Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

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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]].
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0811771741
+
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=InstaKnits for Baby
+
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|author=Melissa Leapman
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|genre=Crafts
+
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety.  The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours.  All the projects are attractive, modern and useable.  I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Dean Koontz
+
|isbn=1786482126
|title=The Bad Weather Friend
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
 +
|author=Elly Griffiths
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Paranormal
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day.  He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed.  Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luckHe is a nice person. A really nice personSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good personSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
+
|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 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.
|isbn=1662500491
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Adam Stower
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|author=Joan Didion
|title=Murray and Bun
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|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two.  But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs.  This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
+
|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=0008561249
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|isbn=0007216858
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
+
|isbn=0008551324
|title=Fragility
+
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Mosby Woods
+
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
 
 
 
''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=1529431735
 
|title=The Winter Visitor
 
|author=James Henry
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprisingHe'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decadeThe return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to liveIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford SierraIs it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
+
|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 dateNot 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
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|isbn=0241678412
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
+
|title=The Proof of My Innocence
 +
|author=Jonathan Coe
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runsEli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the familyA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beastThis has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.
+
|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, Rashida.  Christopher 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.
|isbn=0571382231
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763681X
+
|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
|title=Knife Skills for Beginners
+
|author=Claire Dederer
|author=Orlando Murrin
+
|rating=3
|rating=4
+
|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=Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia.  He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted.  Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
+
|isbn=1399715070
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Marsh
+
|isbn=1739526910
|title=A Sign of Her Own
+
|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Glen Sibley
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing.  From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech.  At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.
+
|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.''
|isbn=1035401614
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803816759
+
|isbn=0008405026
|title=The Unravelling
+
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Will Gibson
+
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
+
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529421284
+
|isbn=1529077745
|title=Laying Out the Bones
+
|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|author=Kate Webb
+
|author=Ann Cleeves
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave.  In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier.  He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convincedGeary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the timeLockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
+
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571379559
+
|isbn=1399613073
|title=The House of Broken Bricks
+
|title=Moral Injuries
|author=Fiona Williams
+
|author=Christie Watson
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four peopleTess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricksInsubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floodsHer husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient moneyThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twinsSonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his fatherPeople don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
+
|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 GPWhen 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 friendsThis time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0241636604
 +
|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
 +
|author=Gary Stevenson
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Autobiography
 +
|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 StevensonA 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 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529425867
+
|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)
+
|title=Lover Birds
|author=Simon Mason
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Teens
|summary=In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins.  Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed.  D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not.  He's not any of those thingsHe's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies.  They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs.  Well, you're not.  The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin.  Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well.  Sometimes it's problematic.
+
|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=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Mosby Woods
+
|author=Sally Rooney
|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn
+
|title=Intermezzo
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre=General Fiction  
|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?
+
|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.
|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
+
|isbn=0571365469
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Alastair Humphreys
+
|isbn=1009473085
|title=Local
+
|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
 +
|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the worldAnd then written about itFor this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about itAs he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…''  One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.
+
|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 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.
|isbn=1785633678
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1805141872
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=Rob Keeley
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
+
|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 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?
 
+
|isbn=0008666482
Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
+
}}
 +
{{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=0760381267
+
|isbn=0008385068
|title=Verdura: Living a Garden Life
+
|title=The Midnight Feast
|author=Perla Sofia Curbelo-Santiago
+
|author=Lucy Foley
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=''The most important part of a garden is the one who enjoys it''.
+
|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 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.
 
 
I've 'gardened' in a vague, indefinite sort of way for more than half a centuryI know (most of) the basics but life has changed and I needed 'projects' rather than a general commitment to gardening''Verdura'' with its promise of projects for both indoors and outdoors of varying complexity seemed like the answerSo, how did it stack up?
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CP95J1CG
+
|author=James Baldwin
|title=Of Ghosts & Broken Promises
+
|title=Giovanni's Room
|author=Mark Lingane
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=Literary Fiction  
|summary= Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to the party but his interest is piqued by the way it arrived. And it seems like a good opportunity to get out of his room and away from the online activities he makes a living at. So he makes his way there, dodging the buses that make up most of the traffic and watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefully.
+
|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
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1454955546
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=Sugarless
+
|title=Wild East
|author=Nicole M Avena
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Teens
|genre=Lifestyle
+
|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.
|summary=''This isn't a diet book.  The last thing anyone needs is another diet book.''
+
|isbn=0241645441
 
 
There was a time, not that long ago, when it was thought that sugary food was better for you than food with high-fat contentFat was the demon food which was going to elevate your cholesterol and cause heart disease.  Sugar was a carbohydrate, so goodThere's a problem, though.  Sugar is addictive and can hijack your brain in much the same way as drugs like heroin and cocaine.  Does that sound over the top?  Well, it isn't.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1521129886
+
|isbn=1635866847
|title=They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries)
+
|title=The Lavender Companion
|author=Keith Redfern
+
|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Greg Mason's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where he'll warn someone about how much he chargesIt's a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and they're both delighted.  Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sicknessGreg is approached by an old friend whose brother-in-law appears to have killed himselfStuart's concerned about his sister, Lucy, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thrivingLucy, he says, is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and the coroner have accepted that the death was suicide, but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find out what happened on the night Gil died.
+
|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 itNotes 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CK3MYJ56
+
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)
+
|title=Us in the Before and After
|author=Ann Macarthur
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Teens
|genre=Crime
+
|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.
|summary=It's the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years oldHe used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession?  On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something.  Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing.  Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train.  Greg's been asked to investigate.
+
|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Katherine Howe
+
|isbn=1787333175
|title=A True Account
+
|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Benji Waterhouse
|genre=General Fiction
+
|rating=5
|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age.  When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watchEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates.  She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boyShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.
+
|genre=Popular Science
|isbn=0861547438
+
|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.  
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Tananarive Due
+
|author=Mariana Enriquez
|title=The Reformatory
+
|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|genre=Short Stories
|summary= Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...
+
|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=1803366532
+
|isbn=1803511230
}}  
+
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471180158
+
|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=Maybe Tomorrow
+
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|author=Penny Parkes
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick.  Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrumSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to schoolMissed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong.  It was going to come to a head.
+
|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 herAnuri 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 empireCan she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
 +
|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Harry Allen
+
|author=David Chadwick
|title=Children of the Sun
+
|title=Headload of Napalm
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.
+
|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=1805140493
+
|isbn= B0D321VJ76
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Edel Rodriguez
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic Novels
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in CubaThe revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all.  Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away.  Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned uponThe mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
+
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of waysHe 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 hopeHe 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=1474616720
+
|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=K P O'Donnell
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
+
|title=Nowhere Man
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Deborah Stone
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…
 
|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=1838954481
 
|title=The Misper
 
|author=Kate London
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that. He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw.  He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer. And so lives must go on. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.
+
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035025299
+
|author=Virginie Despentes
|title=Went to London, Took the Dog
+
|title=King Kong Theory
|author=Nina Stibbe
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
+
|genre=Autobiography  
|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect.  The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.
+
|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.
 +
|isbn=191309734X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL
+
|author=Alba de Cespedes
|title=Radio Free Olympia
+
|title=Forbidden Notebook
|author=Jeffrey Dunn
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.  After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.
+
|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.
 +
|isbn=1782278222
 
}}
 
}}
 
[[Leveraging CapCut's Online Photo Editor to Elevate Your Clothing Brand's Visual Appeal|.]]
 

Latest revision as of 08:52, 27 November 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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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

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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

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

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

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

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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

1471196585.jpg

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

0861546873.jpg

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

B0D321VJ76.jpg

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

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