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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>
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<metadesc>Expert, full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
 
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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==New Reviews==
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]].'''
 
  
'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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Want to learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
__NOTOC__
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{{newreview
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==The Best New Books==
|author=Neil Jordan
 
|title=Mistaken
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=The front cover photograph and the blurb on the back cover give this book a misty, floaty, ethereal feel.  The story starts at the end, if you get my drift.  The adult Kevin attends a local funeral but he's careful to remain low-key, hidden almost.  Why is that?  And whose funeral is it anyway?  As early as page 6, Jordan's poetic and atmospheric style is apparent in lines such as ' ... close to the line of yew trees, were the massed umbrellas of the mourners, retreating, like so many mushrooms come alive in a fairy-tale forest.'
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848544197</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|author=Helen Humphreys
 
|title=The Reinvention of Love
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary='The Reinvention of Love' is one of those stories that is so bizarre and strange that it could only be based on factual events. Essentially it is a good, old-fashioned love triangle set mostly in Paris in the period from the 1830s to the 1860s; a world where fighting duels is a commonplace event. The triangle features the great French literary writer Victor Hugo, his wife Adèle and the altogether strange critic Charles Saint-Beuve who narrates much of this story, with brief breaks for Adèle's side of events and some letters written by the Hugo's youngest daughter, also called Adèle (but let's call her, as she was known to her family, Dédé to avoid confusion).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687985</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|author=Nat Lambert and Andrea Petrlik
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{{Frontpage
|title=Colours Sticker Activity Book
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|isbn=0241636604
|rating=3.5
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|genre=For Sharing
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|author=Gary Stevenson
|summary=It's lovely to find a book – and even better to find a series of books - which allow parents and children to do something constructive togetherThe first book which we looked at was ''Colours''On each double page spread there are plenty of things to talk about with your child, stickers to find and put in the appropriate spaces and then a game or an activity to completeYou'll find songs to sing, pictures to colour in and join-the-dot pictures to complete. There are even some smiley faces so that you can reward your child for what they've achieved.  They're suitable for the three plus age group and will be enjoyed by both boys and girls.
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|rating=4.5
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849562938</amazonuk>
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|genre=Autobiography
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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 EconomicsStevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envyHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid.  It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with CitibankEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Leanne Egan
|author=Krystyna Kuhn
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|title=Lover Birds
|title=The Game
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Meet Julia and Robert.  They're siblings on their way to Grace College, an exclusive campus stuck up in the Canadian wilderness.  It's a rum place, set by a lake under lowering mountainsIt's a place of sudden night-time blackouts, unexpected screams through the dark, mysterious parties clandestinely held out of sight, and pupils declaring it all 'evil', but what is student prank and what is due to something more sinister?  And what could Julia and Robert possibly be running from to force them to this strange end of the earth?
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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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410562</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sally Rooney
 +
|title=Intermezzo
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=General Fiction
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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.
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|isbn=0571365469
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1009473085
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|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
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|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
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|rating=5
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|genre=Politics and Society
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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 you.  If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous 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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Mark Lingane
 +
|title=Chimera
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Science Fiction
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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.''
  
{{newreview
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''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.''
|author=Wesley Stace
 
|title=Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary="Nothing in recent fiction prepared me for the power and the polish of this subtle tale of English music in the making, a chiller wrapped in an enigma [New Statesman]"
 
  
"His handling of dry comic dialogue and cynical affectation is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse… an intelligent, fun and thoughtful piece of fiction [Independent on Sunday]"
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''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.''
  
