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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crimenon-fiction, cookery & children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books reviews and recommendations Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|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 libraryWith author interviews, the charity shop features and the bookshoptop tens. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times thereYou'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 sure to us by publishers and we promise to tell find something 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 [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something want to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] pagehere.Dig in!

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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->

|isbnauthor=1529401801James Baldwin|title=GraveGiovanni's End (DS Alexandra Cupidi)|author=William ShawRoom

|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction |summary=Gram Hickman''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who worked for an estate agentis travelling in Spain, took the real tension in the novel arises not from his girlfriendinfidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence|title=Wild East|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Written in verse, Angela Booththis is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a house which new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his firm was marketingteacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.|isbn=0241645441}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1635866847|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci|rating=4.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you. Guildeford Hall was an old Kentish oast house Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and was there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the market for millions of poundshomepage. Gram was hoping I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that he could get Angela into bed cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and he'd brought I was told to make a bottle mess of prosecco alongit. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. It was when searching for somewhere You get to chill fold down the bottle corners of pages. You suspect that he found the body smears of butter would not be a man problem. I ''loved'' this book already.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Valentine|title=Us in the freezer Before and After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the garagetime. DS Alexandra Cupidi But then chance brings them back together, and DC Jill Ferriter they are on inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787333175|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=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 glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the caselaughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweOnyi Nwabineli|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at Anuri spent her childhood on display to the trauma and heartache world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is Anuri''Ogadinma Ors childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, Everything Will Be All Right''monetary gain. Ogadinma Now Anuri is the eponymous heroine of the story. We are with in her in every scene twenties and it she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her narrative voice that leads the storylife back, although Olisakwe writes in suing her step-mother to take down the third personcontent about her. This provides a sense of detachment Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for the reader and highlights the isolation of Ogadinmadoing so. She Most importantly, she is exiled from desperately worried about her fatherlittle sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's home and sent to Lagos where online empire. Can she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence save her sister, and indignities perhaps herself and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape.relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=19116481600861546873

|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)David Chadwick|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered HopesHeadload of Napalm

|genre=Graphic NovelsThrillers|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone It's September 1973 in the second half of their teens has other prioritiesHicks, you knowCalifornia. I certainly didn't know Hicks is a Mojave desert town of the weeks a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of protests LA and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the birth of the Tank Man imagemain local employers but otherwise, I didnthere't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, s not much of note other than dive bars and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either sideJoshua trees. This book Life is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989quiet, until....|isbn=1684056993B0D321VJ76

|author= Joan HeTom Percival|title= Descendant of the CraneThe Wrong Shoes

|genre= FantasyConfident Readers|summary=Will''Heroes cannot be forged without villains''Princess Hesina s life is difficult, in a multitude of the kingdom of Yan ways. He is bullied because he has never wanted 'the throne. Instead of craving powerwrong shoes', she he has always considered the crown her inescapable duty wrong shoes because his dad can't work and shrank away from doesn't have enough money for even the responsibilities most basic of being Queen. To herthings like food, it has always been a distant, faraway future. Until that is, it isnand his dad can't. When her beloved father suddenly dies, she is thrust into ruling. But contrary to work because he lost his job at the official report, Hesina knows all is not as it seemscollege, her father didn't die. He was murderedworking a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident.Determined to seek Throw into that mix the truth fact that his mum and dad are separated, and discover her fatherWill's killerlife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, Princess Hesina will stop he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at nothing art, and clings to find justice, even committing treason. Under the cover moments of darknessjoy when he is drawing, her feet lead her to that feel like a soothsayer to learn what happened that day and who killed light at the Kingend of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=17890940461398527122

|author=Pat GrantSylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City GriftersJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Everything Builders were demolishing an old house in this world runs on pedalNorwich -power, and that includes the punk bands. There are three pedallers at site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the front bones of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up child beneath a yoghurt factorydoorway. You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for There was no skull. Was this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a placeritual killing or murder? Inevitably, but everyone is interested in small things that growDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algaeIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it she is never really made clear. Once there, the two brothers set themselves each up pregnant with his child as a guide – Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious result of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hairone night they spent together some three months ago. But which of the two Her condition will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopianbe obvious before long, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?|isbn=1603094660not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.

