'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=A J Jacobs
|title=My Experimental Life
|rating=3.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=A J Jacobs has a reputation for setting himself onerous tasks. His first book was about reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica; his second detailed a year spent according to the Biblical precepts. In My Experimental Life, he recounts nine briefer episodes of living outside his comfort zone.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547422</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anne-Marie Vukelic
|summary=''Confetti Confidential'' is the third book in the Isabel series, but the first one I've read. Even without that grand claim on the front, you couldn't help but draw comparisons between Kinsella's series and this one from the very first page. The writing style is virtually identical – to the point where you do actually wonder if this is just a pseudonym – and while the chatty, chummy, conversational approach is not for everyone, if it's the sort of thing you like then this is the sort of book you'll love.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545756</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sabrina Broadbent
|title=You Don't Have To Be Good
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Bea Kemp has reached a crisis point in her life. She is in her forties, childless, enjoying a tedious job and a lacklustre marriage with Frank. She seems to have spent her entire life 'being good' and it really does not seem to have got her anywhere. Her only pleasure seems to come from the time she spends with her niece and nephew, Laura and Adrian, and as her successful sister Katharine has no qualms about using her as an unpaid childminder, that's quite a lot! However, all that looks set to change when Katharine announces that she is moving away with the children so she does not need Bea to look after them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535556</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rekha Waheed
|title=Saris and the City
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Yasmin Yusuf is a likeable main character with a group of Sex-and-the-City-style friends. The story begins with Yasmin splitting up with the man she was convinced was going to propose, rapidly followed by losing her job. We then follow her as she determines to become successful and make her mark in her new job, whilst holding out for ''the package'' in her personal life. I particularly liked the way each chapter is a lesson and lets the reader know what Yasmin will be learning or proving through events played out in that chapter. For example, chapter one is ''Lesson One: If he's the bad boy and you're the good girl, you will get burnt'', hence the resulting ex-boyfriend.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755356136</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marjorie M Liu
|title=The Iron Hunt (Hunter Kiss)
|rating=3.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Maxine is the last in the line of the Wardens, who wear demons as tattoos in the day, making them invulnerable. At night, 'the boys' peel away and leave her open to attack – and there are an awful lot of people out to attack her. While she's spent her life, since inheriting the tattoos from her mother, tackling zombies (who are humans possessed by demons in this world, rather than 'traditional' zombies), she quickly finds there are far worse things out there in the prison dimension they call home. The death of an investigator trying to find her leads to strange alliances being formed, questions about her past being raised, and the end of the world approaching… unless she can stop it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498009</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kenzaburo Oe
|title=The Changeling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The novel starts at the end. Therefore we know that one of the two principal characters, namely Goro, appears to have committed suicide. The question is why. And the whole novel is an attempt to provide that elusive answer. Goro was an extremely successful film director of international repute. He was based in his native Japan but travelled extensively with his work. And you have to ask yourself why would a man such as this decide to end his life?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843547341</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert Ryan
|title=Signal Red
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ryan has certainly researched thoroughly for this novel - and it shows. Straight away the blurb on the back cover tells us there's an 'afterword' by Bruce Reynolds, no less than the ringmaster/leader of the Great Train Robbery gang. Notice how it's always given capital letters. Even all these decades down the line, those readers of a certain age remember it and perhaps shake their head in amazement. And there's also a very useful 'aftermath' section as Ryan painstakingly sets out all the robbers' names and what's happened since that date in the summer of 1963. Perhaps, like others, I also assumed the leader, the top man if you like, was Ronnie Biggs. No so, apparently. I also remember television footage of his release from prison on compassionate grounds only a year or so ago. The crime seems to have achieved almost mythical proportions - some would say it's up there with what were you doing when JFK was assassinated?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075535818X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mary Hooper
|title=Fallen Grace
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Grace Parkes is not yet sixteen when she loses her baby. Worse still, it is 1861, and Grace is unmarried. To have a baby out of wedlock is a shameful thing for a girl in Victorian times, even if it is not by her own choice, and Grace has to cope all alone with the shame of her condition and the loss of her child, not to mention a sister who needs constant care and their increasing poverty. But ''Fallen Grace'' is not some nineteenth century version of the misery memoir: Grace has resourcefulness and determination as well as beauty, and her story moves at a gripping pace.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747599130</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Carrie Ryan
|title=The Dead-Tossed Waves
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Gabry has lived her whole life behind the safety of the Barrier, in the seaside town of Vista. She isn't keen to venture past it, to explore the remains of an old amusement park, but Gabry is drawn by the allure of Catcher, her best friend Cira's brother. Cira and the others are sure they will be safe from the Mudo – the shambling undead that plague the world Gabry lives in. Gabry decides to risk it, and her whole world is turned upside down.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575090898</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Giles Milton
|title=According to Arnold: A Novel of Love and Mushrooms
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Arnold Trevellyan’s ordinary life as a charismatic auctioneer is about to change in ways he could never have imagined. Encouraged by his wife Flora to take a sabbatical, the two head to a remote region of France to indulge Arnold’s passion for mushrooms. Whilst out in the forest hunting for rare mushrooms Arnold stumbles across a secret hidden for centuries. This secret makes him abandon Flora and their life together for the island of Tuva in the South Pacific where he soon finds himself married to Lola, its queen.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330452517</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Joan M Moules
|title=Fragile Memories
|rating=3
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Maura was surprised when she inherited the manor house at Picton near Salisbury. She hadn't been close to her Uncle Tom for many years and he had a stepson, Jim, whom she thought would have inherited in preference to her. It was five years since she's been back to Picton and when she returned to put the property on the market she was surprised by the extent of her longing to return there. Money was going to be a problem though. She worked as a model and couldn't really to this from the manor – and she didn't have the money for the property's upkeep. Her boyfriend, Nick, had an answer. He already had three successful restaurants and was looking to extend into the countryside – what better place could there be for his new restaurant?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090587</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ruth Thomson and Chloe Thomson
|title=Have You Started Yet?: You and your period: getting the facts straight
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Every young girl will face her periods starting but it’s the preparation which goes on beforehand which will determine whether or not this is seen as the body developing naturally or a problem. Both are attitudes which are likely to stay through life and it’s obviously better that it’s the firmer rather than the latter. ‘’Have You Started Yet’’ gives factual information in an informative and reassuring manner and in a form which is easily readable to girls of about nine years old and above.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744907</amazonuk>
}}