Just two of the previous reviews that adorn the back cover of 'Charles Jessold…'
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546574</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Robin Tzannes and Korky Paul
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=When Chico Went Fishing
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=For Sharing
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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 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?
|summary=Chico wants to go fishing with his father very much, and begs him, but dad says no, he will make too much noise and scare away the fish. In the end, Chico sets out to go fishing on his own, and he does really well. This is a very simple story. It is accompanied though by fascinating, detailed illustrations. In fact, it is billed as a Korky Paul picture book, one in which illustrator Korky Paul has done the drawings. I think this is really interesting as often illustrated children’s books are sold on the basis of the author of the text.
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|isbn=0008666482
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729942</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|author=Elisabeth McNeill
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|title=White Nights
|title=East of Aden
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|rating=5
|rating=3
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|genre=Short Stories
|genre=Women's Fiction
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|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
|summary=It was said that something strange happened to women when they went east of Aden. The normal rules of behaviour seemed to have been left at home and anything – well just about anything – seemed to go.  Back in the early nineteen sixties three women met in Bombay.  How would they fare in the hot climate?  It wasn't just the women who changed when they went out to India, either. How would the husbands of Jess, Joan and Jackie cope when sex seemed to be freely available wherever they looked?
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|isbn=0241619785
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709092458</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008385068
|author=Richard Byrne
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|title=The Midnight Feast
|title=This Book Belongs To Aye-Aye
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|author=Lucy Foley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Aye-Aye goes to Miss Deer's Academy For Aspiring Picture-Book Animals. Dontcha just love that concept? He's desperate to be in a book of his own, but he's not quite ready yet. Miss Deer announces that there's going to be a very special prize for the most helpful animal of the week. However, as the week goes on, the parameters of the competition seem to change, and the Rabbit Twins are up to their usual cheeky shenanigans.
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|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised.  It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site.  The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends.  Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192756192</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Baldwin
|author=Jan Ormerod and Lindsey Gardiner
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|title=Giovanni's Room
|title=The Animal Bop Won't Stop
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
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|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=The words are easy to read aloud and would be fun, perhaps, to share with a small group of co-operative pre-school children and try out the suggested movements. If you want to get your kids dancing, this might not be the best choice at bedtime, and my boys are a bit wary of directed activity (so we exercise them in the park).
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|isbn=0141186356
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019278014X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Vincent Caldey
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|title=Wild East
|title=A Good Clean Edge
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=After an acrimonious divorce, Vincent chooses to stay with his father and not his mother and sister. As his father works away much of the time, they go to live with Vincent's grandparents, who run an undertaking business. Vincent, a reserved and sensitive child, is being bullied on his way in to his new school by Frankie Lennox from the grammar school, who goes so far as to threaten Vincent with a knife.  
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408313022</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1635866847
|author=Francisco X Stork
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|title=The Lavender Companion
|title=Marcelo in the Real World
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Marcelo has spent his childhood and the majority of his teenage years at Paterson, a private school that caters specifically for those with disabilities, providing them with a protected environment where they can learn at their own rate and feel accepted. However, his father Arturo feels that it is time that Marcelo experiences the ''real world'' and really challenges himself. Using the promise of a senior year spent at Paterson rather than a public school, Arturo coerces Marcelo to take up a small position for the summer in the law firm that he owns. In the firm, Marcelo is forced to interact regularly with a plethora of different personalities, and while some prove to be enjoyable company, others leave him feeling confused and distressed. Things really come to a head when he is forced to make a momentous decision, one that requires him to either ignore his conscience, or end up betraying his father and by extension himself; it is not a decision that is logical, and will require Marcelo to not only empathise with others, but also understand what makes himself tick.
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|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you.  Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage.  I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it.  Notes in the margins are sanctioned.  You get to fold down the corners of pages.  You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407121006</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Han Kang
|author=Karen Harper
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|title=The Vegetarian
|title=The Queen's Governess
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Historical 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=Kat Ashley isn't a name one usually associates with the Tudor era, but just like the more famous characters of the period, she has her own fascinating story to tell, a story which this book captures perfectly. As Thomas Cromwell's spy, Anne Boleyn's confidante and later Princess Elizabeth's governess, Kat Ashley certainly knew the Tudor court well and it is through her fictional diary entries that the reader is invited to know the dazzling, yet dangerous Tudor court too.
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|isbn=1803510056
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091940419</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sally Gardner
 
|title=Snow White
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Having read many retellings of Grimms' tales, it is refreshing to read one that expands the story familiar into six short chapters while remaining faithful to the original narrative. Gardner adds some detail to the story (the Seven Dwarfs try to protect Snow White by inventing some alarm systems to warn of the queen's approach, and Snow White is making an apple pie when the queen disguised as an old woman arrives with the poisoned apple) but does not remove or prettify the more violent aspects of the story; the huntsman kills a deer and persuades the queen that its heart is Snow White's, and the queen is ''smashed to smithereens'' on rocks as she tries to escape from the dwarfs . The prince arriving and Snow White returning to life after the piece of poisoned apple is jolted from her mouth is the resolution to the story, but the dwarfs being the guests of honour at the wedding is a nice touch.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002430</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Andrew Wheen
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Dot-Dash To Dot.Com
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=You know exactly what you're getting when you read the summary of Andrew Wheen's ''Dot-Dash To Dot.Com''. ''How Modern Telecommunications Evolved from the Telegraph to the Internet'' sums it up perfectly. This is a history of technology and the people involved in creating that technology. It serves as a primer for anyone with an interest or need to know about telecommunications.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441967591</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paula Leyden
 
