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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[: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. Itchildren'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, & self-published 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 [[:Category:Interviews|plus 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 to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=Laura Hamley sees herself as There are few greater joys than a fortunate woman. She has book which lives up to a successful husband, two beautiful children, a big house in a good neighbourhood, and a coterie of friends who fall nicely into the category of people like uscompelling premise. She's always beautifully turned out, and her position in the social pecking order And this is never less than high. She simply shrugs off the occasional moments one of dissatisfaction - what on Earth could she have to complain about? And then Mrs Partridge makes an unwelcome phone call..them. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>023074401X</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jill Newton0008517061|title=Crash Bang Donkey!Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=34|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Farmer Gruff spends all his time chasing the crows from his corn. Eventually he needs to sleepFormer Metropolitan Police detective, so all the animals tiptoe aroundJake Johnson, making no noise whatsoeverhas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. What's this coming over There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the hill future of his life with a crash his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a bang? Oh no! It's a donkey with a drum. How's Farmer Gruff going to get lot of compromise: does Jake give up his sleep? If he can't sleep, how's he ever going off-grid and relaxing life to be able move in with Livia or does Livia move to keep Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the crows from his cornfuture she wants for herself and her daughter?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862337209</amazonuk> For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Olga Grushin1786482126|title=The Concert TicketJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'The Concert Ticket'' follows apartments - when they discovered the lives bones of a family in Soviet Russia who have grown desperately distant from one anotherchild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Sergei It's difficult as Ruth knows, the fatherbut Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a frustrated musician who longs to play the pre-revolutionary masterpieces result of composers like Igor Selinsky but is forced to play the kind of patriotic ditties he despisesone night they spent together some three months ago. His schoolteacher wife, Anna, longs for his love Her condition will be obvious before long, but not least because Ruth is never quite able prone to get his attention with her shy gesturessudden bouts of sickness. Their shiftless son, Alexander, has quietly given up going to school and spends his days hanging around the park, consorting with undesirables. Also living in their house is Anna's silent, elderly mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918482</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aatish Taseer0008551324|title=The Temple-GoersDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Aatish Taseer It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is probably best known for his journalism, publishing regularly struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the Indian pressbody of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, in Prospecthe promises, is someone big and perhaps most prolifically in Time magazineit will be worth the police doing what he wants. He has won acclaim for And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his memoir: Stranger sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to History in which heask, raised by his Indian Sikh mother, traces his absent Muslim father across is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the border in Pakistan – other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and also for his translations of the short stories of Saadat Hasan Mantoanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918504</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Saunders0008405026|title=BeswitchedA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Flora is furious at being sent away to boarding school, even It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one which is very progressive with luxurious facilities summer night. She was never found and school rock bands. Her parents need the investigation ground to sell her grandmother's house in Italy and build a granny flat at homehalt. Now, and Flora is resentful at having her life turned upside down for a grumpymother, unpleasant old woman. On the trainHelena, she falls asleep and wakes up to find herself her father are dead in another eratheir bed. Trendy 21st century Flora is horrified to find herself in Initially, it looks like a hideous pinafore dress with a childish haircut straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and no make upher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What has happened looked as though it was going to her Ipodbe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, mobile phone and brand new laptop?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407108972</amazonuk>Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Cohen0571379877|title=Nina Jones and the Temple of GloomThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=A sign of Edward Jevons is a good bookworking-class young man, for meobsessed with his upper-class friends, often relates to how easily I can put it downRobert and Stanza. And then how much I want to pick it back up againRobert's a theatre director. Nina Jones was a particular challenge for me as after reading it for an hour whilst my toddler napped I kept my thumb in the page whilst getting her out of bedHe's also self-obsessed, snuck her downstairs still saving my page, put on Cbeebiesdemanding, handsome and entitled and then sat next to her on the sofa uses Edward to carry on reading run errands for at least another hour, if not a little bit more than that. I then kept it in the kitchen so I could sneak a few more pages in between stirring the spaghettihim. And then once my daughter was Edward has been in bed I went on to absently ignore my poor, tired, overlove with Stanza since their university days -worked husband (who got bored and went for a bath) so that I could read on he's drunkenly confided how he feels to the end of the storyRobert. I found myself mentally yelling at Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a fictional character (I hope it was mentally and I wasnrelationship had begun between them but he't actually shouting out loud...we have very thin walls), I swooned over s not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the hero, sniggered often and I even cried two of them kissing in a little bit toodark passageway. So, a book that induces such family neglect and an emotional roller coaster of emotions is definitely a good read!