|summary= How well do you know your best friends? Will thought he knew Jeffrey, Nolan and Evan particularly well. Heck, they'd known each other since college at Princeton, before the advent of wives and partners. However, Will's assurance becomes less certain during a golfing weekend. Just blokes together with the WaGs out the way; what could go wrong? Nothing till Jeffrey stops the car to pop into a convenience store and emerges with nothing except the till's contents and the shop assistant he's kidnapped. What do they do? A simple enough question but as the hours tick by it becomes more complicated.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185081X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Louis Nowra
|title=Into That Forest
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Almost every child dreams about freedom. The idea of being able to make your own decisions about how you live your life is, as anyone who has ever been told to eat up your greens and go to bed will know, a deeply seductive one. Many adults, of course, have the opposite fear: that children are really little monsters dressed up in human clothes, ready to break away and go wild at the slightest provocation. It’s not hard to see, therefore, why both adults and children are so fascinated by the idea of children alone in the wild. From ''Lord of the Flies'' to [[Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak|Where the Wild Things Are]], there’s a pervasive dream in children’s fiction – a dream that’s sometimes closer to a nightmare – about the child gone feral.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405266430</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=IBPA Contributors
|title=The Book Publishers Toolkit: 10 Practical Pointers for Independent and Self Publishers Vol. 1
|rating=3.5
|genre=Reference
|summary=Ten articles originally published in the Independent Book Publishers Association magazine have been gathered together to provide useful advice to the small independent publisher or anyone looking to self-publish. The authors of the articles - Kate Bandos, Kimberley Edwards, Joel Friedlander, Steve Gillen, Abigail Goben, Tanya Hall, Brian Jud, Stacey Miller, Kathleen Welton, and David Wogahn are all acknowledged experts in their own fields and whilst much of it is more relevant in the USA it's all thought-provoking and worth consideration. Each piece is short, snappy and to the point and reading the entire book took me less than an hour.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00AAY8M7O</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Cat Clarke
|title=Undone
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jem has always been madly in love with the boy next door. Unfortunately, while Kai is his best friend, she’s not the girl for him. In fact, there is no girl for him – Kai is gay. Jem is one of the only people who knows this, though, until he’s cruelly outed online by someone anonymous. When Kai can’t live with people's reaction to his outing, and kills himself, Jem resolves to find out who was responsible, and bring them down.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780870450</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=R Julian Cox
|title=Shadow on the Sun
|rating=4
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=There's always been a quandary for the ethically-minded scientist - what to do when your scientific discoveries can be used for less-than-ethical purposes. Robert Oppenheimer faced this problem when his work as a theoretical physicist resulted in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dr Jonathan Anderson faces a similar situation and - unbelievably - the consequences could be even more far reaching than the consequences of Oppenheimer's work. There's a conflict with his strong religious beliefs as well as with his professional ethics.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957322607</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Guy Booth
|title=The Arthur Moreau Story
|rating=3.5
|genre=Horror
|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Johnny Debrett is an unlikely hero, given his occupation as a seller of second hand books, but he has some illustrious connections, not least to Sir Frederick Appleby. Some say that ''he'' runs the country and Appleby's deputy, Peter Tyndale is married to Debrett's sister, Celia. Our tale began many years before with some two hundred mysterious and widely reported deaths on a French island which hadn't elicited a single cry of grief from a relative, but we join the story as Appleby asks Debrett to attend the funeral in France of a former business partner, Arthur Moreau. There are, apparently, some unresolved queries about Moreau and despite Debrett's estrangement from the deceased over recent years he's thought to be the person best able to obtain the answers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906791740</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jean M Twenge and W Keith Campbell
|title=The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Twenge and Campbell have been studying the rise in narcissism as a social trend. They are well-qualified to comment, having worked since 1998 with social psychologist Roy Baumeister, who pioneered research in this field. At more than three hundred pages it's rather weighty for the popular market at which it's aimed, but even if you only dip into this book, I think you'll take home their message.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1416575987</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Pam Weaver
|title=Bath Times and Nursery Rhymes
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In 1961, a young 16 year old girl called Pam Weaver embarks on a career path that will change her life. Fed up with the tedium of working on the broken biscuit counter at Woolworths, she decides to train for her NNEB. ''Bath Times and Nursery Rhymes'' sees Pam progress from a shy and awkward teenager to a competent and caring nursery nurse. Reluctant to stay too long in any position, Pam tries her hand at a variety of jobs, including her initial employment in a Council-run children’s home, working as a private nanny to a rich young widow and an eventful but emotional stint in a premature baby ward.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007488440</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz
|title=Colin Fischer
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Colin Fischer is just starting high school. It's a time that is both exciting and intimidating to the average student, but Colin is not your average fourteen year old. Colin has Asperger's Syndrome, a neurological condition linked to poor social skills and interpersonal interaction, often characterised by repetitive or obsessive patterns of behaviour. For Colin, a zealot of clear-headed logic and rational deductions (yes, he's a fan of Sherlock Holmes), every social interaction is a mystery that has to be solved. But when a real mystery arrives at school, in the form of a gun going off in the school cafeteria, Colin takes it upon himself to find the real culprit. This leads to a sequence of events which, as his father nicely puts it, involves Colin breaking more rules, starting more trouble and causing more chaos in forty-eight hours, than in all his fourteen years on the planet.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141343990</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Womersley
|title=The Low Road
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Wild is a man on the run. In a slow, underhand and underwhelming way he is leaving behind danger, mistakes and unhappiness in his past, and has fetched up in a nondescript motel. However this is only the beginning, for he is quickly ordered to put his medical training to good use in the case of Lee, when the latter is dumped into his care with a gunshot wound. Lee, too, is a man on the run - from danger, mistakes and unhappiness in his future. But this pairing are not the only people running in this pitch black thriller.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780870574</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Damian O'Brien
|title=If Houses Why Not Mouses?