|title=The Butterfly Heart
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary='The Butterfly Heart' takes place in Zambia, the beautiful 'butterfly heart' of Africa. The story is told through two voices: Bul-Boo, a young girl who lives with her family and twin sister Madillo, and Ifwafwa, the Snake Man. He is old and wise and has the unique ability to communicate with snakes. The twins' lovely and gentle friend Winifred is in trouble. Her father has died, and his brother has arranged for her to marry his friend, a man old enough to be Winifred's grandfather. Winifred seems resigned to her fate, but Bul-Boo is determined to do something, and in desperation, the twins turn to Ifwafwa.
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406327921</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1787333175
|author=Rodney Bolt
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|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|title=As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil: The Impossible Life of Mary Benson
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
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|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Since I hadn't previously heard of Archbishop Benson, let alone his wife, I must commend the title, cover and advertising of this book. All of the above provided an accurate and irresistible glimpse of the biography within, and I wasn't one whit disappointed in my choice.
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|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography.  ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a 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.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548615</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|author=Nigel Hamilton
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|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|title=American Caesars: Lives of the US Presidents, from Franklin D Roosevelt to George W Bush
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=History
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The premise is simple: take twelve men (and unfortunately they are all men, but that's not the author's fault) who have achieved high office and look at each of them.  Firstly, take a look at the road to the high office, then how they performed once they reached their goal and finally a look at their private life. Suetonius did it first when he wrote ''The Twelve Caesars'' and now Nigel Hamilton has taken the same journey with ''American Caesars'', a remarkably in-depth look at twelve consecutive American presidents from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, starting with Franklin D Roosevelt and finishing with George W Bush.
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|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520419</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1803511230
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|author=David Bedford and Julian Russell
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|title=Bouncy Bouncy Bedtime
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
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|genre=General Fiction
|genre=For Sharing
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary 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?
|summary=At the very start of this book it is bedtime, but before going to sleep, the author asks the young reader:
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|isbn=0861546873
 
 
'Have you ever wondered what the animals do?<br>
 
Do they go to bed like me and you?'
 
 
 
and then we are asked to imagine...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405257423</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=David Chadwick
|author=John Hegley and Neal Layton
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|title=Headload of Napalm
|title=Stanley's Stick
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Stanley loves his stick and carries it everywhere. He loves to play with it and finds all sorts of uses for it. Forget all those expensive plastic toys; the stick is the best toy he could have. (It is nice to see a child in a book playing with something that doesn’t cost money).
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|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until....
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340988185</amazonuk>
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|isbn= B0D321VJ76
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Josh Lacey
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=Island of Thieves
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=While Tom's parents have their first childless holiday in decades, our hero is supposed to be staying at his uncle Harvey's flat.  Unfortunately his uncle is a roustabout adventurer, and with a clue to a treasure's location is himself going to Peru to seek the rest of the mapWhen Tom invites himself along he has no idea Harvey is already wanted by Peru's biggest criminal, nor what this impetuous decision will lead too...
+
|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 accidentThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392455</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1398527122
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kjartan Poskitt and David Tazzyman
 
|title=Agatha Parrot and the Floating Head as Typed Out Neatly by Kjartan Poskitt
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Agatha Parrot lives on Odd Street, which is appropriate since her story is rather an odd one.  Part school drama, part slapstick farce this is a funny, ridiculous romp of a story!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140525596X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Laura Barella
 
|title=The Little Mermaid
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=I've always found the story of the Little Mermaid to be a rather strange choice for a toddler's picture book since it doesn't have the expected happy ending.  Of course that means that usually the ending gets altered, to make it palatable for little ones.  This particular retelling for younger children is unusual as it steers clear of a romantic happy ending in Disney-style and actually ends on quite a solemn, sad note.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846433258</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Carol Thompson
 
|title=Snug!
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=What makes you feel snug? Tucked up like a bug in a rug? Being as snug as a mole in his underground hole? This story looks at all different ways that make us feel cosy and warm.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846433738</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|author=Neil Griffiths and Vicki Leigh
+
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|title=The Scarecrow Who Didn't Scare
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Farmer Wallace makes himself a scarecrow, but the crows and rabbits and mice take no notice of it, eating the seeds and shoots and ears of corn so that when the farmer comes to harvest his crops he finds nothing.  He throws his scarecrow into the hedge in a temper and there poor scarecrow lies...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905434928</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Schama
 
