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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
 
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
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Want to learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
  
 
==The Best New Books==
 
==The Best New Books==
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
 
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
 
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
 
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B093VPBL5L
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|isbn=1529077745
|title=Cape Henry House
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|author=Jolly Walker Bittick
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|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Bosner, or, to give him his full title, Petty Officer Third Class BosnerWe never really find out if he has a first name: there's merely a hint that he had the nickname 'Secretary' at one pointHe's simply Bosner to one and all.  When we first encounter him he's exploring his memories of 2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helos, as they were called) at a naval establishmentThe hours could be long and he was often working nights but at the age of twenty-one, there was always a way to work some fun (think drinking and eating) into his day.
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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 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 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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1399613073
 +
|title=Moral Injuries
 +
|author=Christie Watson
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Thrillers
 +
|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 consequencesTwenty-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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah Whitten
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|isbn=0241636604
|title=For the Wolf
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|rating=5
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|author=Gary Stevenson
|genre=Fantasy
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|rating=4.5
|summary=In Red's family, the first daughter becomes queen, and the second daughter becomes a sacrifice. To Red's misfortune, she is the second daughter. Sent alone into the woods with nothing but the cape on her back, Red knows what to expect: within the woods is a wolf, and he is the one who will decide the fate of their kingdom. If she is not a worthy sacrifice, the monsters he keeps contained to the woods will be released, and the fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so the stories go. But when Red enters the woods, expecting nothing more than to be killed within the hour, she finds that the legends are lies. The wolf is not a monster—he's a man.
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|genre=Autobiography
|isbn=0356516369
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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 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=M G Leonard
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|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Twitch
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|title=Lover Birds
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Twitch is a boy who loves birdsHe keeps pigeons at home, and chickens, and even has swallows nesting in his bedroom! His time spent watching and helping birds is easy compared to that of his time in school. But things are about to change for Twitch in all aspects of his life as there is a dangerous bank robber on the run, and it's possible that the missing bank haul is hidden somewhere in Aves Wood, the place where Twitch has his secret hide and that he knows like the back of his hand!  Can Twitch solve the mystery, and find the missing millions?
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|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?
|isbn=1406389374
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|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838853804
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|author=Sally Rooney
|title=The Cursed Girls
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|title=Intermezzo
|author=Caro Ramsay
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Thrillers
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|summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.
|summary=Megan Melvick's earliest memory is of her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down to the pond, only to find that he'd hanged himself.  Twenty years later she's back home again and this time the occasion is no less sad.  She's there to say her final farewells to her sister, Melissa, who is dying of anorexia. As she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean?  There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have been sorry - or was it even a question?  Was she asking if Megan was sorry for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day?  The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem to be a curse.  In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years before. Would she come back for her elder daughter's funeral?
+
|isbn=0571365469
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241400120
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|isbn=1009473085
|title=The Girl Who Died
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|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria Cribb
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|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=Crime
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|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Una was not thriving in Reykjavik: it was some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then she'd given up her medical studies and retrained as a teacherShe was thirty years old and money was tightHer friend, Sara, showed her an advert for a job in Skalar on the Langanes PeninsulaThere were only ten people in the village but a teacher was required for two children: a salary would be paid and accommodation provided.  Una was the only applicant and the job meant that she could let her flat in Reykjavik and, hopefully, save some money over the winter which her contract covered.
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|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 youIf 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 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 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1846975719
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|author=Mark Lingane
|title=For Any Other Truth (DCI Jim Daley)
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|title=Chimera
|author=Denzil Meyrick
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
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|genre=Science Fiction
|genre=Crime
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|summary=''The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.''
|summary=We learn that MI5 is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves to awkward places. But that's London, isn't it?  What's happening in Kinloch?
+
 
 +
''Broken and fragmented recollections tumble around her head. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come in shallow, ragged gasps as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchable.''
 +
 
 +
''There must be a way out. As she moves through the foreign area, memories begin to gel. Disaster had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’s.''
  
