favourite reading material. Some can be a bit flashy, a bit trashy even. But not this novel. Right from the start I felt I was in for a good, intelligent read. There were pointers to this all over the place. For starters, David Trevellyan has a nice line in witty humour. There are numerous snazzy one-liners. It all went down very well. Full review...
Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty
Two police officers knock on Laura's door. They break the news to her that her 9 year old daughter Betty has been run over and killed. Betty's friend Willow is in hospital. Immediately, I was drawn into this story of a mother's worst nightmare coming true. Full review...
Dead Boy Talking by Linda Strachan
They say it takes about 25 minutes to bleed to death. I want to scream and yell but there's no one here to hear me and I... I can't breath enough to yell anyway. I'm going to die here, all on my own.
Josh is lying in the snow in an alleyway in a pool of his own blood. He stabbed one of his best mates yesterday, and now it's happened to him. He knows he's dying and his thoughts turn to how this could possibly have happened. He wonders where Skye is and what she's doing. He hopes Danny is ok. And, as he goes over the events of the day before, which culminated in his stabbing Ranj, his missing brother Gary keeps intruding into the picture. Why did he go? And did his parents' obsession with Gary's disappearance play a part in what's happened? Full review...
Who Is Mr Satoshi? by Jonathan Lee
The novel opens somewhere in the Home Counties and Rob Fossick is attending his mother's funeral. The event in itself is extremely distressing and also depressing for him; factor in that he's become a bit of a recluse lately and I could feel the sheer loneliness creeping into Rob's very bones. Lee describes the event as 'Zimmer frames, bifocals, trifocals, dark grey coats with yawning shoulders. The apparatus of old age.' Full review...
Remember Remember by Hazel McHaffie
The story starts at the end and works back in time. This works extremely well as we see Doris Mannering, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother now living in a residential home. The decision to 'put mother' into a home was very, very difficult and had been put off time and time again. We come to realize that this was a heart-wrenching decision. The daughter and carer, Jessica, will always be asking herself if she'd done the right thing, made the right decision for the right reasons. A veritable minefield. And here is where many an ethical dilemma lies for many families in real-life similar situations. Full review...
Kisses for Lula by Samantha Mackintosh
Girls do worry, about all sorts of things. And one of the things they enjoy worrying about most is whether or not they are passing the milestones on life's journey at the same time as everyone else. The fact that they combine this with loud demands to be treated to be an individual is a major reason for stress-related hair-loss and gibbering in parents. Lula is no exception here. Her sixteenth birthday is approaching fast, and unless she gets kissed before then (by pretty well anyone: she's desperate) she is convinced she will be jinxed for life. Full review...
The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British Isles by Benedict Gummer
The mid-fourteenth century was an unsettled time for England. It was an age which saw the first phases of the protracted Hundred Years’ War with France, and the Scottish war of independence, which came to an end with the capture of King David II. As if these events were not enough, in 1346 there was the first case of a man in Europe contracting an unknown disease that rapidly swept across the continent, claiming the lives of millions, and one medieval chronicler noted that 'the bodies looked like a macabre lasagne: corpses piled row upon row separated only by layers of dirt'. Full review...
Love Songs From A Shallow Grave by Colin Cotterill
Dr Siri Paiboun is about to celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday but it looks as though it might be his last. Instead of being at home with Madam Daeng, his wife of three months, he's in jail. It's not your average run-of-the-mill jail either. Siri is chained to some lead piping and conditions are not exactly five star. Meanwhile Phosy and Dtui are having marriage problems whilst he struggles to investigate the deaths of three women, all skewered by an epee and their thighs showing a letter engraved with a knife. Full review...
Kissing Mr Wrong by Sarah Duncan
Kissing Mr Wrong is the first book I have read by Sarah Duncan and it has definitely given me an appetite to read more. It tells an absorbing tale with many different threads that bind together well and with a main character that I loved. Indeed, it has all of the ingredients for a riveting read – one that I didn't want to put down. Full review...
The Aargh to Zzzz of Parenting: An Alternative Guide by Joanna Simmons and Jay Curtis
'All in all, having kids is an intense rollercoaster ride. It plunges up and down, and there’s lots of screaming and vomiting involved.' So that pretty much sums it up. Advertised as: 'a comprehensively unhelpful, advice-free look at life', the authors talk about Antecedents and Behaviour, without (fortunately) going too deeply into the Consequences of several dozen baby-related topics. But this definitely isn’t the rocket science of a parenting manual, or the touchy-feely of a misery memoir, rather a blackly comic gallop round pragmatic parenthood, instantly recognizable by anyone who’s been through the mill themselves. Full review...
The Amateurs by John Niven
Gary Irvine only wants two things out of life. He'd like to have children and he wants to reduce his golf handicap. Nothing extraordinary there, you might think except for the fact that his wife, Pauline, is planning to leave him for a self-made carpet millionaire and Gary is a dreadful golfer. His handicap is eighteen – but I'm not entirely certain how he got it down to that level in the first place. His family doesn't give him much solace either. His brother Lee is on the fringes of the local criminal underworld and hasn't the wit to keep himself out of trouble with Ranta Campbell, the local overlord. Ranta could be quite likeable if it wasn't for his penchant for a certain type of violence designed to keep the others in line rather than to teach the victim a lesson. Full review...
iBoy by Kevin Brooks
Tom Harvey is wandering along after school on his way to meet up with his friend Lucy when he hears his name called from up high in one of the tower blocks on his estate. He doesn't have time to look up before everything goes up. Waking up in hospital days later, Tom discovers he has fragments of a shattered iPhone embedded in his brain. And still worse, his friend Lucy has been gang-raped in a brutal attack that Tom had been so closed to walking in on. Full review...