|author= Ashley PostonJoan Didion|title= Bookish and the BeastThe Year of Magical Thinking|rating= 34.5|genre= TeensAutobiography|summary= Set after the ExcelsiCon, we are introduced to Rosie Thorne, a Small Town, USA girl who has recently lost her mother and This book is entering her final year Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of high school. Things keep piling up for Rosie, and when she follows a stray dog into what the grief she thinks is an abandoned castle in her town, things just get worse. Rosie accidentally destroys a rare book and with endured following her motherhusband's hospital and funeral costs she has no money to cover the damagesudden death. She finds herself working for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a paparazzi escape, beautiful and necessary resource to repay the debthelp people feel less alone.  For most Starfield superfans this would be a dream but Rosie soon realises Vance is a jerk Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self- pity, denial and delusion and he isn't too fond of her either. Howevermakes them utterly normal, as the two are forced to get lends them a human face to know each other, their guards begin to lower and they discover that maybe this situation might not be so terrible after allwear. |isbn=16836919380007216858

|author=Justine Avery and Daria YudinaAlba de Cespedes |title=Baby Trolls Get a Bad Rap (Underrated Babies Book 1)Forbidden Notebook

|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary= HoratioThis Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, Saul and Grizelda are three baby trolls who are fed up that everyone forgets learns about baby trolls. They are ignored herself in books and TV shows the most intimate and films in favour of their very scary grown ups. Our three heroes want equal rights for baby trollsrevealing ways. They want to be seen and heard and they've started a petition about it that they want you to sign. But how should they go about it? |isbn= B07XGN4LGY1782278222}}

|author= Samira AhmedOttessa Moshfegh|title= Mad, Bad My Year of Rest and Dangerous to KnowRelaxation|rating= 3.5|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=''In At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the endfragility of human relationships; at worst, we all become stories'' Spending it is the summer in Paris sounds like a dream for most peoplecynical, especially art-lovers, but Khayyam can't relax predictable and stop thinking about the mess she left behind in Chicagoslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. On a chance encounter with a descendant of Alexandre DumasThis unlikely heroine, Khayyam finds herself on a historical journey with him to unveil the truth about the 19th century Muslim woman who may have crossed paths with Alexandre Dumasslim, Eugene Delacroix attractive and Lord Byron. As newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the two teenagers travel the city they not only discover themselvesworld, but uncover the true story of the woman and why resolves not to lose sleep over it was one that should never have been forgotten: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=03490035561784707422

|authorisbn= Hazel Barkworth0008551324|title= HeatstrokeThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating= 34.5|genre= Crime|summary=It''Too hot s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to sleepapproach the police. Too hot to think straight. Too hot to go back'' During a British heatwave 15-year-old, Lily Dixon, Neither side likes or has left home and is reported missingany respect for the other. Rachel But Davie Hardie is a teacher at Lilystruggling in prison and he's school and prepared to tell the police where the mother body of Mia, Lily's best frienda missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. As Lily's family This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police struggle doing what he wants. And what he wants is to find any evidence that may lead be transferred to Lily, Rachel takes it upon herself an open prison to start looking for clues. However, as serve the case goes on Rachel becomes fixated on finding Lily remainder of his sentence and finds herself crossing boundariesto get an early parole date. Not much to ask, breaking trust is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and facing some impossible choices. Will they find Lily? Does Lily want she's even prepared to be found? And will life for Rachel ever be do the same again?|isbn=1472265602other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.

|isbn=15387317381739526910|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful LifeWhere I've Not Been Lost|author= Sarah Ban BreathnachGlen Sibley|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleGeneral Fiction|summary=Someone once said: it's not self-indulgence, it'One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's therapy! I think they were talking about shoppinglife, but it probably can be applied he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to most thingsrecover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. In my caseBut as those tentative plans falter, it applies to writing about things because I want tohe becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, rather than because I can sell it or because Imobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''ve got something to sell.

|authorisbn=Frederic Gros0008405026|title=A Philosophy of WalkingStranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey

|genre= Politics and SocietyCrime|summary= I confess I picked this It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one up from summer night. She was never found and the library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuffinvestigation ground to a halt. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked , her mother, Helena, and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you her father are dead in slowlytheir bed. This one had me in the first two pagesInitially, wherein Gros explains why it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there''walking s something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is not now a sportcomplex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1781688370

|isbnauthor=085752612XJo Callaghan|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?|author=Curtis SittenfeldLeave No Trace

