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Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)

Revision as of 12:28, 30 January 2014

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{{newreview
|author=Anna Quindlen
|title=Still Life With Breadcrumbs
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was going to say that Rebecca Winter ''is'' a well-known photographer, but that's not quite how Rebecca sees it. She had major success with ''Still Life With Breadcrumbs'' and became a household name - almost a feminist icon - but the success has faded into the past. People who think about it guess that she's well-off, if not wealthy but the truth is different. When we meet Rebecca she's woken in the middle of the night by what sounds very like a gunshot - but she's not in her New York apartment. She's a couple of hours drive away in a rented cottage. It's the finances, you see. If she lets her New York property and rents somewhere cheaper the difference allows her to pay her mother's nursing home fees, a contribution to her father's rent, some assistance to her son - and all the other obligations we accumulate as we get older.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091954118</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Simon Beckett
|title=Stone Bruises
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we meet Sean it's obvious that he's on the run, but it will be a long time before we find out what from. He's driving, in France and he knows that he has to get rid of the car, but when he does so he finds himself in far worse difficulty. Cutting across farmland he puts his foot in a metal mantrap and can't free himself. The damage to his foot is considerable and he soon loses consciousness - but when he comes to he's in the hayloft at the farm, being looked after by the farmer's elder daughter. The farmer is definitely not pleased when he finds out, the younger daughter in a mantrap in her own right and there's a lot of animosity against the family in the local village.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593073282</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Eric Lundgren
|title=The Facades
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sven and Molly Norberg live in the American mid-western town of Trude. At least Sven still does; Molly has gone missing. Night after night Sven leaves Kyle, his teenage son, home alone while he scours the streets, revisiting places that he and Molly wandered through together in order to find her. Meanwhile Trude has problems of its own and the librarians are armed and ready!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715647679</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=The Tournament
|author=Matthew Reilly
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Michael Reilly is somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine; his novels are hi-octane adventures that are often as ludicrous as they are sublime. ‘The Tournament’ is a departure from his action packed Scarecrow and Jack West thrillers; instead creating an alternative history for our own Queen Elizabeth I. Why was she such a formidable leader whose reluctance to marry and dislike of the Catholics were only part of her make-up? Reilly poses a hypothetical tale about a 13 year old Bess going to Constantinople to watch a tournament of the world’s greatest chess players. Here she will be embroiled in a murder mystery alongside her tutor Roger Ascham.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409134229</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Romy Ash
|summary=We are in a hell of man's own making – a town that is basically one huge foundry, whose men go from working there to a bar then to (someone's) bed in three eight hour shifts, or so it seems. Egon isn't one of those men, or isn't any more, for he works at other things than the foundry – namely churning out trashy low-brow fiction, and a lot of wheeling and a lot more dealing. He still keeps his shift in at the bar and in people's beds, though, all the while looking out for number one. He has several friendships on the go, and several sexual partners at the same time, yet drinks so much it's hard to say he exactly cherishes himself above all – if anything he doesn't care that much about anyone. He certainly cares for something however – his beloved stash of Cartier cologne has run out, and he'll as like as not do anything for more…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754397</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Rachel Khoo
|title=My Little French Kitchen
|rating=4
|genre=Cookery
|summary=France is Rachel Khoo's adopted country. She lives in Paris and to write this book she travelled to the four corners of the country to sample the local dishes and special ingredients to be found there. It's a look at local markets, shops, villages and towns, farms and homes - and the local customs and quirks to be found in each area. You get over a hundred recipes and plenty of images which set the scene or illustrate the finished dish. In more complicated dishes you even get a series of pictures to help you understand what you're doing - and all the pictures are of excellent quality. It's not just a coffee table book - if you've an interest in French cooking then you're going to get it sauce splattered.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718177479</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Sian Busby
|title=A Commonplace Killing
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=In July 1946 two schoolboys found the body of a woman on a bombsite in north London. It's a while before she's identified as Lillian Frobisher, but that produces more problems. Lillian was - apparently - a respectably married woman but the encounter on the bomb site had been sexual and almost certainly consensual. And why was her husband not aware that his wife was missing? His position looks even worse when it emerges that the body was lying on an expensive mackintosh sold in the store where he's a doorman. But was Lillian quite as respectable as she would have had everyone think?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722060</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=East of Innocence
|author=David Thorne
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary='What's the difference between God and a lawyer? The man sitting across the desk from me, eyes fixed on my face, doesn't look like he'd appreciate the punch line.'
 
Terry Campion wouldn't even understand the punch line, but then his lawyer, Daniel Connell knows just how untrue it is. He should. He's a lawyer who has somehow lost is ability to mete out his own salvation let alone anyone else's.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782392203</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York
|author=Gail Parent
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Oy vey! Sheila Levine is down on her luck. Try as she might to meet a nice, Jewish boy to marry, she just keeps ending up with schmucks. The wrong side of 30, single and living in Manhattan, well if only she’d taken her mother’s advice at the time. Now it’s too late. There is no hope. The only thing Sheila can do is respectfully take her own life (having made all the arrangements and tied up the loose ends beforehand, of course. Nice girls always clean up after themselves).
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1585674710</amazonuk>
}}
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