When a light aircraft crash lands at Machrie airport, DCI Jim Daley and his colleague, Acting DI Brian Scott, head off for the airport straight away. It soon becomes evident though that both occupants of the plane were dead before take off. How could that be?  The sort of tech which would make that possible isn't available to the paying public. And why have the man no identification on them - or even labels in their clothes?
+
As our survivor struggles to orient herself, she's guided by a robot, which looks human-made, but she can't be sure. It says it is. It says she must try not to injure herself. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group of aliens, she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradation, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts to survive - and to attempt to explain how she came to be here, apparently the last human being alive.
 +
|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Richard Brook
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose usIn my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now.  I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.
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|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 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?
|isbn=1800461682
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|isbn=0008666482
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
 +
|title=White Nights
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Short Stories
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=0241619785
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B095CY7NBN
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|isbn=0008385068
|title=Autumn Camp
+
|title=The Midnight Feast
|author=Barry Fowler
+
|author=Lucy Foley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=It was to be Brian's last campHe'd founded the organisation some four years ago and had done all the organisation since but he was leaving school and the time had come to hand the reins to someone else.  The obvious person was Gary, who'd always been the fun element of the camps and Brian had said that on this camp, Gary should act as the leader and he'd just be there to observeThe problem with this was that Gary wasn't really an organiser, an administrator if you like.  He was the entertainer, the person who basked in the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in and did the organisingHe handed the camp over - and then took it backAnd Gary determined to have his revenge.  This should have been ''his'' camp.
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|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The ManorIt'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 famousHer husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the siteThe heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friendsOld scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=194812467X
+
|author=James Baldwin
|title=The Farm Shop
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|title=Giovanni's Room
|author=Devon Avery, Justine Avery and Ema Tepic
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|genre=For Sharing
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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.
|summary=Kirelle and her best friend Sam the cat decide to go for a walk. Kirelle is dressed for all weathers in her bright yellow wellies and Sam is perfectly turned out as ever in his smart grey fur coat. As they walk to the top of the hill, they see a big barn with a sign outside. It's a farm shop! But this is a farm shop with a difference: all the stallholders and customers are farmyard animals. There are sheep and ducks and cows, goats and chickens, and even some mice. Excited, Kirelle and Sam go shopping.
+
|isbn=0141186356
 
 
What will they buy?
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008404925
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=The Killing Kind
+
|title=Wild East
|author=Jane Casey
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Crime
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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 schoolThe 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 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.
|summary=Difficult clients were nothing new to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something of a surpriseAfter all, it was her cross-examination of the 'victim' which saved him from a lengthy prison sentence.  He'd been accused of stalking the woman but it didn't take long to establish that - if anything - it was the other way aroundSoon Ingrid never seemed to be free of John Webster and then she came to see him as a threat and was forced to remember that the police officer at his trial had told her that this was the best chance they'd had to put Webster away for a long time: he was a very dangerous man.
+
|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008395594
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|isbn=1635866847
|title=Both of You
+
|title=The Lavender Companion
|author=Adele Parks
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adoresThen, one Monday, she went to work and never came home. Mark, Oli and Seb are shatteredWell, Mark and Seb are but Oli's sixteen and at the stage where he thinks boredom is his best lookHe's been a bit off with Leigh for a while but she put it down to him growing up and starting to become independentSeb's only twelve and Leigh's absence hits him hardThen Daan Janssen, a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missingShe too has vanished without trace.
+
|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for youBefore 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 homepageI 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 problemI ''loved'' this book already.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1473685745
+
|author=Han Kang
|title=Unbreak Your Heart
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|title=The Vegetarian
|author=Katie Marsh
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Women's Fiction
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|summary=This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the acclaim. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, elusive souls.
|summary=When Beth Carlyle and Simon Withers first met they were on opposite ends of an angry exchange - well, Simon was angry and Beth was doing her best to apologise for having knocked Simon's son, Jake, off his bike. He wasn't hurt but Jake has history. He has HLHS - that's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome for those of you who are not ''au fait'' with your medical acronyms.  When he was born, the left side of his heart hadn't developed properly and he needed open-heart surgery when he was a few days old.  So, Simon has every right to be over-protective particularly when someone isn't looking where they're driving.
+
|isbn=1803510056
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Louie Stowell
+
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Otherland
+
|title=Us in the Before and After
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Teens
|summary= Myra and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra is loud, bright and hates rules, while Rohan is very polite, serious and worries about the tiniest things. Their only connection? Being born and briefly dying at the same time at the same hospital on Midsummer's day. And so, every year their families get together to celebrate the two's birthday/deathday. But when Rohan's little sister Shilpa is taken by the fairy queen, they must journey to the Otherland, a magical realm full of fairies, vampires, dragons, and Gods. It's going to be the worst night of their lives.
+
|summary=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.
|isbn=1788000463
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=walker14
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|isbn=1787333175
|title=The Coldest Case  (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
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|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|author=Martin Walker
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=Crime
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|genre=Popular Science
|summary=It was when he saw Elisabeth Daynes' work in the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies that chief of police Bruno Courreges had the idea which he thought might help his boss, chief of detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, to solve a case that had haunted him for thirty yearsThe body of a young male was found in the woods but he was never identified and his killer never brought to justice. What if an artist could recreate the face from the skull and the resulting publicity be used to identify the young man?  J-J calls the skull 'Oscar' and has a picture on his door: he sees it every time he leaves his office: he doesn't want to forget Oscar until his killer has been brought to justice.
+
|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 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.  
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Martha Leigh
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|title= Invisible Ink: A Family Memoir
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|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating= 5
+
|rating=5
|genre= Biography
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary= Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.
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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.  
|isbn=1800460384
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|isbn=1803511230
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren Shan
+
|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3
+
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=So. Having done the impossible and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Crypt, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has ''grop'' to think about. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those is. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this series. 
+
|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 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?
|isbn=B093J9TF73
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|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Adrian Tchaikovsky
+
|author=David Chadwick
|title= Shards of Earth
+
|title=Headload of Napalm
|rating= 4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|summary= Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world after world falls to the architect's reshaping. Then, just when they had the human race on the run, the Architects vanished. And so, the memories of the war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the Architects, does not want to be remembered. But, when he and the crew of the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the spotlight. As he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…
 
