The Bookbag
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.
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Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
Falcio del Mond and his companions Kest and Brasti used to be Greatcoats; travelling Magister's upholding King's Law. Then they stood and watched as their King was killed by the Dukes who took control of the kingdom, and their company of 144 supposedly brave men and women are scattered throughout the land and reviled as traitors. The three are working as hired security while hoping to fulfil their last promise to the King, until one of their clients is killed and they're framed for his murder. Running for their lives, they're caught in a conspiracy which could have dark consequences for the entire land. Full review...
Grendel by John Gardner
The first impression we get of Grendel in the epic poem Beowulf is not a good one. Life is fine for the townspeople of Heorot, the anonymous poet tells, 'until finally one, a fiend out of hell, began to work his evil in the world.' Grendel, there can be no doubt, is a monster, a beast, a marauder, a demon, a villain. Full review...
Night Owls by Jenn Bennett
Beatrix is a serious girl; small and slight, considered and studious with a quiet determination to follow her dream of becoming a medical illustrator. Pretty and petite, too quirky for jocks and not quirky enough for hipsters, Beatrix knows that Jack is all the kinds of boys she should avoid. Loose-limbed and slim with a slash of unruly hair that works for him in all those adolescent bad boy ways; Jack is leanly muscled and has cheekbones you can hang from and when Beatrix meets Jack, purely by chance on San Francisco's Night Owl Bus Transit, her world is turned upside down. Full review...
Affinity Bridge by George Mann
London, 1901: airships and automata herald a shining future in a city of steam-powered road trains and carriages. Queen Victoria is still alive (after a fashion) and one of her trusted Crown Agents has his work cut out investigating some decidedly odd goings-on in the capital alongside the chaps at Scotland Yard. Revenant corpses and vengeful, ghostly policemen in the dense fog of Whitechapel don't phase Newbury, however, accustomed as he is to dabbling in the occult. Full review...
Veiled by Benedict Jacka
It's a time of great change for future divining mage Alex Verus. He's come to the decision that his apprentice Luna has reached a stage where she needs more multi-faceted training than he can offer. An additional teacher is therefore sought and one applicant in particular isn't exactly Mary Poppins. Meanwhile Alex adds a new chapter to his life by working with the Keepers, the Council's police force, adding perhaps a little more danger than is good for him. However his past is never far away and no, that's not a good thing. Full review...
La Crème de la Crem by John Piper
Gala night at Frere Jacques restaurant where the local political and good gather for a banquet. Everyone is looking forward to a good night and that's what they'll have, just not quite in the way they envisaged. Indeed it will be a night to remember for a long time to come, for all the wrong reasons courtesy of the little something in the dessert. Meanwhile young people are going missing on a scale that the town of Tresside has never experienced before but Tresside doesn't know the half of it… yet! Full review...
The Good, the Bad and the Smug by Tom Holt
Mordak, award winning goblin king, is on a quest for truth. His companion Efluviel is a journalist whom he'd sacked and who is elf – that's two counts against her, without taking the smugness into account. Meanwhile a little man spins gold from straw, offering benefits as well as a riddle. He may sound familiar, but forget the fairy tale; this Rumplerimp… Rumpski… bloke has a more sophisticated strategy. Oh and have you heard about the two chaps who pre-invented the Hadron Collider in their garden shed? No? Well, stay tuned. Full review...
Liberty Bazaar by David Chadwick
Confederate General Jubal de Brooke is sent to Britain as an envoy to raise awareness and funds from the English aristocracy for his southern brothers in arms in the American Civil War. Meanwhile slave Trinity escapes to England and immediately becomes an icon for the liberal elite. However soon Trinity realises there's more to the English support than just talk. She uncovers a secret – and highly illegal – plot with far reaching effects for her homeland, not to mention dangerous consequences for her. Full review...
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland by Philip K Dick
Dick is known primarily as a science fiction writer, most famously for the novel that spawned the film Blade Runner.
I read that novel - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - when I was about ten or eleven, a good ten years or so before the film came out and – to be fair – a good five years or so before I was fully capable of understanding the philosophical and ethical issues embedded in it. Not before, however, I was capable of asking the kind of questions that would get me the kind of answers that form my standpoint on those issues. Full review...
Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf by Catherine Storr
Polly opens the door one day to find a large black wolf standing on the doorstep. With no preamble whatsoever, not even a cursory hello, the wolf informs Polly that he intends to eat her up. Incredibly Polly invites the wolf into her home and even into the kitchen! What can she be thinking of? Well, young Polly is clever, resourceful, independent and charming. The wolf is a wolf of very little brain. Therefore it is not long before she is able to outwit the wolf and send him packing. This first story is very short but sets the scene for the ongoing battle of wits between Polly and the wolf that will continue for the remaining twelve short stories in this charming and entertaining book. Full review...
On the Construction Site by Carron Brown and Bee Johnson
Building buildings in the topic of this interactive book that shows construction from plans to completion. For the right little boy (or girl) it will no doubt be a hit. Full review...
