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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and children's books plus author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>
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<metadesc>Expert, full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
<h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>
 
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|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 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 [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
 
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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==Reviews of the Best New Books==
 
  
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
  
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''<!-- Remove -->
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Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
{{newreview
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|author=Emma Geen
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==The Best New Books==
|title=The Many Selves of Katherine North
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|rating=3.5
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=As a Bristol-area 'phenomenaut', nineteen-year-old Kit projects herself into the lab-grown bodies of all sorts of creatures. She's recently spent a lot of time as a fox (appropriate given her nickname) and got particularly close with a vixen named Tomoko. It's becoming much harder for her to leave the animal world behind at the end of her 'jumps'. Even after Buckley, her neuroengineer, signals her to 'Come home' and she resumes her original body, she has trouble giving up animal tendencies like territorialism, toileting outdoors and raiding bins.
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408858436</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
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|author=James Baldwin
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|title=Giovanni's Room
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Literary Fiction  
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|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
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|isbn=0141186356
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Catherine Rayner
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=Augustus and His Smile
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|title=Wild East
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Teens
|summary= Trying to find a tiger's smile is no easy feat.  The chances are that it will be on the end of their face and this is a face full off teeth, attached to a powerful cat with clawsPersonally, I would leave finding a tiger's smile to someone far more trained that I, or the animal themselvesThankfully, Augustus is a practical chap and he sets out to discover what exactly did happen to his smile.
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school.  The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of troubleHe listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapperBut now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848692323</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Quintin Jardine
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|isbn=1635866847
|title=Private Investigations (Bob Skinner)
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|title=The Lavender Companion
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=When Bob Skinner's wife has a yearning for a particular cake from Marks and Spencer he thinks nothing of taking a detour on his way to work, snatching the last one available and heading back to the carIt's then that the fates start being naughtyReversing out of his parking space he's hit by a speeding BMW - only the driver doesn't get out to exchange insurance details and offer apologiesHe gets out of the car and legs itChecking his own car for damage Skinner notices that the boot of the beemer is slightly open - something which presumably happened on impact - and his attempts to close it mean that it opens instead and the body of a small child is revealed.
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|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you.  Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage.  I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally.  (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it.  Notes in the margins are sanctioned.  You get to fold down the corners of pagesYou suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472205669</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Jenny Valentine
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|title=Us in the Before and After
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|rating=5
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|genre=Teens
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|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connectionThey meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time.  But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable.  Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
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|isbn=1471196585
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1787333175
 +
|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
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|rating=5
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|genre=Popular Science
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|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatristI did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.  
 