|isbn=1529051886
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=1848458428
 
|title=Local Woman Missing
 
|author=Mary Kubica
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Eleven years ago, a man regularly came home to his wife with lipstick marks on his collar and lame excuses as to why he was late - again. His wife was in the habit of going out for a run late at night.  It was the only time she had for herself when she didn't have to look after her baby - but when she was out she would meet up with a man, grateful for the unquestioning affection he gave her. The locality was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappeared, seemingly without a trace, leaving her husband to look after her disabled baby. Ten days later, a local woman and her six-year-old daughter disappeared. Meredith Dickey was a birth doula and she'd seemed to be under some strain for the last couple of weeks or so. Her body was eventually found in a seedy motel - it appeared that she'd committed suicide.  She left a note saying that her daughter, Delilah, was safe and there was no point in looking for her.
+
|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....
 +
|isbn= B0D321VJ76
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Nicolas Bouvier
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Japanese Chronicles
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= It never does to start a review of a book with a quote from the blurb, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Le Monde reviewed this book, at some point, with the words ''what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpiece.'' It is precisely that. A masterpiece in the sense of the craft as well as the art of writing. I'm going to hesitate to call it 'travel writing' because this is as much a history of Japan, a mythology-primer for the Japanese culture as it is a personal response to living and travelling in the country.  
+
|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.
|isbn=1906011044
+
|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Genevieve Gornichec
+
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=The Witch's Heart
+
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary= A modern and approachable reimagining of the Norse myths that centres around a witch named Angrboda. She hides in a forest at the edge of the nine worlds, remembering nothing of her past life but that fact that she was survived burnt at the stake three times because of Odin's wrath. Her attempts to live in peace, however, are quickly thwarted when Loki shows up with her literal heart—the one that was cut from her chest before she was tied to the stake—and refuses to leave her alone. After an initial period of mistrust, Angrboda begins to fall for Loki's charms, and the two start an unusual family made of up a half-dead daughter, a son that's a wolf, and another son that's a snake.
+
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|isbn=1789097061
+
|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1788549759
+
|isbn=1786482126
|title=The Distant Dead
+
|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|author=Lesley Thomson
+
|author=Elly Griffiths
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was December 1940 and twenty-four-year-old Maple Greenhill had gone out for the evening 'with her friend Ida' leaving her three-year-old son, William, at home with her parentsThe boy thought that Maple was his sister - it was better for the family than the shame of illegitimacy, but Maple had high hopes of putting her life (and William's) on a better footingShe was going to meet her well-to-do fiancé, hoping to persuade him to come and meet her family the following week.  Later, her body would be found in the bombed-out home where he had taken her.
+
|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 doorway.  There was no skull.  Was 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529407249
+
|author=Joan Didion
|title=The Perfect Lie
+
|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|author=Jo Spain
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It was July 2019 and Erin was happy.  She and Danny Ryan were planning a few days away: that's always a dangerous thing to do when you're married to a cop but she was hopeful.    They'd been married for six months and life was good with a decent apartment by the sea in Newport, Long Island. The knock on the door was insistent and when it was opened, Danny's partner, Ben Mitchell was there with a couple of other officers.  Danny took one look, turned, walked to the open window and jumped to his death from the fourth floor.
+
|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.
+
|isbn=0007216858
Eighteen months later, Erin would be on trial for her husband's murder.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1523092734
+
|isbn=0008551324
|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space
+
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Eliza Van Cort
+
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
 
 
 
''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely.  It is to live the life you've always wanted.''
 