Passing Strange (Generation Dead) by Daniel Waters
Karen DeSonne, the sexiest zombie amongst the many differently biotic teenagers in Oakvale, gets a turn at centre stage in the latest in Daniel Waters's Generation Dead series.
Karen has always worn a disguise. When she was alive, her various camouflages hid the crippling depression that engulfed her so often and eventually led to her suicide. Now she's dead, make up, hair dye and blue contact lenses enable her to "pass" as a living girl. She talks fluently and her movements are fluid, unlike most of her differently biotic peers, whose pauses, stutters and jerky movements mark them out for all to see. Full review...
Mr Peanut by Adam Ross
The main couple who tend to take centre stage here are called David and Alice Pepin. They live a kind of comfortable, middle-class life in busy and bustling Manhattan. After more than a decade of generally happy married life together, they want to take the next step and have a family. Easy to say but things don't quite work out according to plan. We are taken on various 'dark' journeys within their marriage. These are situations which most of us can identify with. Some of these situations are painful, stressful, unhappy. Full review...
Grass Stains by Kirsty Robinson
Being the editor of a style magazine has its perks: free tickets, free gigs, endless parties, alcohol and drugs. And that is what Louisa's life consists of – one continuous binge. Louisa spends her life going from one party to another, but it's not all it's cracked up to be and her life is starting to fall apart. Full review...
Jew by DO Dodd
A man regains consciousness to find himself stifled. Pushing and pulling at the weight on top of him, he gradually realises the horrific truth. He's in a mass grave and he's covered with bodies. He has no memory of who he is or how he came to be there. He struggles out. He finds a uniform and he puts it on. He takes a gun and he buckles on its holster. He finds a man and a woman, naked on a bed. He shoots the man. He gets into a car and he drives into town, where he's greeted as the man in charge. Full review...
Losing It by Keith Gray
Doing it for the first time... you know, Losing It. It.
Sex. They talk about it a lot, teenagers. And eventually, they do it. But when is the right time? Where is the right place? Who is the right person? Is everyone else doing it already? Will they be cheap if they do it too? Or will they be left behind on the peripheries of all that's important in life? And there's so much eagerness in teenagers - not just for sex, but for everything. They sure do hate to wait. But sometimes, it's better to wait. The trick for the poor things, I suppose, is knowing when exactly to stop waiting. And when you've never done it, how on earth can you possibly know that?!
Stepping into the breach come eight of my favourite writers in today's teen market, each with a story about virginity. Full review...
Lulu's Loo by Camilla Reid and Ailie Busby
We've been here before, as Lulu introduced us to her shoes, clothes and Christmas. Here, she's kind enough to show us all that goes on with her loo, nappies and potty. As before, there are plenty of interesting flaps to lift and things to explore. Full review...
Helen by Maria Edgeworth
Sweet-tempered Helen Stanley has been left penniless and homeless after her uncle's death. Soon her best friend Cecilia writes to encourage Helen to come and live with her and her new husband, General Clarendon at Clarendon Park. Helen soon finds herself settled in to Clarendon Park and reacquaints herself with Cecilia and more importantly with Cecilia's mother, Lady Davenant, who considers Helen a daughter, and even prefers her to Cecilia. Full review...
Inheritance by Nicholas Shakespeare
Andy Larkham's life and career are going nowhere. He works for a small publishing house, Carpe Diem, that specialises in publishing self-help books, his fiancée is about to dump him and he has no money and mountains of debt. And that's before we begin to talk about his dysfunctional family. His only real role model was the Montaigne-loving teacher, Stuart Furnivall, whose funeral he is late for. But an unexpected inheritance of £17 million has a habit of changing one's outlook on life. But while he trades self-help for help yourself, Andy also realises that he has inherited a mystery. Full review...
A Change For The Better by Pamela Fudge
Jo Farrell had spent all her life caring for other people. After she lost her alcoholic husband and her demanding, hypochondriac mother she had time for herself, but when she looked in the mirror she wasn't particularly impressed by what she saw. The middle-aged, slightly plump woman with grey curls reminded her of her mother and the clothes she was wearing did little to help either. It was something odd which helped her to change. The very scruffy man from downstairs (the sort you would cross the road to avoid) came to borrow a newspaper and somehow they got talking about what needed to be done to change her life. Full review...
The Kindest Thing by Cath Staincliffe
Imagine that your partner of twenty or so years discovers that they are dying from a terminal disease. Now imagine that they've asked you to help them to die a little sooner, on their own terms. What would you do? This is the dilemma that faced Deborah and, after she went ahead and helped her husband Neil to die, she found herself charged and standing trial for murder with her own teenage daughter, Sophie, testifying against her. Full review...