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}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Julia Donaldson and Lucy Richards
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|title=Night Monkey, Day Monkey
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|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A night monkey should only be awake in the night.  A day monkey should only be awake in the day.  They should never have to experience the 'wrong' side of their routine. But what happens when they each in turn wake the other up, and night monkey has to suffer the brightness of day, and the day monkey the spooky life without sunlight?  Well this lovely book is what happens – proof positive that despite the old adage, polar opposites can be a twain that can meet – and just about get along perfectly well, thank you.
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|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405283343</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1803511230
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Hewson
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=Little Sister (Detective Pieter Vos)
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Late one night, after a talent content on the waterfront, Kim and Mia Timmers returned to their home to find a scene of utter carnage and their mother, father and sister deadIt would have hit any eleven-year-old child hard, but the dead girl, Little Jo, was their triplet and there was a special bond between the three of them.  The girls then left the house and apparently murdered the lead singer of The Cupids, a world-famous band, in the belief that he had been responsible for the deaths of their familyOfficially there didn't seem to be any doubt about what had happened to the musician, despite the fact that there were certain points about the murder scene which might have suggested that someone with more worldly experience was responsible.
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainNow Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her.  Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing soMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empireCan she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447293398</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Veronica Henry
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|author=David Chadwick
|title=How to Find Love in a Book Shop
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|title=Headload of Napalm
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=It is with a heavy heart that Emilia Nightingale returns home to the pretty Cotswold town of Peasebrook. Her beloved father Julius has just passed away; his legacy, a well-loved bookshop that serves as a beating heart to the community. Julius was loved by all: he always had time to listen to his customers and share a recuperative cuppa in times of need. However, his finances were another matter entirely and Emilia wonders how she can keep the bookshop open with an ever-mounting pile of debt. Greedy property developer Ian Mendip would be only ''too'' happy to help out, but can Emilia really give up on her father's dream?
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|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until....
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140914688X</amazonuk>
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|isbn= B0D321VJ76
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Stephanie Milton
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=Minecraft: The Survivors' Book of Secrets
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Entertainment
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ready to take your Minecraft game to the next level? Then you just might need the advice of a professional. 'The Survivors' are an elite group of gaming experts who are proficient in survival skills. They are breaking their cover to share their most precious secrets with us; valuable insider knowledge on the best ways to survive and prosper in the most inhospitable online environments. Minecraft proudly present their latest official book: ''The Survivors' Book of Secrets.''
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405283335</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Guy Gavriel Kay
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=Children of Earth and Sky
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
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|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Two spies employed by the Republic of Seresta are sent to the court of Jad's Holy Emperor Rudolfo, 'The Destroyer'.  The first, Leonora, knows what she's doing right down to hiding behind the cover of a sham marriage assigned for that purpose. The second, Pero, is a young artist kidnapped for the task.  He has no previous experience but he's expendable so that's not completely necessary.  Events transpire to ensure that both spies will need to rely on mariner and merchant Marin and Serjani fighter Danica more than they think.  Yet even they can't stop the conflict that's on the horizon.  Rudolfo has his eye on extending his empire globally and Jad help anything that gets in the way.
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|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473628105</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=CC Humphreys
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|isbn=1786482126
|title=Fire
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
 +
|author=Elly Griffiths
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Puritan/former Roundhead Pitman and former highwayman/Cavalier Captain William Coke have formed a deep respect for each otherTheir first mission was to track down the Fifth Monarchists, an organisation out to avenge those who were found guilty and hanged for signing Charles I's death warrantThat was then, during the Great PlagueA mere year later, the Plague has lessened but the Fifth Monarchists are back, taking Pitman's and Coke's interventions personallyWe therefore find our heroes defending themselves, their families, the monarch, and, on top of that, a new disaster is about to hit the capital.
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|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorwayThere was no skullWas this a ritual killing or murder?  Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry NelsonIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months agoHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780891458</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Pete Ayrton (editor)
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|author=Joan Didion
|title= No Pasaran: Writings from the Spanish Civil War
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|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|rating= 4
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|rating=4.5
|genre= Anthologies
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary= In ''¡No Pasarán!: Writings from the Spanish Civil War'', Pete Ayrton has chosen a majority of texts by Spanish writers, arguing that the conflict has long been written about from the point of view of the international brigades.
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|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668997X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0007216858
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sjon and Victoria Cribb (translator)
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|isbn=0008551324
|title=Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was
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|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|rating=5
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|author=Neil Lancaster
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|summary=Sixteen-year-old Mani Stein - Moonstone in translation - existed on the fringes of societyHe lived in Reykjavik and in 1918 the night sky (and the day for that matter) was lit by the eruptions of the Katla volcano.  The Great War was raging, or possibly grinding on, but life in the capital carried on much as usualThere were shortages, such as coal, but there was the new fashion and it was for the movies that Mani lived, seeing every production he could, sometimes several timesHe dreamed about the films, changing them to suit his tastes, working his own life into the plots.  But there was another reason why Mani was a misfit: Mani was gay and frequently made a living as a sex worker.
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|genre=Crime
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473613132</amazonuk>
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|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the policeNeither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her deathThis person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wantsAnd what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date.  Not much to ask, is it?  The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Paul Jarvis
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|isbn=1739526910
|title=Mapping the Airways
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|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
 +
|author=Glen Sibley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Art
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Before I start, there is nothing wrong with being an anally retentive trainspottery type.  Having said that, do you see what on the front cover of this first edition marks this book out as being completely and utterly for the trainspottery type?  It is the fact that the foreword is both credited, and dated.  Yes, unless a major change was imminent and the Executive Chairman of BA was going to be someone else within weeks, this book gladly states that March 2016 was when he put finger to laptop and came up with his page-long contribution. Have you ever known such attention to detail?  I guess it's to be expected, when the book concerns such a singular entity as the visual history of charts and maps as used by the airlines that became British Airways.
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|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445654644</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jo Cotterill
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|isbn=0008405026
|title=A Library of Lemons
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|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
 +
|author=Jane Casey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Calypso is a quiet young girl, passionate about books and reading and writing and, since her mum died a few years ago, she has lived alone with her dad who is busy writing his own book on the history of the lemonThere’s never enough food in their fridge, and the house isn’t clean, and Calypso is too busy taking care of herself and her father to have any friends of her own ageBut when a new girl, Mae, starts at school, Calypso discovers a kindred spirit, and when she visits Mae’s home she encounters a family quite the opposite to her ownStill, it is only when she discovers a secret that her father has been hiding from her that Calypso’s ability to cope begins to fail her, and she starts to wonder just how damaged her family is.
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|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer nightShe was never found and the investigation ground to a haltNow, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bedInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspiciousWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848125119</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Joshua Gaylord
 