 
 
Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk.  Now - to be clear - this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''.  I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space.  If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Darren Shan
 
|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in the world of the Born. It's not been easy, explaining to his foster parents where he's been, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez and his other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done his best.... well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak away.
+
|summary=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.
|isbn=B093H8DPQZ
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008444501
+
|isbn=0241678412
|title=The Answer to Everything
+
|title=The Proof of My Innocence
|author=Luke Kennard
+
|author=Jonathan Coe
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Life should have been good for Emily.  She had a lovely husband, Steven, who was a speech therapistWe'll pass over the fact that they rarely speak to each other and don't even sleep in the same bedIt isn't so much that Emily has left the marital bed as that she's sharing a bed with one of her children as it's the only way to get him to sleep during the nightArthur and Matty are gorgeous but they are a handful and Emily has a job to cope with too - she teaches drama two days a weekThey've not long moved into a new home in Criterion Gardens: it's a trendy area that has been gentrified and it's run on semi-communal lines.  The residents even share eco-friendly electric cars rather than owning their own.
+
|summary=Life after university hasn't worked out quite the way that Phyl anticipated.  She's back home, living with her parents and on a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 of Heathrow AirportAll those ideas of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothingThe situation improves when 'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughter, RashidaChristopher Swann (described by some as a lefty blogger) is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University in the 1980sIt plans to push the government in a more extreme direction and is ready to act.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241985137
+
|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
|title=The Whole Truth (D I Fawley)
+
|author=Claire Dederer
|author=Cara Hunter
+
|rating=3
|rating=5
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|genre=Crime
+
|summary=Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a personal, rather than collective voice.
|summary=DI Adam Fawley's team got to Edith Launceleve College first, called there by Jancis Appleby to see the Principal, Professor Hilary Reynolds.  There had been an accusation of sexual assault by a professor on a student.  When Fawley arrived he was almost cross: what was the alleged perpetrator doing in the room before they'd even got the details from the victim?  The problem was that Caleb Morgan ''was'' the 'victim' and the alleged perpetrator was Professor Marina Fisher. Just to complicate matters further, Caleb's mother is Petra Newson, the local MP, and Professor Fisher is a big name in Artificial Intelligence.  She has an eight-year-old son, buys her wine by the case from Berry Brothers & Rudd, spends more than £1000 a month on clothes and has more than ten thousand Twitter followers.  When the excrement encounters the ventilation equipment, this is going to be ''very'' public.
+
|isbn=1399715070
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker
+
|isbn=1739526910
|title=A Tattoo on my Brain
+
|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Glen Sibley
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.
 
|isbn=1108838936
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=1635862353
 
|title=The Sandalmaking Workshop
 
|author=Rachel Corry
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crafts
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A sandal-making workshop?  I couldn't really believe it, mainly because I'd always thought that you'd need more equipment than the average home was likely to be able to contain but I was intrigued. Rachel Corry started sandal making accidentally - a small fire destroyed some of her shoes.  One pair had come apart and she could see how the sandal was constructed. Then she realised that she couldn't afford to replace all her shoes.  Could she combine these two facts to create a new and worthwhile craft?  She showed quite a few people her first pair and they all either wanted to know how to do it - or if she'd make them a pair.  A new career was born.
+
|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.''
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787332098
+
|isbn=0008405026
|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World
+
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Henry Mance
+
|author=Jane Casey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.''
+
|summary=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.
 +
}}
  
I was going to argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it.  Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover.  If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.
+
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
 +
|title=Nowhere Man
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|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.
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 09:34, 22 December 2024

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Review of

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. Full Review

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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

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Review of

Chimera by Mark Lingane

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.

Broken and fragmented recollections tumble around her head. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come in shallow, ragged gasps as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchable.

There must be a way out. As she moves through the foreign area, memories begin to gel. Disaster had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’s.

As our survivor struggles to orient herself, she's guided by a robot, which looks human-made, but she can't be sure. It says it is. It says she must try not to injure herself. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group of aliens, she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradation, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts to survive - and to attempt to explain how she came to be here, apparently the last human being alive. Full Review

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the acclaim. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, elusive souls. 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

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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

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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

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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

1786482126.jpg

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

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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

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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

The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

4star.jpg Thrillers

Life after university hasn't worked out quite the way that Phyl anticipated. She's back home, living with her parents and on a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport. All those ideas of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothing. The situation improves when 'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughter, Rashida. Christopher Swann (described by some as a lefty blogger) is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University in the 1980s. It plans to push the government in a more extreme direction and is ready to act. Full Review

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Review of

Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People? by Claire Dederer

3star.jpg Politics and Society

Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a biography of the audience in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary cancel culture. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. This model of monstrous men as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a personal, rather than collective voice. 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

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