|rating=3.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=I once dedicated an entire linguistics essay to the plural of sheep, in particular my older sister’s youthful fascination with it all. ''One sheep, two sheep. No two sheeps. That silly'' etc etc. So when this book arrived I thought it perfectly plausible that the author had written an extended investigation into house/houses, mouse/mice. (No two mouses? That silly.) What I discovered on making my way through the pages, however, is that there is a lot more to this book that irregular plurals of the 3-year-old-befuddling kind.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909395595</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Hilly Janes
|title=Latte or Cappuccino: 125 Decisions That Will Change Your Life
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=I must admit that my immediate reaction when I saw the title ''Latte or Cappuccino?'' was that a filter coffee would be very pleasant, particularly with a shortbread biscuit. But it's not a book about coffee but rather about choices we encounter which could make a real difference to our lives. You see one coffee has 150 calories and the other just 90 and over the weeks and months that decision can mean substantial weight gain - or loss. There are 125 of these relatively minor questions which can have real impact, particularly when you add them all up.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843175584</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lee Child (Editor)
|title=Vengeance
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=I like short story collections. They're useful reading material when you're a mum of young children as you can usually manage to squeeze in a six page story at nap time, but you're guaranteed if you try to start that 500 page novel you've been meaning to read that just as it starts to get interesting your baby will wake up! This collection of crime stories is brought together under the title of ''Vengeance'' so, as you'd imagine, they are all to do with revenge and people getting or trying to get their own back.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857899015</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Erin Kelly
|title=The Burning Air
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= It's the Macbrides' annual Guy Fawkes' weekend trip to their Devon holiday home but much has changed since the last Bonfire Night. Their mother Lydia has died, their father Rowan copes only with alcoholic aid and the marriage of Sophie and Will has fireworks of its own. Some happiness exists though: Tara and partner Matt are deeply in love and Felix is bringing his first serious girlfriend to the gathering. Her name's Kerry and, by the end of the weekend, she'll have kidnapped Sophie's baby revealing darkest secrets that refuse to remain buried.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444728326</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Darren Shan
|title=Zom-B Underground
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=
Ok. Before we begin. If you haven't read the [[Zom-B by Darren Shan|first book]] in this series, DON'T read this review. It contains spoilers. Read my review of the first book, read the first book itself, then come back. If you don't, you'll be sorry.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857077562</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Daniel J Barrett
|title=MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond)
|rating=5
|genre=Reference
|summary=I don't usually open reviews by explaining how I came to read a particular book, but on this occasion it will help you to judge whether or not this book is suitable for you if you know where I'm coming from. Back in 2006 three people got together and between them they built a site - let's call it [http://www.thebookbag.co.uk The Bookbag]. In the early days Bookbag was for fun: it was rather like Everest. We did it because it ''could'' be there and we wanted to see if what we (loosely) had in mind could be done. It was a simple HTML site and I had no problems in mastering the technicalities. I'd built the site under instruction and I knew it inside out.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0596519796</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Charles Gilman
|title=The Slither Sisters: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This, if anything, is an abject lesson in the dangers of recycling. The brand spanking new Lovecraft Middle school actually reused bits of an old mansion where arcane experiments were going on, meaning the school to this day serves as a portal to a different universe, one of horrid man-eating demons and other monsters, all with designs on people like Robert Arthur. [[Professor Gargoyle: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School by Charles Gilman|last time round]] Robert had trouble with one teacher, who was not as he appeared - this time it's double trouble with two of the school's most popular, most cupcake-giving girls. How can he in his lowly position find the strength to save everyone?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594745935</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jack Wolf
|title=The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It doesn’t take long for Jack Wolf’s extraordinary pastiche eighteenth century novel 'The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones' to show its true stripes. Narrator Tristan Hart’s best friend Nathanial is handsome, charming and athletic, and also prone to ‘snatching blue Tits from the Hedges, and consuming them direct upon the Spot.’ In that phrase you see both the heart-stopping nastiness that pulses through ''Raw Head and Bloody Bones'' and the fascinating attitude to Gothic duality that lies at its core.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186879</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lucy Tobin
|title=Ausperity: Live the Life You Want for Less
|rating=4
