'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=David Savage
|title=Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their Craft
|rating=5
|genre=Craft
|summary=David Savage is a master furniture maker and one of the artists featured in the book, so he is not – as he says himself – a neutral observer and nor can he be neutral in choosing who to include in the book. Having said that, the pictures alone will tell you that he has chosen people who create furniture of great beauty and – often – originality. It's the text that makes the book shine, though – as it seeks not to give a critical appreciation of each man and one woman's work, but to look at what makes them tick, what drives them on and how they have handled the good times as well as the bad. It is, if you like, ten in-depth biographies of artists who work in a common medium and ten shorter pieces about those we should look out for in the future.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>4770031211</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Fiona Mountain
|summary=It doesn't seem like a year since I first met the Tanberry sisters in [[Cherry Crush: The Chocolate Box Girls by Cathy Cassidy|Cherry Crush]] because they're all very fresh in my mind. The five girls – four of them are called Tanberry and Cherry is their step-sister – are all just preteen or in their early teens, with Honey as the oldest and Coco as the youngest. Honey is still not coping with the fact that her father has left – and is now living in Australia – or with the arrival of Paddy and Cherry. On occasions she's not just difficult – she's ''dreadful''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141384808</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=K M Grant
|title=Hartslove
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=1861, Epsom. A young lad, Garth, is at the start of the biggest horse race in the land, astride The One, an ungainly but lightning-fast three year old who had never been ridden until just months ago. At the side of the track, Garth's five sisters, and friends, are willing him on. How can this young jockey win the race, upon which the fate of their castle home and so much more depends? And what are we to learn after the prologue that sets all this out, that would make us want him to NOT win?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857381873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Patrick McGuinness
|title=The Last Hundred Days
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='The Last Hundred Days' in question here are the final days of Ceausescu's Romania in late 1989. Narrated by an unnamed young British expat who has a job offer from the English department of Bucharest University, despite never having interviewed for the job, we get an insight into the life under communist rule as Eastern bloc countries all around start to open up after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are told that McGuinness lived in Romania in the years leading up to the revolution, and this is no surprise as there is an authenticity here that could only have come from some level of inside knowledge.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115413</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul
|title=Winnie Under the Sea
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=It is holiday time and Winnie the Witch has found a little island with blue sea, golden sand and coconut trees. She and Wilbur, her cat, arrive and find accommodation in a comfortable hut on the water's edge – just perfect for swimming. Winnie dives in and soon sees the most amazing fish, turtles, dolphin and coral. She wants Wilbur to see all these lovely things but, being a cat, he is not particularly keen on getting wet. However, Winnie has an idea and, waving her wand shouts 'Abracadabra' and turns Wilbur into a cat-fish. Winnie turns herself into an octopus and the two of them have a wonderful underwater adventure, although it almost goes disastrously wrong when Winnie loses her wand. Maybe she needs to think of an alternative way of exploring under the sea?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192757474</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kristin Hannah
|title=Night Road
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Lexi and Mia are best friends, and Mia and Zach are twins, and Lexi and Zach hardly hate each other either. They're not so much a couple of friends or brother and sister as they are a circle that goes round and round and never ends, and despite mother Jude's initial reservations, their unconventional arrangement seems to work. It's not like she's not got enough on her plate anyway. It's senior year of high school and the pressure of college applications and future plans is driving them all crazy, but when an event on the eve of graduation changes all their lives forever, there's nothing they wouldn't give to return to those stress-filled days of the ''before'' to escape the ''after'' that now torments them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330534971</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jessica Verday
|title=The Hollow: The Hidden
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Abbey loves Caspian more than ever, and with her death apparentlyapproaching, she knows they will be able to be together forever soon. But why is he growing so distant? Is there something the revenants who are protecting her aren't telling her? And can anyone keep her safe from the rogue revenant Vincent, who attacked her previously?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385001</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Linda Gillard
|title=Untying the Knot
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered why it's not axiomatic that a man should stand by his woman – although perhaps it couldn't be set to music quite so easily – but Fay had failed to stand by her man. To make it worse, she was an army wife and they just don't desert – and Magnus was a hero. He'd been in bomb disposal and despite being blown up had briefed his number two about the bomb before he was taken off to hospital. He was good-looking, charismatic – and divorced. Fay knew that marrying Magnus had been a mistake – but she also admitted that the biggest mistake of all was divorcing him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005JTAMQO</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ulrika Jonsson
|title=The Importance of Being Myrtle
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=title will help to draw readers in, I think. The blurb on the back cover suggests a cosy, domestic read. I was looking forward to it. We initially get all the sorry details leading up to Austin's untimely death. On the local bus, of all places, as he made his way to work. A kindly Italian/Australian man called Gianni sees it all happening (in fact Austin dies in his arms). We also get a lot of background info on Gianni, right at the very beginning, which I thought slowed up the story somewhat.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043202</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karen Wallace
|title=Emerald
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Emerald and her brother Richard never understood why her father decided that after his death they would go and live with their uncle and aunt at Hawkstone Hall, even though their mother was still alive. Still, she had always been a cold woman, more interested in profit than people, and they soon forgot her. Until, that is, the day she wrote to Uncle Charles saying that Emerald was to marry Lord Suckley, and that he was already on his way to the Hall to inspect his new bride.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1416917160</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alex Buckley
|title=Ssh! Lose Weight in 20 Minutes
|rating=3
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=After years of limited exercise combined with a love of fine food, Alex Buckley was known to his friends as Fat Al. He followed a number of diet plans to no effect before coming up with his own solution, which is outlined in this book. His message is basically an extended version of the long standing sound advice that to lose weight you need to eat less and exercise more. Buckley's suggestions break this broad truth down into achievable micro steps. He provides tips on ways of sustaining weight loss by very gradually changing your behaviour. The book does not offer detailed recipes or a programme of food exclusion. It is very much about advice on small day to day choices and gradual change, written in a straightforward and easily accessible style.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908218282</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ann Hood
|title=The Red Thread
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=The Red Thread Adoption Agency has been successfully placing abandoned Chinese girls with loving American families, desperate for children, for many years when we join them. Named for the mythical Chinese belief that people who are destined to be together are connected by an invisible red thread, an immense amount of work goes in from both countries to make the process as smooth and straightforward as possible, and to ensure the matches are, if not magical, then at least perfect. Maya, the agency’s owner, knows all the children she has placed and spends a great deal of time with the prospective parents before they come anywhere near their potential daughters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393339769</amazonuk>
}}
