Book Reviews From The Bookbag

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Review of Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe Autobiography Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent. Full Review

Review of Radio Free Olympia by Jeffrey Dunn General Fiction Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. Full Review

Review of The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook by Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth Crafts I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on a page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a great deal of trial and error, patience, and perseverance. (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me a knitting pattern for which she'd paid good money. The first line of the instructions began: Cast off 100 stitches... It was clear that no good could come of this - the instructions didn't get any better - and (finally) PayPal obliged with a refund when the seller refused as she couldn't afford the repayment. The pattern looked pretty, but the creator didn't have the basic knowledge and skills to enable her to connect with her knitters. She should have read The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook. Full Review

Review of Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies Confident Readers We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time. Full Review

Review of Good Girls Die by Ayura Ayira General Fiction This story is not for everyone. Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. Full Review

Review of The Haunting of Alejandra by V Castro Horror This was a part of her past that had to stop with her. She would be the one to confront this. At some point during her life, Alejandra lost herself. She feels as if she is playing parts for others in her life – her husband and her children – without ever giving any thought to her own desires, her own future, her own identity. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to all but Alejandra, there is a darkness threatening to consume her. More and more she is visited by a ghost, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with water, who leaves distress in her wake. Full Review

Review of The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey Horror Ford and Neuland are a couple of, well, guys for hire I guess, though really the way I thought of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! One of them is living, you see, and the other is undead, and so one of them kills the living, and the other kills the undead. (Only not each other, obviously). They're on a job in New York that goes badly, and so they head out to the West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some other work to keep them going. But when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family history, and a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before! Full Review

Review of The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper Confident Readers Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out? Full Review

Review of Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction by Mark C Wallfisch Short Stories Got a minute to be amused, entertained, or challenged? These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash. Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short. Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the flash fictions in a book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperback. Full Review

Review of The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon by Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator) For Sharing When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they're running for their lives in the Forest of Fine Repute. Their greatest fear has come about: the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. He's right behind them, spewing hot, sour milk from his nostrils. (Please don't try this at home: it won't end well.) Fortunately, they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a ladder of moss and vines was lowered for them, they escaped. They climbed up to the Tree Wee homes high up in the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Wees, Nester Nook and Granny Cranny. Full Review

Review of The Figurine by Victoria Hislop General Fiction It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. Full Review

Review of Vertical by Cody Goodfellow Thrillers There's something about tall buildings that just captures my imagination. Who doesn't love a good view from up high, after all? Even the drabbest office building is somewhere I'm intrigued to get inside if it's 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued. Full Review

Review of Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold Confident Readers Last time, April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue. Full Review

Review of No Reserve by Felix Francis Thrillers Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up for auction, but Peter Radway, the chairman, hadn't arrived, so he continued his session. To say that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be an understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and respected in the racing industry. Jennings was in one of the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that figure. Both were happy that they had insurance in place. The following morning, the horse was dead in its stall. Full Review

Review of This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world by Sarah Wilson Lifestyle My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? I get to love that line so much because my answer is This! Precisely this. I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really are living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal no, we are not. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not. Full Review

Review of A World of Dogs by Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa Uribe Children's Non-Fiction In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I'm a sucker for dogs. In nearly eight decades, I've never met one I didn't trust and I've loved most of them. I wish I felt the same about human beings. So, any book about dogs, I'm going to sit down and devour. Then I'm going to go back and read it properly. And so it was with A World of Dogs, with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since then. Full Review

Review of The Safe House by Cameron Ward Thrillers Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friend, Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in the Australian outback for a couple of months. After the problems she'd had at work, it seemed like just the break she needed. She was no longer a data analyst for the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to the country of her birth and in need of the space to get over the traumatic end of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the ticket. Full Review

Review of Bad Dolls by Rachel Harrison Short Stories It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with grief. Full Review

Review of Recycling for Dummies by Sarah Winkler Lifestyle Recycling one ton of plastic can save up to 16.3 barrels of oil. Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down. If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII baby, I faced a dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part of my DNA. NEVER throw away anything that might possibly come in handy now or in the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve the purpose. Almost everything can be used one more time and any purchase must pass the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On the other hand, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking at you) and dropping it in the kerbside bin. Yes, I could go searching on the internet - and get conflicting advice - but what I needed was a recycling bible.s Full Review

Review of Finding Wonder by Lauren St John Confident Readers Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo! Full Review

Review of The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan) by Caro Ramsay Crime In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will follow. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him. Full Review

Review of Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister Dystopian Fiction With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope. Full Review

Review of Word Monkey by Christopher Fowler Autobiography It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did. Full Review

Review of The Raging Storm (Two Rivers) by Ann Cleeves Crime It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir? Well yes, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round celebrity. I nearly said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open book. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip? Full Review

Review of On the Beach: The Winter Visitor by Chris Green and Jenny Fionda For Sharing Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be at home, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto the shoreline. On top of the ice was a polar bear. As the ice bumped onto the sand, the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the ice. Kit was all for making a run for it, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then another. He obviously needed to be taken home on the bus and given a good meal and somewhere to sleep. What else would you do? Full Review

Review of House of Odysseus by Claire North Literary Fiction What could matter more than love? The follow-up to the excellent Ithaca picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge. Full Review

Review of The Girl in the Eagle's Talons by Karin Smirnoff Crime Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without trace. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of the part Salander played in her father's death. Full Review

Review of The Last Person in the World by Matthew Tree Thrillers Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finns. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder and had money to throw around on a Rolex watch, vintage wines and a state-of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns had no intention of going on to University, unlike our storyteller who had a place at Wolverton College in Wellingford, the UK's third most prestigious university. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorset. Full Review

Review of The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz Thrillers When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel that there is no one on your side, you can either suck it up, saddle up and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in a small chain of tiny dots on the map and live out your days in peace and solitude. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; and all would have been the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankind. Full Review

Review of Thornhedge by T Kingfisher Fantasy You had a right to retake your place. T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known and well beloved. But whilst there is a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby and secreted away to the land of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how to draw magic from her veins and cast spells. Full Review