The Little Book of Colouring: Animal Kingdom by Amber Anderson
After years of doing craft work which must be useful, I've discovered the relaxing benefits of colouring. I'm doing it to please me: it doesn't need to be perfect or functional. No one but me is going to judge the finished article. All it needs is to be done, slowly, peacefully and at my own pace. The choice of colours is mine and mine alone. If I want to drop the finished page into the paper recycling then that's my prerogative. It's sheer indulgence on paper, lasts longer than a bottle of wine and does me more good. What's not to love about colouring? Full review...
All Sorts of Possible by Rupert Wallis
When the sinkhole opened, there was no time to break or turn the wheel, and the old green Land Rover was snatched off the dirt road over the smoking rim.
Somehow, Daniel makes it out of the sinkhole and emerges to safety with just a few scratches and bruises. But his father isn't so lucky. While he lies in hospital in an induced coma due to a severe brain injury, Daniel is released into the care of his aunt, a woman he has never met. There had been a family falling out after Daniel's mother died when he was just a baby, and since then it's just been Daniel and his dad. Although his aunt seems nice enough, Daniel finds it difficult to trust her or open up to her...
... and there's a lot to open up about. Full review...
Depth by Lev Rosen
The private investigator genre is a great one. Not because they all feel pretty similar so that picking one up is like slipping on a pair of comfortable slippers, but because you can put a PI anywhere – even the future. Writing about a New York that is partially underwater could be done in many ways; action, cerebral, but why not use an investigator for hire? Mixing a solid crime story with an intriguing glance at the future is sure to be a winner, but you better put on your best trench coat as you are going to get wet. Full review...
The Mirror Chronicles: Circles of Stone by Ian Johnstone
Sylas Tate has been through a lot, considering he wasn't yet in his teens when his journeys began. His mother is lost, leaving him to the less than tender mercies of his uncle, and after a strange incident in book one of this series he found himself travelling to another world. Even more bizarre, while he was there he encountered Naeo, his other half – not some jokey reference to a future wife, but the true second part of his soul. The two worlds (ours, based on science, and the Other, based on magic) were once one, and it is the dearest wish of the down-trodden inhabitants Sylas meets to unite them again. Full review...
A Better Man by Leah McLaren
Maya and Nick are both the same type of person. A special type of person. She doesn’t really see it, but they are. He is obsessed with his company, an advertising agency, and the expected long hours of not just shoots and post-production, but also client relationship management that such a field entails. She is just as obsessed, but it’s not with her former life as a hot shot lawyer – now she’s obsessed with their twins and every moment of their little lives, from enriching activities to bonding sleepy times in the family bed. The one thing they’re no longer really obsessed with, though, is each other. And therein lies the problem. Full review...
Drop by Katie Everson
Katie Everson’s debut novel, ‘Drop,’ is a tale of grief and healing, whirlwind romance and brutal honesty. We follow the story of Carla - straight-A-student, rule-abiding daughter and somewhat uninteresting friend - who is determined to change her predictable life. When her absentee mother is offered a job in London, Carla transfers to yet another school and this time she is desperate to not be overlooked. Full review...
Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sachar
Tamaya isn't allowed to walk home from school on her own. And Tamaya doesn't like to break any rules. So when walking partner Marshall insists on taking a "shortcut" through the woods one day, she goes with him, even though she isn't really supposed to walk through the woods. Unbeknownst to Tamaya, Marshall has chosen the route in order to avoid school bully Chad, who has threatened him with a reckoning. A reckoning for nothing at all - but you know, that's how school bullies work.
But lying in the woods is an even greater threat than Chad... Full review...
NO! by David McPhail
A boy - we never learn his name - leaves home with a letter to post. If we look carefully we get a hint about who the letter is going to, but getting to the post box is not going to be easy, because the boy lives in a war zone. There are planes dropping bombs, tanks taking out buildings, soldiers carrying bayonets kicking down doors and a policeman with truncheon aloft and vicious dog at his side. The boy walks through it all as though completely unmoved, but when he reaches the postbox there's a bully lounging there and the first thing that he does is to knock the boy's hat off. Our hero has had enough - and we know just what he says... Full review...
Melric and the Dragon by David McKee
There's a hoard of dragons loose in the kingdom! Crikey! Luckily the King has a whole army of soldiers with nothing else on their plate (except quite a few jam sandwiches) so he has plenty of troops to send on a search and destroy mission. Full review...
Scavenger 2: Chaos Zone by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
York is a lad on a mission. So would you be, if your space station habitation was constantly attacked by evolved, mutated and evil robots. Trying to get to the core of things – both the situation and the centre of the giant biosphere carrying the last humans to a future planet to reside on – he's just starting to enter the second level, alongside some surprising companions (surprising, that is, if you haven't read book one) and a lot of gung ho spirit. The next stage is a 'mid deck' level, where all of Earth's habitation zones have been recreated – but nothing, either animal or human, has stayed the same since the ship's launch… Full review...