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I was tempted When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to read ''Rodham'' by the success of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. That book wasnIt't marketed as being a portrait of Laura Bushs their first live case together, but the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed to occur having previously been very regularly in reviewssuccessful with several cold cases. How would ''Rodham'' compare? Unfortunately, But when there is a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bushsecond body found crucified a few days later, which gave the book Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a freshness which the first third lot of ''Rodham'' lacksunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. We've all heard Will they be able to solve the storiescase in time, read or will Kat find herself taken off the books - about Hillary case and particularly about Bill. It's still an interesting concept, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's careerpotentially, if she hadn't had to carry the burden out of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't left her own run at the presidency so late? Could she have done better without the Clinton surnamea career?|isbn=139851120X

|isbn=07278892301529077745|title=The Red, Red SnowDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Caro RamsayAnn Cleeves

|summary=In GlasgowA man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, Eric Callaghan a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had been never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the ice show with his wifegirl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399613073|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Geraldine Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and daughtertheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Lisa which is a bonus when he was stabbed in Planet Burgeryou aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. He died within minutes, but his murder seemed motiveless Laura is a perfectionist and there were no cluesa trauma doctor. He was a genuine man Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a talented artist: those investigating his death had hit GP. When we first meet them they're at a dead drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to endin tragedy. There were two deaths to investigate in the north of Scotland: it wasnWe don't thought wise to involve the local murder team as someone on know who suffered the Glen Riske police force was indirectly involved in tragedy or the caseconsequences. Christmas Twenty- and a lot of snow were rapidly approachingfive years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.}}

|isbn=B07S6DBCFT0241636604|title=Little Girls Tell TalesThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Rachel BennettGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=In 2004 Rosalie, Beth and Dallin If you were walking to bring up an image of a city banker in the boggy wetlands by Rosalie and Dallinyour mind, you's cottagere unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Beth A hoodie and Dallinjeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, both twelvewhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV -years-old, got ahead but he had been to the London School of tenEconomics. Stevenson is bright -yearextremely bright -old Rosalie and it wasn't long before she he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that she was lostmost rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Trying to find her way back to the main path she found It was his ability at what was, essentially, a skeleton, but when she finally card game which got to the road she could never find her way back to the bog when she'd seen the bodyhim an internship with Citibank. Most people didn't believe herEventually, putting the story down to her vivid imaginationthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.

|isbn=0008273790B0DB64PYV5|title=Remain SilentThe White Rose|author=Susie SteinerDave Baines

|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=When we first meet Matis and DimitriIn 2033, Matis is in a bad way, vomiting and obviously traumatisedsuperstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. When heAnd it's able to speak he tells Dimitri not a storm that ''Lukas is dead''. Lukas was in his late teens and he and Matis had come to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuania. They'd answered an advert offering good money and accommodation in return for their labour: they could have a decent life ''and'' send money home to their familiesgathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. SadlyInstead, it doesn't work out like that. When they arrive in hovers across half the UK Earth with its octopus- on an old, uncomfortable buslike tentacles, - they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have to share rooms not giving up and sleep on dirty mattresses on the floor. It's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersnever going away.

|author=Amin MaaloufLeanne Egan|title=The DisorientedLover Birds

|genre=Literary FictionTeens|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for yearsWhen new girl, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In factIsabel, he hasnmoves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel't been back to his homeland s disdain for 25 yearseverything around her. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friend A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or maybe. The falling out was a long time agospeaks with her, and Adamthat's partner has no idea what definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it was about? Because Lou is straight, even isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she urges him to go knowing that he'll regret not doing so. s never had a good kiss with any of them? Not knowing whether he's going So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because he needs or wants tofighting with her is fun, or simply because he was askedand she definitely just hates Isabel, hedoesn's on the next plane. t she?|isbn=B07ZQSK9CY000862657X

|authorisbn=Anstey Harris1009473085|title=Where We BelongThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)

|summary= IJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean've always believed that places s father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and buildings absorb what happens within them her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and reflect it back; this the war is how we can tell finally over, their hopes rise that a sacred space is sacredthey will finally learn what became of him. Cate Morris believes But will the truth come as a similar thing, she believes that ''A house absorbs happinessrelief, or will it blooms into raise further questions around what else happened during the wallpaper, war? Who was the wood of informer who told the window frames, Nazis about the bricks: that's how it becomes a home.'' She is having these thoughts as she packs up her home. radio? She has to leave. A combination of circumstances means that is not only redundant but also homeless. With nowhere else to go, she has called on her late husband's family for help. Just for a few weeks.And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=14711738361846976537

|isbn=17874776811529428289|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock Grave in the Woods (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)

|summary=It was a couple Because of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from his son. Gaston's father had sold various property transactions, people were searching for the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy which he had used to secure a life grave but when they found it, it came with three sets of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlat, owned by a Russian oligarchbones. Before he even got They dated back to go there he diedWorld War II and it fell to Bruno, apparently the Chief of a heart attackPolice for St Denis, and the retirement home collected to discover the proceeds identities of the policy bodies and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just the contents of the farmhouseestablish whether or not a crime had been committed. The family hadnAs if this isn't exactly fallen outenough to worry about, but Gaston lived some way away the Dordogne River - normally tranquil - is flowing at record levels. It's not just the local autumn rains that have caused the problem: various dams upstream on another river have had to release water and Claudette had fallen out St Denis faces the possibility of favour when she announced that she was gay, but they weren't expecting to be almost completely disinheriteda devastating flood.