|title= When We Were Animals
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Horror
 
|summary= For three nights every month when the moon is full, children living in a small isolated town who have reached puberty experience 'breaching'. On these nights, their actions are dictated by either passion or violence – they become feral and animalistic abandoning their human nature to run wild and naked in the streets. Beginning, typically at 15 the breach lasts for approximately a year and after, those children become adults'When We Were Animals' follows Lumen Fowler's life growing up in the town expressing her desire to be different and avoid the town's rite of passage into adulthood. Lumen is determined not to be overcome by the moon and control her own destiny; after all her mother didn't 'breach' so neither will she. But slowly one by one her peers breach and she's left behind struggling to grow up, becoming more and more aware of her dark wild side.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785030957</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mark Billingham
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|isbn=1529077745
|title=Die of Shame
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
 +
|author=Ann Cleeves
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=A group of addicts - the addictions differ - meet regularly at the home of their therapist, Tony De Silva, himself a former addict. On the night we join them, Chris, Robin, Heather and Diana are surprised to see that there's an extra chair in the circleIt changes the dynamics of the group, but the newcomer is Caroline and she's a large lady - but although she likes her food it's painkillers that she's addicted toThere's no obvious reason why Caroline's arrival should make such a difference to the group - she's keen to fit in - but it does and before many weeks have passed one of the group is murderedIt's increasingly obvious that one of the group is responsible.
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|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teensThe dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned upD I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe SpencerSome people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408704838</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Pip Jones
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|isbn=1399613073
|title=Squishy McFluff: Seaside Rescue!
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|title=Moral Injuries
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|author=Christie Watson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre= Children's Rhymes and Verse
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Ava and her invisible cat – Squishy McFluff – are off to the seaside for their latest adventure together. They have great fun digging in the sand towards Australia and sitting on the beach eating ice cream. (Although the adults who fall in their hole and the ice cream man may not share their enthusiasm.) Everything is purr-fect until invisible cat Squishy decides to chase an invisible fish. Now it's up to Ava to stage a 'seaside rescue'…
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|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century.  Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.  Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP.  When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571320686</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mark Robertson and Sally Symes
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|isbn=0241636604
|title=Dare to Care Pet Dragon
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|rating=4
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|author=Gary Stevenson
|genre=Confident Readers
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|rating=4.5
|summary=When I was growing up there was a holy grail of non-fiction and that was the cross section bookThese books would take a theme like ships or vehicles and show you in minute detail what exactly went on insideYou could see the pistons in a supercar or look at all the little crew members as they scuttle around a luxury linerThe books were fun to read, but even more importantly, amazing to look atThis eye for illustration in non-fiction does not seem to be as popular anymore, but perhaps modern books are looking at the wrong material. A book on how to look after your Dragon would surely look good?
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|genre=Autobiography
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847805892</amazonuk>
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|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson.  A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injusticeThere was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of EconomicsStevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envyHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid.  It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with CitibankEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Justin Miles
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|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Ultimate Mapping Guide for Kids
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|title=Lover Birds
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Teens
|summary=I've always been fascinated by maps: diverse features can be converted into symbols, drawn on a piece of paper and then passed to someone else to interpretMaking or reading maps are skills which stay with you throughout life and learning 'how to' is relatively simple and great fun.  Author Justin Miles had a car accident in 1999 and brain injuries meant that he had to learn to walk and talk from scratch. Whilst he was doing this he decided to become a full time explorer and to support charities which inspire children to learn.  He raises funds by taking on daring challenges, which have included climbing mountains, exploring the Arctic, crossing deserts and cutting his way through the jungle.  If a man knows about maps, then it's Justin Miles.
+
|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around herA misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it?  Because Lou is straight, isn't she?  Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178493464X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Catherine Ryan Howard
+
|isbn=1009473085
|title=Distress Signals
+
|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
 +
|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Cruise ship ''The Celebrate'' is a place for leisure, relaxation and, it seems, disappearanceTo Adam's knowledge two women have disappeared from the ship mid-ocean, a fact that interests him as one of them is his partner SarahThe search for her began with a note and seems to have ended on board but he won't let it go. If Sarah is out there, Adam will find her even though he may not like what he discovers along the way about the woman he loves and thought he knew.
+
|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''.  If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you.  If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous yearsIt's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics.  ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beastIt's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782398384</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Dorothy Koomson
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=When I Was Invisible
