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Review of The Dark Room by Lisa Gray Crime What if you knew someone was dead, because you'd watched them die several years ago, but then you come across a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place and time? This is what happens to Leonard in this story. He is an ex-crime reporter for a newspaper, and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds old, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at home. One of these photographs turns out to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years ago, and who he thought he had watched die in front of him one night in a hotel. He'd felt guilty ever since that night, and lost everything because of it - his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadn't really died the night she was with him, what on earth actually happened? Full Review

Review of The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair by Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith Confident Readers The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep. And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, either. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its core. Full Review

Review of The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams Politics and Society The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. Full Review

Review of The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories) by Amy Sparkes and Katie Hickey For Sharing Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London in 1939 and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got to her final destination. She needn't have worried though as she went to the home of Mr and Mrs Russell, who couldn't have been kinder to her. She even had her own room - all to herself. Gradually she relaxed and began to enjoy her life. She'd help Mrs Russell with the baking and when it came to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on the Christmas tree. The best surprise happened the following morning. Full Review

Review of Red as Blood by Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator) Thrillers When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all the evidence seems to point towards her having been kidnapped. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with the police, so instead he enlists the help of Arora, a financial investigator. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of the police, and she calls her detective friend, Daniel, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Together, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearance, trying not to arouse the suspicion of anyone, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might be, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things become. Full Review

Review of Wolf Pack by Will Dean Crime The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north of Visberg. She sees blood on the road and a creature on its side near the pine trees. It will turn out to be Bronco, a Swedish Elkhound, who has been attacked by a wolf. Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vet. Bronco didn't make it but on the way, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missing. She'd been working at Rose Farm and Moodyson's journalist's instincts are soon brought to the fore. Rose Farm is now home to a group of survivalists but back in 1987 the then owner, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, and his two eldest children and then killed himself. His newborn child, just four weeks old survived. Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg? Full Review

Review of Fly by Alison Hughes Confident Readers This is a very impressive read, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy of the first-person narration from Fly, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsy, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at school, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on him. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses it. Full Review

Review of New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches and Pastries by Laurel Kratochvila Cookery This is probably one of the most unusual baking books I've encountered. It's built around 99 recipes for breads, brioches and pastries but the recipes are interwoven with some thought-provoking writing on how bread - and baking - have changed in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We start with the basics - the equipment you'll need (there's nothing extravagant or indulgent) and the ingredients, where the author is particular. You might not have realised that different salts can change the flavour and sensation on the tongue of the finished product but, apparently, they do. Full Review

Review of Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Book 1) by Andrew Givler Fantasy Matt has a terrible life. Seriously—it's awful. It is so bad that Dan the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years of a blissful life in exchange for his soul. Poor Dan! I know, I know, we shouldn't feel sorry for soul-catching demons. But he really is a terrible salesman. He never hits his targets and, when he fails to get even Matt to sign on the dotted line, he's so desperate that he simply forges Matt's signature. Full Review

Review of Super Ghost by Greg James and Chris Smith Confident Readers Paragon City has been lucky to have the great Doctor Extraordinary, their very own superhero taking care of them. Whenever the evil Captain Chaos has come up with another cunning plan (usually involving a giant robot of some description) Doctor Extraordinary has been there to thwart her mischief and save the day. But one day the Doctor and the Captain are trapped together inside a giant robot that then explodes, and the hero and the villain are no more. Or are they…? Full Review

Review of Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America by Kari Loya Travel Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's. Full Review

Review of Mr Magenta by Christopher Bowden General Fiction Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. Full Review

Review of 22 Ideas About The Future by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors) Science Fiction Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma. I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. Full Review

Review of The Girls Who Disappeared by Claire Douglas Crime Back in November 1998, Olivia Rutherford was driving her three friends home after a night out. As she passed through the darkly-wooded Devil's Corridor, a figure appeared in the road. Olivia swerved to avoid him and the car smashed into a tree, leaving her trapped. When she regained consciousness her three friends had disappeared. Ralph Middleton, who lived in the woods helped her before the police and ambulance arrived. But what had happened to Sally Thorne, Tamsin Cole and Hetty Riding? Their disappearance would be yet another mysterious happening in the Stafferbury area of Wiltshire. It was thought of as Avebury's poor relation. Full Review