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755341414</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ken BruenJo Callaghan|title=The GuardsLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=A woman makes an unlikely choice by asking Jack Taylor When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to investigate the apparent suicide of case alongside her teenage daughter in Galwaysidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Jack But when there is ex Irish police (Garda) but also a known alcoholic second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with nothing much else in his life. His approach to investigation is haphazard - he doesn't really have a method beyond asking direct questions potential serial killer and, if necessary, using his fistsa very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Predictably, there is more Will they be able to solve the suicide case than first meets in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the eye case and Jack, aided by his unsavoury friendpotentially, Sutton, uncover some very disturbing secrets and levels out of corruption within the city. ''The Guards'' is not your conventional crime thriller; it's darker and has a grim realism.career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863224105</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Speller1399613073|title=The Return of Captain John EmmettMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Laurence Bartram has survived Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the war, but his life has changed dramaticallyfirst day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. It will never Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be the same againa cardiothoracic surgeon. It's almost as if he doesn't recognize himselfLaura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Domestic life Anjali is now nonthe free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-existent fuelled party and he has no-one it's going to please but himselfend in tragedy. He is unsettled and edgyWe don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. War has obviously left its markTwenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. He retreats graciously and wonders what heThis time, it'll do with the rest of his lifes their teenage children who are involved. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086070</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Salman Rushdie0241636604|title=Imaginary HomelandsThe Trading Game: Essays and Criticisms 1981 - 1991|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We read some authors because we know we're going to enjoy them. Others, we feel somehow obliged to read. If we consider ourselves ''readers'', and certainly if we have any pretensions (I use the word advisedly) to being ''well-read'', then there are some books and more particularly some authors with whom we are required to become familiar.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542250</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Confession|author=Neel Mukherjee|title=A Life ApartGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=Ritwik Ghosh grows If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in India in the 1970your mind, you's, one of two children re unlikely to think of an abusive mothersomeone like Gary Stevenson. In A hoodie and jeans replaces the 1990's, finally escaping pin-stripe suit and his background is the country after her deathEast End, where he comes to England to study at Oxfordwas familiar with violence, then moves poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the LondonSchool of Economics. There, Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he looks after 86 year old Anne Cameron in exchange for free accommodation, while looking for work, and for sexual encounters has a facility with other mennumbers which most of us can only envy. He also writes a novel - the extended story of Miss Gilbyrealised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a character in Rabindranath Tagore's novel Ghare Bairecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Miss Gilby becomes English teacher to Bimala Eventually, the wife of this turned into permanent employment as a minor official in 1900's Bengal just before the Partition of the provincetrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901101X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Sperring and Leo Timmers1035021803|title=GreenThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Clive loves wearing greenIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. It She's all he ever wearsback now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. He thinks he looks mighty snazzy Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, but his big sister (boo! hiss!) takes every opportunity is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to call him a cabbagethe village: Arthur, she feels, mosslet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, a sprout she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a toad. Clive keeps wearing his green clothescafe, certain that he'll have met and married James (on the rebound from the last laugh love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and get one over on his sisterJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845394534</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Josephine WilkinsonSunny Singh|title=The Early Loves of Anne BoleynHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=HistoryThrillers |summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been courted violently taken over by three suitorsa terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end killing everyone on the scaffold. The first was her Irish cousin James Butlersite, later Earl of Ormondthere is Sam, whom she was at one time intended to marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title wartime photographer and estates of Abhi, the Earldom of Ormondhotel manager. After their marriage negotiations came As Abhi continues to try to an end care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the face of legal obstacleshotel, she became betrothed he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to Henry Percybe cowed by events, heir and keeps on venturing out of her room to the Duke of Northumberlandtry to capture what's happened through her photography. With a little help from Although they only ever talk over the scheming Cardinal Wolseyphone, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this rescued before they are discovered by the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealedterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott Westerfeld1529153298|title=UgliesThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary="This city It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a paradise, TallyPrime Minister. It feeds you(A woman? I mean, educates you, keeps you safehonestly.. It makes you pretty." ) And thatShe's not what's worrying Miv's meant literallyfamily, though. As soon as Women have been disappearing. Well, they're sixteen years oldve been murdered, ugly people like Tally are completely rebuilt - no more freckles, dull eyes, rough skin, or ideas about biting their fingernails, and made a prettybut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. ItMiv's upset because she's scientificoverheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, and obviously of benefitDown South is a frightening, considering the partiesforeign place, status and love afforded to prettiesbest avoided. But is it essential? When For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend is prettified Tally finds a new friend, ShaySharon, who has secrets to share in the few weeks before the operation theyand she're due ll do anything to have on the same dayprevent that. Secrets of another place, another way, and of people staying forever ugly She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - through choiceto anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389066</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Preston Rutt and Ben Redlich1398524085|title=Tortoise vs. Hare - The Rematch!Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Harry Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband'The Hurricanes fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg' Hare has been licking his wounds since 'Steady' Eddie Tortoise beat him s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the famous raceriver. It's time was an easy assumption for a rematch, the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and Harrythen committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's been training hardlittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. Eddie couldn't possibly win again, could he?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845394186</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jo NesboChristopher Edge|title=Doctor Proctor's Fart PowderBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=LisaLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole's best friend has moved away. The neighbourhood bullies All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, Truls and Trym Tranemany, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are causing havoc. Her dad is getting ready for Norwayswept up into an adventure they couldn's Independence Day celebrationst even imagine. Oh But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, and there's an anaconda can they figure out what on earth is going on ? Will they ever get back to the loose in the sewers. Then Nilly moves into her streetcinema, and the two of them meet Doctor Proctor and discover his amazing fart powder.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386539</amazonuk>1839942738
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicole DryburghRachel Greenlaw|title=Talk to the HandCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book ''The Way I See It'', which she wrote at eighteen, and which detailed her battles with cancer and can hear the loss song of her sightthe sea. We loved The call of the warts-and-all picture of her life that she gave us thendeep, and so we were really pleased to see that shethe answering beat in my heart.''s written a second book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=K A S QuinnJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Queen Must Die (Chronicles of the Tempus) Planet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In this historical time-travelling extravaganza, Katie Berger-Jones-Burg (I know, it's Things have been a mouthful, but stay with me) is bit sticky for the daughter of Mimi, an ex-girl band member who has Earthlings. AI and automation have been married three times, so farproceeding apace, hence Katieoften replacing jobs they's hyphenated name. Katie has come home from school re paid to find do and other tasks that Mimi has gone off with another man, Dr Fishberg, and took time to accomplish. Just as she begins they were beginning to stress about the potential new addition get used to her surname she crawls into her hidey-hole space beneath her bed all this technological change and starting to escape for a little while. Here she keeps her diary and her stash think of booksother, and she curls up new ways to read her latest bookspend time, a compilation of letters from Princess Alice, Queen Victoria's youngest daughteralong came an awful pandemic. She starts to feel a bit sleepyLife was pretty much shut down and, but is suddenly startled awake by a flash of light. She finds herself in Victorian Englandalong with it, underneath a sofa and staring into all the eyes of Princess Alice, who is just as startled as she ismany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848873700</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert WilliamsMatthew Tree|title=Luke and Jon|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Luke's mum died in a car accident a while ago and since then his father has let things go. The house has been repossessed and they are forced to move to a new town. The new place is falling down - it's all they can afford after the debts were paid. Neither Luke nor his father are really that bothered - what can a house be when there's no mum to fill it with her brightness and vivacity and love? The bottle of whisky that has begun to live in his father's hand though - thatWe's a worry for Luke; that makes him feel rather sick inside. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571249639</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Melanie Rose|title=Coming Homell Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=We meet the narrator of this story drinking coffee Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from a thermos in a lay-byhis father, on a cold grey day. All her worldly possessions are travelling with her in her car, including her catdrunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. She has clearly made some momentous decision, and is on her way So Tim applied himself to somewhere new. I assumed that as story unfoldedhis studies, I'd learn more about her cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and where she was goingset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561063</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie Tillotson1529900360|title=Cut on the BiasThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=If It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'Cut s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the Biashelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware'' is in your local bookshops partner, you will surely be won over by who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the feisty coverman she loved needed. Stories about women and their clothes are about identityThe next case did look simple, so what better start to a set though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of short stories than a fashion statement cover featuring remote property in Bel Air. He was the bags in heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which said clothes arrive homeof them was the primary target?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784132</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Hornby1529395224|title=Juliet, NakedLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=A clever, comic delight, pitch-perfect, astutely observedSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly insightful, mustwhen he considered the strain that being on-readcall put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. CrumbsBefore long, he was at Liverpool University. Whatever else is there to say about Nick Hornby's latest book that isnIt hadn't already plastered on this newly-published paperback edition? as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. I can only report that ''JulietIf anything,he'' ''Naked'' bowled me over with yet another Hornby striked wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141020644</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Owen0861541774|title=The Alchemist and the AngelA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=When JanDCI Domenic Jejeune's parents die of the plagueclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, he is sent has taken a short holiday in Singapore to the great city of Vienna to live meet up with his aunt and unclean old ally, Guy Trueman. His uncle is Maik was involved in a distinguished alchemist, street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - andhe killed a Ghurka. Initially, hoping he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to take murder the boy's mind off his grief, hires him as his apprenticeman. Jan loves the work, learns quickly, and soon the two of them are on Now he could be facing the verge of perfecting a serum said to bring the dead back to lifedeath penalty. But then his uncle is found dead, and Jan is being whisked off Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to Prague by his vain help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and calculating aunt. She has her own plans for the serum, and she will stop wouldn't help Danny at nothing to accomplish themall.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001507</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom ConnollyAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Spider TrucesPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=The title of this debut novel Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Tom Connolly is enigmaticNess and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, mysterioustailored service. It draws Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the reader in - just like business, as Ness is planning to take a fly trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a spider's webbreak up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And in fairness 'The Spider Truces' does exactly what it say on the tin as the main characterso begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, Ellisbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, is obsessed thanks to 44 Scotland Street and terrified in equal measurethe Isabel Dalhousie novels, of spidersbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. ... and when you live Katie has no experience in running a business, or in an old housematch-making, as the O'Rourke family doesbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there are plenty of spiders 's always her very helpful (and other creepy crawlies about.