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Veronika Harper met Veronica Harper aged 8, form the start both deciding they'd stay firm friendsNika and Roni did everything together including their beloved ballet… until something goes terribly wrongThis leads to a series of events that don't just tear their friendship but also the lives they would otherwise leadThey wish for invisibility and choose different ways to accomplish it for the sake of their survival; physical as well as emotional.
+
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldBut first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tamperingWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780893361</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|author=Winston Graham
+
|title=White Nights
|title=The Grove of Eagles: A novel of Elizabethan England
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=Short Stories
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
|summary=Maugan Killigrew grows up in material comfort as the acknowledged illegitimate son of Sir John, the Governor of Cornwall's Pendennis Castle. Yet, despite the comparative comfort and because of other's austere attitudes, Maugan never feels quite as accepted as his many half-brothers and sisters but there's little time to consider that.  Times are changing.  Queen Elizabeth I is getting older and the English are still at war with the Spanish, a nation that will have quite an effect on Maugan's life.  Romance, conflict and imprisonment, Maugan will experience it all and, hopefully survive it all but we shall see..
+
|isbn=0241619785
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509818618</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Suzanne Rindell
+
|isbn=0008385068
|title=Three-Martini Lunch
+
|title=The Midnight Feast
 +
|author=Lucy Foley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=In 2013 we loved [[The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell|The Other Typist]] for its gripping plot, terrific characters and effortless recreation of the Jazz Age. Well, Rindell has done it again, though this time her chosen time period is the late 1950s. She brings the bustling, cutthroat New York City publishing world to life through the connections between three main characters whose first-person voices fit together like a dream: Cliff Nelson, a Columbia dropout who plans to be the next Hemingway and also happens to be the son of a premier editor at Bonwright; Eden Katz, who moved from Indiana to be a secretary at a publishing house but has ambitions of becoming an editor; and Miles Tillman, a black man who works as a bicycle messenger for Eden's publisher but has literary hopes of his own.
+
|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor.  It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised.  It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows.  The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous.  Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749020822</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
+
|author=James Baldwin
|title=My Italian Bulldozer
+
|title=Giovanni's Room
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Literary Fiction
 +
|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
 +
|isbn=0141186356
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
 +
|title=Nowhere Man
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I do love to sit down with a new book by AMS, and the excitement was doubled on this occasion since a new standalone story meant lots of brand new characters to meet, and also the book has a very intriguingly bizarre title!  In this story we get to meet Paul, a food writer who, after a rather upsetting break-up with his girlfriend, heads to Tuscany to finish writing his book. So far, so normal, but of course things soon get a little unusual, beginning with Paul’s arrest on his arrival in Italy and moving swiftly on to the point where instead of a hire car he finds himself with a hired bulldozer…
+
|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973554</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Stewart Foster
+
|author=Virginie Despentes
|title=Bubble Boy
+
|title=King Kong Theory
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary= Eleven year old Joe was born with a rare condition that means he has no immune system and, therefore, no resistance to the germs that surround us in our daily lives. The result is he's spent his whole life trapped in a bubble – a small room in the hospital where the air is filtered and temperature and air purity is constantly monitored. His only escape is through his dreams of being a superhero and, unless something changes, it looks like he'll never get to see the outside world for himself.  
+
|summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471145409</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=191309734X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Changers, Book Two: Oryon
+
|author=Alba de Cespedes
|author=Allison Glock-Cooper and T Cooper
+
|title=Forbidden Notebook
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Ethan is a Changer. Changers are an ancient race of humans who change identities four times during adolescence before choosing a permanent persona to inhabit for the rest of their lives. Because of this, Changers gain insight into other people's lives and become better people because of it. They literally walk in another man's shoes, if you will.
+
|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349002444</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1782278222
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Ottessa Moshfegh
 +
|title=My Year of Rest and Relaxation
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre=Literary Fiction
 +
|summary=At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.
 +
|isbn=1784707422
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Anna Metcalfe
+
|author=Jo Callaghan
|title= Blind Water Pass and other stories
+
|title=Leave No Trace
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4
|genre= Short Stories
+
|genre=Crime
|summary= Anna Metcalfe's debut collection of short stories is a treasure trove of language, cultures, and beautifully written proseThe stories are bound together with a loose theme of communication, or miscommunication, across characters and cultures, and the narrators of these stories are as different as human beings themselves.
+
|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective LockIt's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases.  But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project.  Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473631815</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=139851120X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Conor O'Callaghan
+
|isbn=B0DB64PYV5
|title=Nothing on Earth
+
|title=The White Rose
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Dave Baines
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|rating=4
|summary=On a sweltering night in what is a blisteringly hot summer a young girl hammers at a man's door and when let into the house tells him that her father has disappeared ''too''.  Gradually her story emerges, of a home on one of those estates so common in Ireland after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger with only the occasional house occupied and others only part built. It could be any one of hundreds of Irish towns at that time and its main feature is the lack of hope that it will never be any better.  Our narrator tells her story, much, he says, as it was told to him and we hear of a life on the edge of poverty, with strange noises in the night, words written in the dust on the windows mirrored by those written in blue ink on her skin.
+
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781620342</amazonuk>
+
|summary=In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away.
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 10:02, 29 October 2024

Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!

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0141186356.jpg

Review of

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Giovanni's Room follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. Full Review

0241645441.jpg

Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words. Full Review

1635866847.jpg

Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

It's strange, the things that make you immediately feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading The Lavender Companion, I visited the author's website and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I loved this book already. Full Review

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together. Full Review

1787333175.jpg

Review of

You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here by Benji Waterhouse

5star.jpg Popular Science

I was tempted to read You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here after enjoying Adam Kay's first book This is Going to Hurt, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. You Don't Have to be Mad... promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. Full Review

1803511230.jpg

Review of

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

5star.jpg Short Stories

Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. Full Review

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Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

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Review of

Headload of Napalm by David Chadwick

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until.... Full Review

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

0356522776.jpg

Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

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Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. Full Review

0007216858.jpg

Review of

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear. Full Review

0008551324.jpg

Review of

The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. Full Review

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Review of

Where I've Not Been Lost by Glen Sibley

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities. Full Review

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Review of

A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. Full Review

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Review of

The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. Full Review

1399613073.jpg

Review of

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved. Full Review

0241636604.jpg

Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. Full Review

000862657X.jpg

Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she? Full Review

1009473085.jpg

Review of

The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024 by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)

5star.jpg Politics and Society

Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it isn't and that applies to The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what really happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, Johnson at 10, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. The Conservative Effect is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024. Full Review

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

0241619785.jpg

Review of

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5star.jpg Short Stories

As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity. Full Review

0008385068.jpg

Review of

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found. Full Review

0141186356.jpg

Review of

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Giovanni's Room follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. Full Review

B0DGDJRHYD.jpg

Review of

Nowhere Man by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done. Full Review

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Review of

King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes

4star.jpg Autobiography

King Kong Theory is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays. Full Review

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Review of

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways. Full Review

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Review of

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

3star.jpg Literary Fiction

At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation. Full Review

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Review of

Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

4star.jpg Crime

When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career? Full Review

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Review of

The White Rose by Dave Baines

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away. Full Review