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=Clever title, eh? It's a conflation of ''austerity'', of which we must all be sick to the back teeth and ''prosperity'', which we'd all love. At a time when incomes are standing still (unless you're very lucky) but costs are going up all the time. For most people this means that it's the pleasurable parts of life - the treats - which get squeezed out, leaving a life that's dull and rather unrewarding. Lucy Tobin, personal finance editor of the London Evening Standard thinks differently. She's brought together hundreds of money-saving tips which might make that holiday possible - or suggests cheap or free trips in place of the holiday. There are also lots of ways in which you can raise extra money which don't involve a dodgy loan that will cost you more in interest than you borrowed in the first place. And, yes - there's all the information about credit cards, mortgages and budgeting that you need to set you on the right path.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780877684</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Claudie Gallay
|title=In the Gold of Time
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A young father (I'm not sure we ever know his name) leaves his Montreuil apartment and takes his wife and their seven-year-old twin daughters on the annual holiday to the coast. They have a house, La Téméraire, overlooking the sea a few kilometres south of Dieppe. They'd bought the house just after the girls were born and go there every summer, and maybe for a weekend or two in the Spring. Never in winter.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051261</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dana Stabenow
|title=A Fatal Thaw (A Kate Shugak Investigation)
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Roger McAniff bought a new Winchester rifle and went out to test it - and nine people were dead by the end of the day. But - only eight of them had been shot by McAniff and one - Lisa Getty was shot by someone else. McAniff wouldn't have it - he was almost insulted by the thought that he might have missed someone - but ballistic tests proved that in this instance he wasn't the killer. Kate Shugak was given the job of tracking down the unknown killer. It wasn't going to be easy, not least because she apprehended McAniff and every conversation began with a statement that she could have saved time and money if she'd killed him. That's not Kate's way though.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908800402</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ayana Mathis
|title=The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Teenager Hattie Shepherd moves with her husband August, parents and siblings from the colour apartheid of the southern US to Philadelphia in search of a better life. Unfortunately this is 1920's America and so 'better life' is a mirage for Hattie. By the age of 15 she's pregnant and subsequently gives birth to twins Jubilee and Philadelphia, the first two of 11 children. As much joy as they bring, the twins are destined to provide a tragedy that will flavour Hattie's and August's outlook and relationship for decades. Each later Shepherd baby will develop with their own characteristics but each will also be tarnished by the past, irrespective of their attempts to escape it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009194418X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Deborah White
|title=Deceit
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Thinking the immortal Doctor defeated, Claire has allowed her modern-day London life to return - almost - to normal. Her father has found a new girlfriend, Lindsay, and Claire quite likes her, despite a nagging guilt about disloyalty to her mother, who is depressed about the divorce and struggling to cope with Claire's new baby brother, Matthew. There's even a boyfriend, Joe, on the scene. Last year's adventure involving a girl from the past, an evil magician ancestor and an ancient prophecy, seem like old news. After all, Doctor Robert died, didn't he?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848774133</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ally Kennen
|title=Midnight Pirates
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's hard to read this book without feeling a sea breeze on your face and sand between your toes, so vivid and so natural is the detail on every page. Pinkie-Sue and Cormac have been running the slightly dilapidated Dodo beach hotel for years, and their children have lived their whole lives in and out of the waves in Dummity Bay. Miranda swims like a fish herself and knows all the local seals and their habits, easy-going Cal talks of nothing but surfing and his girlfriend Doris, and Jackie scrambles over the rocks with his dog Fester whenever he can escape from the irritations of school and chores.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407129880</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tim Moore
|title=You Are Awful (But I Like You): Travels Through Unloved Britain
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=This is not the first book I've read about the scummy, unloved corners of our country, and I approached it in just the same way I did with the last - I looked to see if it might feature Leicester, where I live. The opinion seems to be that you can only like Leicester enough to be proud of it if you're not from there originally - and as I grew up on the edge of a village in the middle of nowhere, it suits me fine. But no - despite its problems (thanks, Labour councils) it doesn't count. It's not grotty, ugly, run-down and unappreciated enough. It still has some semblance of life, unlike too many towns and cities in Britain where the industry, the jobs, the life and the thought have been sucked out, seemingly beyond repair. After stumbling upon the nightmare that is the out-of-season, redundant English coastal town, our author has valiantly journeyed round many of these grot-spots, and found the story of decrepitude only exacerbating.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546930</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Brenna Yovanoff
|title=Paper Valentine
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Hannah's best friend Lillian starved herself to death six months ago. And now she's haunting her. Hannah wants life to resume as normal, but even if she wasn't constantly in the presence of Lillian's ghost, that wouldn't be possible. How can she carry on when her best friend is dead?
To add to her problems, girls in her hometown are dying, beaten brutally then arranged in a ritualistic sort of way. Soon Hannah's being haunted by more than just Lillian, each vision more ghastly than the last.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857078143</amazonuk>
}}