|isbn=B083Z3ZZ61152919640X|title=Broken Silence (DS Nikki Parekh 2)The Suspect|author=Liz MistryRob Rinder|rating=4.5

|summary=When we first meet him Stefan Marcovici has been in the UK with his daughter Maria for a whileThe nation's favourite daytime TV presenter, Jessica Holby, was murdered live on television and it seems that there's only one suspect. He came expecting 's celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks and his contract stated that he must not serve anything containing miso to work Jessica Holby. She's seriously allergic and carries an EpiPen in case of emergencies. Everything seemed as normal - as normal as they can be in a gardener busy, live television studio - and Maria Brooks served a ragout to Holby. Her EpiPen was nowhere to be a nannyfound and she was dead within minutes. Stefan ends up doing slave labour in a chicken factory: you can imagine what happens to an eighteen-year-old girlIt was soon clear that this was no accident.

|author=Justine Avery and Daria Yudina|title=This Book Is Alive! (Living Book)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Books ''want'' you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readers. Books ''want'' to be read. This is the key message in Justine Avery's latest offering, ''This Book Is Alive!''. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book and young reader, she's sending an invitation to all - pick me up, read me, be my friend, we can go on a journey together. It's a great message, don't you think?|isbn= 1948124416}} {{Frontpage|isbn=02419846530008385068|title=I Made a MistakeThe Midnight Feast|author=Jane CorryLucy Foley

|summary=We know from It's midsummer on the very beginning that thereDorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It's a tragedy about to happenall headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. On a January evening Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on a very crowded platform 3 parts of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under an oncoming trainthe site. That man The heat is Matthew Gordonoppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Much later we see Poppy Page in the witness box of Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a crown court, getting a very rough ride from the prosecuting barristerbody is found.

|author= Maryse CondéRob Keeley|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary= We live in Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a post-world: post-colonialismball of happy positivity, post-modernismhe understands children, post-truth. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in and he writes for their categorisationpleasure and enjoyment, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condénot to lecture or hector. In her new novel,  The ''Childish Spirits''The Wondrous and Tragic Life series is one of Ivan and Ivana'his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, Condé writes a stalwart young girl who can cope with fervour about anything the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan spirit world throws at her, and Ivana are twins born in GuadeloupeEdward, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up spoiled lordling and move overseas, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequences.first spirit Ellie encounters|isbn=16428606971783064617

|author= Abi ElphinstoneKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title= Jungle Drop (The Unmapped Chronicles)Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial|rating= 4|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Abi Elphinstone has said that she connects with her world-building through her charactersMeet Kit. In an interview with [Books For Keeps], she described visualising her characters "wearing head torches which gradually reveal Like most of the people in his world they are seeing to her and to the reader." Just as the darkness of a mine , it seems, he is cut through by a spear of light so too do quarrelsome Fox and Fibber get their first glimpse an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the phantasmagorical glow-in-the-dark realm of Jungle Drop when they emerge through the mouth of sport where a Dragon on the Here and There Express. Running from the opprobrium team of their demanding warrior, mage and selfish parentshealer enter specially prepared, they must address what is in their hearts to find what they seek.|isbn= 1471173682}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B084VNRRD6|title=Killing Mind (D I Kim Stone)|author=Angela Marsons|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It looked very like a suicidecentury-old, magical mazes, and race to begin the exit, perhaps bothering with, that was how both DI Kim Stone the treasure or the big bad and Keats, the pathologist called itpoints they grant you along the way. It was only later that Stone and her team realised that when Samantha Brown cut her throatUnfortunately for Kit, hers was not the only hand holding the knife. It was murder. Sammything he's parents. Myles seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and Kate were a little bit reluctant to say what their daughter had been doing recentlynew trio of questors is needed. The property where she was found was less homely than most hotel rooms: her mother was about Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to accuse her husband the goading from the token bully of saying that Sammy was ready..his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. But what was Sammy ready ''for'' What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and where was their other daughter, Sophiehow could he possibly hope to succeed?|isbn=1839945184