Review of Noema by Dael Akkerman General Fiction This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago. Maya is a young girl living in a hunter-gatherer village during the Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, and food is becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can the law givers in the federation of villages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, a spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of All Life, provide solutions? Full Review

Review of Azabu Getaway (Detective Hiroshi) by Michael Pronko Crime You can't put 'good at golf' on your tombstone, can you? When we meet Patrick Walsh he's outside his family's home in the Azabu district of Tokyo, hoping that his key will still work but prepared to break in if it doesn't. He's there to remove his daughters, Jenna and Kiri, and take them back to Honolulu. It's a quick day trip, with just one purpose in mind. Patrick's employed by Nine Dragons Wealth Management and for the past year, he's been working in Wyoming because the privacy laws there are conducive to the business he's in. His wife, Miyuki, hasn't been in Wyoming with him and is in the process of divorcing him after photographs sent to her anonymously suggested that Patrick had not been faithful to her. Patrick's plan didn't work out and he finds himself on the run in Tokyo with the two girls. Full Review

Review of The Night Watch (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster Crime Fergus Grigor went out for a run. The lawyer was on his honeymoon but his body was found dashed to pieces below the cliffs at Dunnett Head. Was it suicide, or did he - for some reason - climb over the stone wall and fall to his death? Or was he pushed? On balance, it looked like an accident but then his 'accident' was linked to the deaths of others associated with him. Scott Paterson was released after a 'not-proven' verdict meant that Scotland's most notorious criminal wasn't facing life imprisonment. Paterson was Grigor's last client. Full Review

Review of Papa on the Moon by Marco North Literary Fiction Some frogs had gotten into the well. Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them. How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on. Full Review

Review of A Practical Present for Philippa Pheasant by Briony May Smith For Sharing Philippa Pheasant was tired of nearly getting squished as she tried to cross the Old Oak Road. She wrote to the mayor about the problem but didn't even get a reply. Philippa wasn't a bird to sit back on her tail feathers when there was a problem which needed solving: she saw the benefits of the lollipop lady at the school crossing and decided that she would set up something similar herself. Her uniform and lollipop stick were both a little amateur to start with but the benefits were obvious. All the animals used the crossing and Hedgehog was even trained up to provide a safe path overnight. Full Review

Review of The Last Girl to Die by Helen Fields Crime Seventeen-year-old Adriana Clarke's family moved to Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull, in search of a new life. It was a bit of a change from Las Vegas, but the family seemed determined and Adriana had shown signs of developing a social life - until she disappeared. The local police demonstrated little interest in the case (could it have been because Adriana's mother is obviously Latino?) and Rob and Isabella Clarke called in Sadie Levesque from Banff, who had successfully tracked down missing teenagers. Brandon, Adriana's twin, was upset and surly. Four-year-old Luna just knew that she missed her big sister. It took four days, but Sadie found Adriana in Mackinnon's Cave. She'd been murdered and it looked like a ritual killing. Full Review

Review of The Rising Tide (D I Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves Crime It's fifty years since a group of teenagers went on a weekend retreat to Holy Island. Some of them found the Only Connect course transformative and they've been coming back for a reunion every five years since then. There was a tragedy at the first reunion when Isobel Hall drove off the island too close to high tide and her car was swept away, but her younger sister, Louisa, has returned with the group each year as her husband, Ken, was one of the original teenagers. Ken now has Alzheimer's and he's a shadow of the man he used to be. Philip Robson now a priest, always gets there early as he likes to have some quiet time alone in the chapel. Annie Laidler lives locally and she provides much of the food: her deli is famous in the area. Full Review

Review of The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly Thrillers The Golden Bones is going to follow me around for the rest of my life. How can I trust anyone? It all leads back to you! Nell didn't want to go to the reunion to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Golden Bones. She'd had no benefit from it - in fact, it had made her life precarious and unbelievably challenging. I'd better explain. The Golden Bones was a treasure quest book painted and written by Frank and Cora Churcher. The story revolved around murdered Elinore whose golden and bejewelled bones were hidden around the country. The clues - some of them quite tortuous - were disguised in the words and pictures of the book - and all the parts were discovered except for the pelvis. As with such quests, some people were obsessive and the theories became more and more outlandish. Full Review

