Book Reviews From The Bookbag

The Bookbag

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library, the charity shop and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.

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Review of Ambassadors Do It After Dinner by Sandra Aragona Autobiography It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not diplomatic to do so, you know), but the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on. Full Review

Review of The Sideman by Caro Ramsay Crime No one thought that it could happen and can't quite believe that it has: Costello has resigned from Police Scotland. It's all down to her pursuit of George Haggerty whom she believes to be responsible for the murder of Abigail Haggerty (his wife) and Malcolm (her son). Haggerty has a water-tight alibi (caught speeding by Police Scotland, no less) and the powers that be have told Costello to lay off: she's decided to go her own way rather than be hampered by the badge. She didn't even bother telling her long-time partner, DCI Colin Anderson, that she was going. Since then there might have been the occasional text from her, but that's it. Full Review

Review of The Greenbecker Gambit by Ben Graff General Fiction I suppose the odd fleeting sense of loneliness is a price all truly successful people must pay for our gifts. I tell myself that I do so willingly. Tennessee Greenbecker. Isn't that a name to conjure with? There are hints that it might not have been the name he was given at birth, but many of us have moved on, so far as names go, from the one we were originally saddled with. Greenbecker's life is one of constant reinvention. He tells us that he's the foremost chess player never to have been world champion, and it does seem that he has some considerable talent as far as chess goes. He's determined that he's going to fulfil what he sees as his destiny. He just needs to do some study to be able to beat the current players ranked at numbers one and two in the world. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana will not stand in his way. Full Review

Review of Silent Cry (Gaby Darin Book 1) by Jenny O'Brien Crime Alys Grant was only a few days old when her father took her out for the first time. Her mother, Izzy, was tired and fell asleep, but when she woke a couple of hours later there was no sign of Charlie Dawson or Alys. There was a hand-delivered postcard which simply said: I've got Alys. Don't try to find us, Charlie Full Review

Review of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson Teens 5 years ago, the tiny town of Little Kilton was rocked when beautiful, popular Andie Bell disappeared without a trace, presumed murdered. Her boyfriend Salil Singh was everyone's number 1 suspect – especially after Sal sent a 'confession' text to his dad and died in an apparent suicide just days after her disappearance. His guilt was sealed and the case was closed, so the town and its families tried to move on. Now Pippa is determined to prove that Sal was innocent, with the help of his brother Ravi. What started out as an innocent school project quickly turns into something much more sinister, and Pippa begins to unearth the dark truth about the beautiful, innocent queen bee of Kilton Grammar School and what really happened all those years ago. But the closer she gets, the more dangerous it becomes. Full Review

Review of Sequin and Stitch by Laura Dockrill and Sara Ogilvie (illustrator) Dyslexia Friendly Sequin loved her mum to bits, but sometimes she got very cross with her. It wasn't that mum wouldn't go outside their flat - Sequin coped with that - it was because she never pushed to get credit for what she did. Mum is a seamstress and she makes the sort of clothes that you see on red carpets or at important weddings. She's not the designer - they're the people who make a lot of money from the clothes. Mum is the person who actually makes the garments and she's really talented, but when people talk about the dress or the suit, they talk about the designer. The seamstress is never mentioned. Full Review

Review of The Dark Lady by Akala Teens For a street kid from the Devil's Gap, London's most notorious slum, life is short and tough. For Henry, a boy thief with brown skin inherited from a mother who abandoned him, life is tougher still. The Dark Lady enters his dreams at night. She seems to represent a past, and possibly a future... Henry and his friends, brother and sister Matthew and Mary, have various ways of getting by. Sometimes they pickpockets. Sometimes they rob the houses of the rich. It's crime or starve - but crime is dangerous and they risk the terrible punishments of Elizabethan England if they are caught. Impossible choices. But there are pleasures too, and for Henry, the chief pleasure is the Globe Theatre and the plays of William Shakespeare. Henry loves language and often makes up sonnets about what he sees around him and how he feels. Full Review

Review of Slowdown by Danny Dorling Politics and Society We are living in a time of rapid change, and we're worried about it. Dorling tells us that the latter is normal, natural and probably good for us. We are designed to worry and with the current state of what we're doing in the world, we have much to be worried about. However, over the next three-hundred-and-some pages, if you can follow the arguments, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be as worried as we are, or in some cases that we're worrying about the wrong things. Mostly. Because mostly, things are not changing as rapidly as we think they are. In fact, the rate of change in many things is slowing down and the direction of change will in some cases go into reverse. Full Review

Review of The Book of Koli by M R Carey Science Fiction The Book of Koli is the first in a post-apocalyptic trilogy, titled The Rampart Trilogy, by M.R. Carey. The novel is set in a world where nature has turned against humans. Trees move as fast as animals to crush their prey and then soak up their blood. Humans have eked out a small existence in isolated villages. They are primitive except for their reverence of 'old tech'. This is technology from the old world that seems to only work for certain chosen people. However, Koli, a young woodsmith, uncovers a secret about this technology that will upend his life and take him on a perilous journey. Full Review

