|summary=We're in the family home of Erik, in Finland, in 1809. It's large enough to have been the most impressive farmstead when his mother was taken there as a young bride, and she still lives there, with an elderly retainer, Erik, Erik's untrusting wife and some other servants. One night the brother of the family, Henrik, returns, and all the bad blood gets spilled. Not just about a neighbour's horse and hotheaded plans for it, not just over a marriage, and not even about the fact that when Sweden and Russia fought over Finland and the territory changed hands, the brothers were on opposing sides.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095628406X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Daniel Everett
|title=Language: The Cultural Tool
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Daniel Everett previously worked as a missionary in far flung corners of the world– a fact that isn’t surprising given the number of references to faith that crop up over the pages. This new book, however, is about two much more appealing (to me) subjects: language and travel. If [[:Category:Bill Bryson|Bill Bryson]] is a travel writer with an interest in linguistics, then Daniel Everett is a linguist with an interest in travel. It’s not quite the ‘read it by a pool’ sort of book that Bryson might release but is somewhere between a formalised every day read and a text book with a big dollop of informality stirred in. The travel stories – jaunts to Brazil, Mexico and beyond – are great, and while you might think they’re taking things a bit off track (albeit in a rather pleasant way) sooner or later the linguistic point will become clear.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682673</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Melling
|title=Hugless Douglas and the Big Sleep
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Douglas is excited! He's on his way for a sleepover and his friend Rabbit's house. First there is the packing, then there's the journey to get there and on his way Douglas runs into rather a lot of little sheep who decide to tag along for the sleepover too. Rabbit's house ends up being very crowded, but they manage to come up with an acceptable solution for everyone, after only a little bit of trouble!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444901486</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Martin O'Brien
|title=The Dying Minutes
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Chief Inspector Daniel Jacquot is recovering after being shot after his last case. His pregnant girlfriend is away when he receives news that he has been left a boat – Constance - by an old sailor. At about the same time, lawyer, Claude Dupont visits one of his unsuccessful defendants in prison. The man is dying and leaves his lawyer an unusual bequest on which he feels that he needs to act. What follows starts to unnerve many of the criminal fraternity in the South of France and stirs up old rivalries between two of the most feared criminal families on the Cote d'Azur. It also raises questions about what happened to gold bullion, stolen over twenty years previously, and leads to a deadly race as both families seek the gold and also seek revenge. Amidst all of this, Jacquot seems to find his new acquisition at the heart of it all and starts to unravel the mysterious life of the boat's former owner.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090617</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kira Cochrane (editor)
|title=Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of Feminism
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Some revolutions happen faster than others, and the revolution in society's thinking about women is certainly one of the more gradual ones. Kira Cochrane, Women's Editor at the ''Guardian'' from 2006 – 2010, has collected together the best articles and essays from that paper's women's section since 1971. The result, ''Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of Feminism'', is a lively account of the more recent women's liberation movement in the UK and of the issues facing women in a modern, late twentieth/early twenty-first century society.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652275</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexander Gordon Smith
|title=The Fury
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Brick felt it. Daisy felt it. Cal felt it. All three, unconnected kids, had the same noisy, throbbing headache at the same time - and all aches went at the same time, in very disappointing circumstances. Brick took his girlfriend to his favourite place, an abandoned theme park, and found her response to both it and him to be not what he expected. Daisy was the school Juliet, and found the experience quite traumatic - almost as bad as what she found back at home. Cal was more regularly after the attention, as the school's best football player, but found everyone's eyes turned to you is one thing, everyone turning against you is another.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571276164</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Teri Terry
|title=Slated
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's Britain about fifty years from now and sixteen-year-old Kyla is just about to leave the hospital and go home with her new, adopted family. Kyla has been slated - her memories deleted and her entire personality erased. Kyla is a blank slate. This is what happens to child criminals under the Central Coalition, who were responsible for wiping out the gangs and the riots that had dominated the country for so long. In their eyes, Kyla has been given a second chance.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408319462</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Serge Bloch
|title=You are What You Eat: And Other Mealtime Hazards
|rating=3.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=We last saw Serge Bloch's talents in [[Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey by Serge Bloch|Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey]] when we saw lots of whimsical advice for the Boy and his dog, Roger. This time he wants us to look at what we eat. Boy's mother has told him that he is what he eats - so he's very careful about what he puts on his plate, because you might end up with a pea-pod mouth and a tomato tummy. Roger looks to have fared rather better - with a bone for a body. He at least seems to have a smile on his face!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402797605</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jennifer Bosworth
|title=Struck
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Mia Price and her family had moved to LA shortly before a massive earthquake devastated the city. Mia has a connection to the storm that caused the earthquake - lightning seems to be attracted to her and she has been struck and survived countless times. But Mia is also attracted to lightning. It's like a drug for her and her entire body pulses when a storm is coming. Amidst the lawlessness and devastation of the city, two rival factions are gaining influence and both want to recruit Mia. Both say the entire world is in great danger - the Seekers believe that annihilation can be averted but the Followers welcome it. But who is right? And what part must Mia play?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085753095X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Cathy MacPhail
|title=Secret of the Shadows
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If there's one thing, more than any other, which strikes you about the Tyler Lawless books, it's how ordinary and everyday the heroine is. She could easily be the girl up the road, or the one who sits next to you in geography: solid, real, utterly normal. And that is Cathy Macphail's skill: she can create characters who are absolutely convincing and lifelike, who live in the same reality as us, liking the same clothes and food and music. And yet, Tyler sees ghosts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408812681</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sara Turing
|title=Alan M Turing: Centenary Edition
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=June 2012 will see the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, brilliant mathematician, the man who played a major part in breaking the Enigma codes in the Second World War and is widely thought to be the father of computer science. To celebrate the anniversary Cambridge University Press have reprinted a short biography written by Turing's mother and included a memoir written by his older brother, John. I'm rarely impressed by biographies written by [[No Ordinary Man by Dominic Carman|family members]] particularly when they're still coming to terms with their own grief, but this book is startling for what it says about the family members as much as for what it says about Alan Turing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1107020581</amazonuk>
}}