Review of The Story of Greenriver by Holly Webb Confident Readers Silken and Sedge, for all their differences, have a lot in common. Silken is a girl whose father is the Master Builder of what might be the finest beaver lodge on the Greenriver. Unfortunately she is also a kind of runt figure, and as a result is patronised, and given the most tokenistic tasks when it comes to fetching wood and shoring the dam up. She also stands out for the unique artistic ability to sing. Otters like Sedge sing, but he too, as the son of the lady of the holt, has pressure on him to be a bit less feckless and more attentive to class. He, after all, will eventually inherit the job of keeping the otters safe from the wolf that both animal species fear the most, and from dreaded events like a Dark Spring. Full Review

Review of Into Goblyn Wood by Anna Kemp and David Wyatt Confident Readers Meet Hazel. For the last nine of her eleven years, she has been stuck as a foundling in a horrid, Victorian institution, generally peeling vegetables or acting as a servant. She'd arrived at the place at the same time as Pete, and they're inseparably good friends now, until a chance for them both to escape, and enter the outside world, does not go to plan. There had always been the idea of a life idyllic in the nearby forests, Goblyn Wood, and a tribe of Wild Children, but none of that comes to pass, as Hazel finds herself in the care of a professor at the Natural History Museum. But life with him is not anything like what she might have expected it to be – and Hazel is determined to return to the Woods, restore her friendship with Pete – and to work out just what is going on in the forest, both the light and the shade, and the deathly dark... Full Review

Review of Hope to Die (D I Fawley) by Cara Hunter Crime It began rather oddly. There was a 999 call suggesting that a shot had been fired in an isolated house but the call hadn't come from the householder. A couple of PCs went to make certain that everything was alright and it took quite a while for the elderly householder to answer the door. He somewhat reluctantly told them that they'd better come in. In the kitchen there was a body on the floor: the head had been blown off with a shotgun and the corpse was holding a knife in its right hand. Richard Swann told the police that he'd heard sounds of an intruder and had come downstairs to investigate. The ignorant young lout had called him Grandad and come at him with a knife. Swann had shot him in self-defence. Full Review

Review of Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal Autobiography As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and the kind of anger only a child can express to their parents. Full Review

Review of Dark Music by David Lagercrantz Crime How far from the original can a book allegedly inspired by Sherlock Holmes get before the allusion breaks? This does have a wonder-mind at the heart of what little investigating is going on, but there is not a lot that Conan Doyle fans could really pin down as on their exact wavelength. For one, the main focus of the narrative, Micaela, is no John Watson MD. She's a Chilean in the Stockholm police, put on a murder squad as she knows the prime suspect of old, in a case where a referee of a junior football match was found stoned to death shortly after the match, and just outside the stadium. Beppe, the suspect, was drunkenly antagonistic to the ref during the closing minutes, but refuses to admit anything, through days and weeks of interrogation. When some disreputable coppers (the kind who dismiss anything their superior comes up with, the kind who think they can judge Micaela from her fringe and how she might dress – that kind) are told to go and see what brainbox Professor Rekke thinks of it all, she can only smirk when he says Beppe is innocent and the investigation is a shambles. But taken off the case, she can no longer help solve the crime, and with Rekke the most erratic, irregular kind of guy, she can't get his full verdict on it all. Until, that may be, she manages to stop him in the middle of an apparent suicide attempt... Full Review

Review of The Calculations of Rational Men by Daniel Godfrey General Fiction It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers. Full Review

Review of The Bone Road by N E Solomons Thrillers Heather Bishop, the former Olympic cyclist, flew to Bosnia to surprise her boyfriend, cycling journalist Ryan Mackinnon. She even took their bikes so they could have a few days' break in the region. It was a little worrying that he didn't seem exactly pleased to see her: she even wondered if he had a woman in the hotel room. Heather had to give up competitive cycling after a traumatic brain injury four years before: she was still fit but her reactions and her memory were not up to the standard she would need to race again. Sometimes she couldn't be certain about what she had or hadn't done and she simply couldn't cope in difficult situations. She didn't entirely trust herself. Full Review