Review of Survival in Space: The Apollo 13 Mission by David Long and Stefano Tambellini (illustrator) Dyslexia Friendly It's fifty years since the Apollo 13 mission was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, but the story of that journey remains one of the greatest survival stories of all time. Survival in Space: The Apollo 13 Mission is a brilliant retelling of what happened. Full Review

Review of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix Horror Women, by and large, have always been the subjugated sex. Throughout history, they have been confined to mere bit players who occasionally help hold up the powerful man and let nothing stand in his way. Grady Hendrix's new novel The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires gives women their due. It is an ode to the strong selfless housewife. Hendrix illustrates this by having them go toe to toe with a predatory male vampire who moves into their quiet cul de sac. Full Review

Review of The Cutting Place (DS Maeve Kerrigan) by Jane Casey Crime It was Kim Weldon who found the first bits of the body - she was a mudlarker on the banks of the Thames and when she turned over what looked like a stick she realised it was a hand, a right hand, in fact. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent's team would later find three other body parts. Identification of the body was not going to be easy, but eventually, it would be given a name - Paige Hargreaves, a twenty-eight-year-old freelance journalist. Her friend, Bianca Drummond, another journalist, said that she was working on a story which she reckoned would be explosive - and she hadn't been willing to share any of the details with Bianca. Full Review

Review of Hello Now by Jenny Valentine Teens Jude reluctantly moves to a small, quiet seaside town after her Mum and her most recent boyfriend split (making this their 13th post-breakup move) and settle into a big, old house overlooking the sea - which happens to contain a strange, old sitting tenant named Henry, who stays rooted in the house like a ghost that just won't leave – or can't. As Jude settles into this new, seemingly mundane, reality, she is consumed by a longing for her old life in London and anger at another forced change – but this will be the last time, she swears. This world is quiet, dull and yet suffocating for Jude. That is until the day Novo arrives, and her entire concept of the world changes forever. Full Review

Review of Access Point by T R Gabbay Thrillers When we first meet Ula Mishkin she's having something of a professional success: using a device of her own invention she's helped a man who has been blind for decades to see an image of a hummingbird. She's thirty-six years old and her life is about to change radically as, cycling home, she's involved in an accident with a bus. It's two years before we meet her again and in the meantime, she's spent 392 days in a coma and now walks with a stick. A professional colleague persuades Ula that she should let out a spare bedroom to bring in some income. Full Review

Review of The Loop by Ben Oliver Teens Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop? Full Review

Review of Troofriend by Kirsty Applebaum Confident Readers Are you tired of your child's classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lying, stealing or bullying. They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have absolutely no basis in reality…right? Full Review

Review of The Silent Treatment by Abbie Greaves General Fiction When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfully. Maggie, on the other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, in fact - and before long she will collapse. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has a bit of a problem. He has to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long? Well, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life. Full Review

Review of Wink by Rob Harrell Confident Readers When Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to just be 'normal' become impossible. Suddenly he is the cancer kid, and everything he does, how he looks, and how he behaves falls under the scrutiny of the other kids in school. Ross is, understandably, angry. He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a permanent wink. He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with the pain, plus the need to wear a hat at all times to protect his face due to the ongoing treatment. With the sudden ghosting by one of his best friends, and a series of horrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about his life is normal any more, and he has to find new ways to deal with his feelings, and survive. Full Review

Review of Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins Crime When we first meet Dee she's talking to Nick Law, the new college master. Law's lately of the BBC and he doesn't come with an entirely good reputation: he's a bit of a bully and Dee can sense something of that in their first conversation. She had been planning to return home to Scotland before taking on a new job as a nanny, but somehow she finds herself going to see Mariah, the Danish wife of the master. She's pregnant and looking for help, not with the new baby but with the master's daughter by his first wife, Ana. Felicity is selectively mute: she does talk to her father, but to no one else. The eight-year-old is grieving for her dead mother and struggling at school. Full Review

Review of The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson Historical Fiction There is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Garden. Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. God was not to be deceived, however, and decreed that what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, and so the Elves were born: the hidden folk. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose. Full Review

Review of From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place by Wendy Cheyne Historical Fiction After the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given to English lords. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to port cities on the mainland, to North America and even to Australia and New Zealand. Full Review

Review of Lost by Ele Fountain Confident Readers Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and her brother, Amit. She lives with them in a nice apartment, and although they are not rich like some of the girls at school, they have enough money to be comfortable. Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and trying to fit in with them, until one day, suddenly, everything in her life changes. After taking a work trip away, Lola's father doesn't come home. They have nobody else to help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become of them until, finally, they are evicted from their flat, and she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the streets. Full Review

Review of The City We Became by N K Jemisin Science Fiction New York is being born, the city has reached critical mass and has matured into a living almost-breathing entity and is ready to make its way out into the world. Before it can be established, an ancient evil appears to attempt to destroy it just as it destroyed Atlantis and other forgotten places. The city is not alone through the birthing process, people who embody the values are selected to become the living embodiment of the city, some cities have one, some have twelve and New York has six. Together these human-embodiments must defeat the woman in white and save New York from very real destruction. But these are five different boroughs which don't always see eye to eye, it's a personality clash on an epic scale and unity is both critical and not remotely guaranteed. Full Review

Review of Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis by Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg Politics and Society The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were burned-out people on a burned-out planet. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. Full Review