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956251528</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Hussey0811771741|title=Witchfinder: Dawn of the DemontideInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=Jake is Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a rather solitary personcollection of knits from toys to blankets. He Some will be quick knits - others are of the 's bright but bored long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by school the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and he's obsessed with horror comicsmore than twenty hours. He owns an amazing collection and he knows all All the stories and myths projects are attractive, modern and folklores off by heartuseable. Little does he realise I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that everything he reads about is real, and the Demontide is almost upon him's me being picky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192731904</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary Yukari WatersDean Koontz|title=The FavoritesBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=This story Benny is set in Kyotohaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, Japanhe loses his fiancee, starting in June 1978and his house gets trashed. Fourteen year old Sarah Rexford Oh, and her Japanese mothersomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, Yokoand it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, have come back from Benny is the US very last person to stay with family deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a few weeks. Sarah was born and brought up in Japan but bad weather friend called Spike, who has lived in the US with her mother and white American father been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for five yearsbeing a good person. She Spike is very conscious going to take care of the differences between life in Kyoto Benny, and in Fielderwill certainly take care of Benny's Butteenemies, California. Here in Kyotoif he, the womenBenny, including Sarah and her mum, go shopping every day for food, and the food is very different – in an opening scene, Sarah is trying to explain to her grandfather what she normally has for breakfast in the US, and becoming aware of the gulf between her life in Japan and in CaliforniaHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847392334</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura PowellAdam Stower|title=The Master of MisruleMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=In the ArcanumMurray is supposed to be a humble, fortunes could be won tidy and lost. The bizarre otherworldfriendly cat, just the slightest shift away from our own, had been home one who is able to a life-altering game of chancesleep and eat and eat and sleep and, power and intelligencewell, based on whatever takes his fancy next of the tarot. Four teenaged Londoners had been witness to this, then playerstwo. But theyhe's a bad magician'd found it wantings cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and to level the playing field, had thrown catflap they both use can chuck them out the rulebook. With that, however, not into the referee is no moreregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and the Lord of Misrule is in chargewhiffs. FreeThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, tooone much bigger than Murray was, to smother all of Britain with his unique brand of scratch-card lottery. Soon all humanity might be out of luck.honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408302373</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick 1529431735|title=TimecatcherThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Jessie Minahan It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a pretty average fictional twelve year old girl: she has wanted drug smuggler for a dog side-kick named Duff and she craves adventuredecade. One day, when her scatty mother The return has an urgent need for buttons Jessie discovers the abandoned Dublin Button Factory in an old mill, now inhabited by two detectives, who have come about because he's had a big, big secret. She also meets G who is not your average fictional twelve year old boy letter from his ex- for onewife, hesaying that she's dead. His worst enemy is Greenwood – a large ghost who lives in the mill ill and is full of rules. Greenwood is also involved in this big secret which Jessie and G soon discover is the Timecatcherhasn't long to live. It opens every seven years for three days and reveals the past - 'shadow days' and 'shadow people'. It s hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is about abducted, stripped to open again his underwear and there is sent to a ghostly villain named Sullivan Ellz'mede who would do anything to have watery grave in the power source at its heartboot of a stolen Ford Sierra... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556770</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rose TremainAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=TrespassThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you haven't been to Grubtown before, then feel welcome. It's Eli is a busy lad – by day an auspicious day for apprentice in the town of grubby and inept people wondrous library we start by visiting with names like Rambo Sanskrithim, and Mango Claptrap, as wellin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. For today Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the day of film star Tawdrey Hipbone's gala charity premierefamily. But thereA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to be no gala, and little charity either, when a pelican (and not the town mascot eithertitular race, but a different one) comes and steals globe- yes, steals - the beloved dog Snooks - yes, Snooks - from trotting adventure where he was living the fine life in Tawdrey's hair - yes, hair.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124792X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christi Phillips |title=The Devlin Diary|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by King Charles II's advisors and forced entrants have to use her skills to treat his mistress, Louise de Keroualle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pauline Fisk|title=In navigate the Trees|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Since his mother died, Kid has been staying with Nadine and flipping burgers world in the company of a fast food joint after schoolmagical beast. It's not an exciting life, This has made the race anathema to the pair – but he isn't unhappy. And then Nadine gets when a boyfriend and bad incident at the flat gets rather cramped. And then eatery leads to a box of confession from gran, Eli knows his mother's possessions arrives. Insideonly hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, he finds a photo of with the sole aim the father he's never met and a copy prize of his birth certificate, which tells him that his father comes from Belize. And suddenly, Kid makes a decision. He's going nowhere fast in London, so he's going to head out to Belize and find magic at the man in end – the photo. He's on a plane within daysonly thing to possibly save his gran. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571236200</amazonuk>0571382231
}}