'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Benedict Gummer
|title=The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British Isles
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The mid-fourteenth century was an unsettled time for England. It was an age which saw the first phases of the protracted Hundred Years’ War with France, and the Scottish war of independence, which came to an end with the capture of King David II. As if these events were not enough, in 1346 there was the first case of a man in Europe contracting an unknown disease that rapidly swept across the continent, claiming the lives of millions, and one medieval chronicler noted that 'the bodies looked like a macabre lasagne: corpses piled row upon row separated only by layers of dirt'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548836</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Colin Cotterill
|summary=To start with, an admission. I am an English fan of football, but I am not a fan of England’s football squad. Hardly ever would I prefer to see the Three Lions triumphant. I never got into the habit, partly because I never saw the singularly English habit of supporting the underdog as making any sense. Plus you'll never get me standing up and singing that awful tune before the match. But here are testimonies from twenty or so people who see things completely differently to me.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906796505</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Farndon
|title=Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxbridge Questions
|rating=3.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=My history of interviews with Oxbridge colleges forms a very short dialogue. Me, to university admissions representative, ''You don’t actually do media studies per se, do you?'' He, ''No – our graduates run the media.'' Had I got a lot further, and sat in front of a potential tutor, I would have faced a question designed to baffle, provoke, bewilder – or to inspire a flight of intuitive intelligence. Thus is the media-running wheat separated from the media-consuming chaff. And thus is this book given its basis – sixty of the more remarkable questions, answered as our erudite author might have wished to answer them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184831132X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Melanie Welsh
|title=Mistress of the Storm
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Verity Gallant is the oldest child in her family. She's rather plain and awkward, feels a bit like a social outcast at school, and stumbles along at home too where her beautiful, blonde, sweet little sister Poppy is obviously the favourite. One day Verity discovers a mysterious stranger in the library reading a strange book. He runs away when he sees her, taking the book with him, but Verity chases after him, following him down to the shore where he gets into a boat ready to row away. He gives the book to her when she challenges him, along with a mysterious round object. This seemingly innocuous event brings about huge changes in Verity's life. Having been ignorant about her family's history she begins to research about the gentry, with the help of her friends, and discovers skills and strengths that she never knew she had. Just in time too, for as the mysterious stranger tells her, the storm is coming...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617666</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nicola Cornick
|title=Confessions of a Duchess
|rating=3
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Dowager Duchess Laura Cole has come to the village of Fortune’s Folly to live a quiet life as a widow with her young daughter. But when the village squire decides to invoke the Dames’ Tax, a law requiring every unmarried woman to give up half her wealth to him, the town becomes a hotbed of men searching for heiresses now desperate to marry. Joining the men is Dexter Anstruther, sent to secure a rich wife and carry out a murder inquiry on behalf of Lord Liverpool. The last thing Laura and Dexter expect is to see each other again after their steamy encounter four years ago. But their passion for each other is reawakened and looks set to ruin them both.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303802</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chioma Okereke
|title=Bitter Leaf
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jericho, (who's female by the way), is a beautiful young woman. She's curious about the outside world so like many before her, she's taken the brave step of sampling life in a big, bustling city. She returns to her home village with some rather pretentious airs ... and a rich suitor in tow. By sheer coincidence Jericho's mother had attended an interview in her past at her daughter's new boyfriend's family home. A veritable mansion with ' ... sweeping rooms that took longer than a river to cross.' What a lovely way of describing
luxury in an essentially poor area of Africa. Everyone thinks the next natural step is marriage and babies but is it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086275</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Peter Beaumont
|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor at The Observer. He joined the paper in 1989 and has spent much of the intervening time dealing with the kind of 'foreign affairs' that is better described as 'war reporting'. 'The Secret Life of War' is a distillation of his years in the field. It is a book ill-served by both its title and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve to sneak it onto the bookshelves of those who really need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrapped.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mira Grant
|title=Feed
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=In 2014 the common cold was cured. So was cancer. But in their wake something terrible came – the two viruses used to cure the ailments combined to form a terrifying plague that turned humans and large animals into the living dead. Now what's left of the human race lives every day with the fear that the virus they hold dormant in their bodies could go into amplification, causing them to turn. People stay indoors, stop meeting in crowds, and conduct most of their lives online.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149898X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sarah Rees Brennan
|title=The Demon's Covenant
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=A few weeks after the events of [[The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan|The Demon's Lexicon]] and Mae is finally ungrounded. Determined to get on with 'normal' life and forget the magic she's lost since brothers Nick and Alan Ryves left, Mae is only interested in hitting the town and meeting up with Seb. Nice, normal Seb.
Then Mae learns her brother Jamie has been secretly meeting up with Gerald, the new leader of the Obsidian Circle. Afraid that Jamie is getting involved in dangerous things, Mae does the only thing she can and calls Alan.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847382908</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gary Younge
|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Journalist Gary Younge’s book draws heavily on his articles for the Guardian newspaper, as he mentions in his acknowledgements, but it isn’t just a collection of his journalism. Who Are We? is partly a memoir and partly a thoughtful and incisive exploration of the politics and political impact of identity, including race, gender, language groups, religion, sexuality in various countries around the world. He sets out to explore 'To what extent can our various identities be mobilized to accentuate our universal humanity as opposed to separating us off into various, antagonistic camps?'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917036</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Keith Colquhoun
|title=Five Deadly Words
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Five Deadly Words follows the story of charismatic former dictator Lucas, as he charms and 'collects' people during his exile in London. The story is seen mostly from the point of view of Helen Berlin, the bright young Detective Constable who is put in charge of Lucas' safety. Helen finds herself caught up in matters which become increasingly out of her depth as she falls further into the former dictator's world.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529496</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Liz Kessler
|title=Philippa Fisher and the Stone Fairy's Promise
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In the third book of this enchanting series Liz Kessler manages to show both the delights and the sorrows of friendship: a topic which is eternally popular with young (and not so young) readers. Philippa has travelled with her father and mother to Ravenleigh to spend New Year with her new friend Robyn. But she has only just arrived when disaster strikes. Daisy, her other best friend and fairy godsister (like a fairy godmother but the same age as you), realises Philippa's mother is in danger, and tries to help. But in order to do so she has to break a lot of rules, and a series of catastrophes means Philippa ends up with Daisy in ATC (Above The Clouds), a sector of the fairy world. And the other fairies don't realise who she is ...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842559966</amazonuk>
}}