The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine
This entrancing Edwardian mystery is set in the exotic, sensuous and opulent world of a Department store which draws the reader in with enticing sights, sounds and smells from the start. When the heroine Sophie first steps on to the shop floor she feels like she is "stepping inside a chocolate box". Furthermore there is also something sacred about the experience- "Now, a reverent hush hung in the air, and she found herself almost tiptoeing…gazing around her at the immense chandeliers, the glittering looking-glasses, the glossy walnut panelling. It smelled luscious: no sawdust now, but a glorious fragrance of cocoa and candied violets and some other spicy scent, like the cigars that Papa used to smoke after dinner." Full review...
The Sunshine Cruise Company by John Niven
Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham live in a small Dorset town. Friends since school, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has a lovely house and a lengthy marriage to accountant Barry, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old people's home. When Barry is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeon, it transpires that he has been leading a hidden life for years, and his expensive fetishes lead to the bank moving to take Susan's home. Struck by both desperation and a sense of injustice, Sue and Julie conspire to rob a bank, taking along their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due to lack of money and a terminally ill grandson, and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of the nursing home longing for adventure. Full review...
Danger is Still Everywhere: Beware of the Dog! by David O'Doherty and Chris Judge
Meet Gordon. He's a very safe bet, now you have met him, as he's a source of highly intelligent and descriptive warnings about danger. He and he alone can voice warnings about the Puddle Shark you might get eaten by, the Parp Donkey that might evict you by farting through your letter box, and the Headphones Crab that – well, the illustration here says it all. Now, I know what you're thinking. Advice this intelligent and salient could only really come from Docter Noel Zone, the world's only Level Five Dangerologist. And you'd be right. Gordon is the name Noel gives to his wardrobe. And Noel is currently living in Gordon the wardrobe, as his house has been taken over by a messy, noisy, and incredibly dangerous puppy. Add into the mix a pet contest hosted by the world's most dangerous man and you have a recipe for disaster (when all you wanted was a completely safe recipe for cabbage soup, as well…) Full review...
Savage Magic by Lloyd Shepherd
London, 1842: Magistrate Aaron Graham is missing his wife. She's left him, taking their daughter to live with her cousin in a very uncousinly way. Yet her distance doesn't prevent her discussing the goings on at her new home with Graham; as these goings on resemble witchcraft and seem to be taking a toll on his daughter's health Aaron is rightly worried. He calls upon Constable Horton to investigate… this is the Horton whose wife Graham encouraged to enter one of the more exclusive madhouses. Under the circumstances it seemed the right thing to do but Horton still hasn't forgiven his superior for it. However, as the investigation goes on and Graham is distracted by a murder case with a rising body count, these bubbling undercurrents of enmity reduce in importance. The important thing for each of them has become survival. Full review...
Dreams That Veil by Dominic Luke
12-year-old Eliza Brannan is looking forward to a wonderful summer. She and her older cousin Dorothea will be joined at home by Eliza's university student brother Roderick and the sun-drenched days will stretch out before them. Unfortunately the reality isn't the same as the dream; this is the summer when life changes. Dorothea and Roderick will pursue futures that no one had predicted and a foreign house guest will open Eliza's eyes to the world outside her outgrown nursery. There again, this is 1914; a year heralding a change in life for more than just the Brannan household. Full review...
The Table Of Less Valued Knights by Marie Phillips
Sir Humphrey has been demoted from King Arthur's Round Table to the Table of Lesser Valued Knights. The only way to get his comfier seat back is to redeem himself via a quest. Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help to find her kidnapped fiancé, Humphrey and his ward, the teenage giant Conrad, eagerly set forth. Meanwhile in the kingdom of Tuft, new Queen Martha has run away after a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwin. She may not realise it yet, but she too will have a job for Humphrey! Full review...
The Walled City by Ryan Graudin
In the walled city of Hak Nam, there are three rules; run fast, trust no one, and always carry your knife. In streets controlled by vicious and sadistic drug lords, three individuals all seek something. Dai seeks information on the criminal brotherhood which employs him, lest he be imprisoned. Jin Ling seeks her sister in the Walled City's brothels, evading the roaming street-gangs as she goes. Mei Yee, trapped in a brothel in the city and forced into sexual relations with the two-faced Ambassador Osamu, desperately seeks freedom. The three have just eighteen days to accomplish this, as the officials of Seng Ngoi plan to evict all residents of Hak Nam in preparation for its demolition… Full review...
Mythology: An Illustrated Journey Into Our Imagined Worlds by Christopher Dell
What does a rainbow mean to you? How would you explain the creation of the world if you had no science as such, or the changing of the seasons? What other kinds of natures – chaotic trickery, evil personae or even the characteristics of goats – people your world? And why is it that the answers man and woman have collectively formed to such questions have been so similar across the oceans and across the centuries? This highly pictorial volume looks at the mythologies that formed those answers, and locks on to a multitude of subjects – blood, music, godly activity – to show us what has followed. Full review...