|title=Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Ice Cream, Obama, Churchill and My Mother
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The collection has been divided into reader-friendly sections named, for example - ''Travelling, Testing Democracy, Cooking and Eating'', to name but three.  As a professor of Art History, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there's also a rather chunky section on Schama's thoughts on the art world.  Politics also is a centre-stage subject.  Each article is headed with where it first appeared and the numerous Guardian pieces may be well-known to some. So I suppose you could say that this is second time around, for those who missed the first publication.  Not a bad thing at all when the writing is as good as this, I'd say.
+
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546655</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1786482126
|author=Alyxandra Harvey
+
|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|title=Haunting Violet
+
|author=Elly Griffiths
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Violet Willoughby is the daughter of one of England's foremost mediums. With her mother in high demand, she follows her, assisting in her work as she puts the cream of society in touch with their dear departed. Of course, it's all fake. Violet has spent seven years helping her mother con the gullible into believing she has real psychic powers, so Violet herself certainly doesn't believe in ghosts. Which makes it all the more surprising when one appears to 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 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.
 
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408811316</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Joan Didion
|author=Siddhartha Sarma
+
|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|title=The Grasshopper's Run
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=India 1944, and the Japanese are coming. In a brutalopening, we see the inhabitants of a small village get massacred, and the brutal killing of Uti, grandson of the leader of the tribe who live there. His best friend Gojen escapes, as he's in school far away. On hearing of the tragedy, the youngster swears revenge, and embarks on a journey which will take him across his country in search of the man responsible for his friend's death.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809400</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Yvonne Woon
 
|title=Dead Beautiful
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Renee is a normal school girl living in sunny California. On her sixteenth birthday she is drawn to the woods by her house. There she finds the dead bodies of her parents, surrounded by scattered coins, and shreds of cloth in their mouths. The police say they both died from a heart attack, but Renee isn't convinced — something more sinister must be going on.
+
|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409530248</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0007216858
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008551324
|author=Ruth Dugdall
+
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|title=The Sacrificial Man
+
|author=Neil Lancaster
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Synchronicity? Is that what they call it, when unconnected events chime with each other in unavoidable significance? Maybe it is just the human need to see patterns and make connections where there are none, but it's still weird when it happens. In a week that saw a storyline in ''Emmerdale'' echoed in a very personal documentary by Terry Pratchett considering the possibility of choosing the nature and time of  his own end, I found myself reading 'The Sacrificial Man'.  
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908248009</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0241678412
|author=B R Collins
+
|title=The Proof of My Innocence
|title=Gamerunner
+
|author=Jonathan Coe
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=The Maze is more than just a role-playing game. Rick is one of the many who immerse themselves entirely in the game, and essentially live their life in its virtual reality. He is one of the lucky ones. Thanks to the fact that his guardian, Daed, is the mind behind the Maze and is employed by the powerful and merciless firm Crater, Rick has lived a protected life, one spent inside the thick walls of the multi-storeyed headquarters of Crater. He has never had to go outside and live a life of extreme poverty under the constant threat of gangs or, even worse, the lethal acid rain that is a part of the intensely polluted atmosphere.
+
|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408806487</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
|author=Roy Jacobsen, Don Bartlett (translator) and Don Shaw (translator)
+
|author=Claire Dederer
|title=Child Wonder
+
|rating=3
|rating=5
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|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=1961 was a year of change, a time, as Jacobsen puts it, ''when men became boys and housewives women''. At the outset Finn and his mother are leading a quiet, rather timorous life in a working class Oslo suburb. Then change overwhelms them, not through world events, but in the form of a mysterious child who is Finn's half sister. Linda is not like other children and Finn's attempt to deal with her impact on his family is the central thread in this quintessential story of growing up.
+
|isbn=1399715070
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050184</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1739526910
|author=Julia Jarman and Guy Parker-Rees
+
|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|title=Ants in Your Pants!
+
|author=Glen Sibley
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Leopard is having a birthday party but he has very clear ideas about who should and shouldn't be invited. Specifically, he doesn't want to invite
+
|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.''
Aardvark - I really wondered what the poor animal had done to be so maligned. Aardvark isn't really too bothered, but Big Ant is very offended, and he brings all his friends to bite the party guests' bottoms. Who will come to the rescue and save Leopard's party? Why, Aardvark of course. There is a moral here - don't exclude people from your party because they're not cool enough.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408305259</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Scarry
 
|title=Richard Scarry's Funniest Storybook Ever
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=This new edition of Richard Scarry's Funniest Storybook Ever includes eleven
 
stories about the inhabitants of Busytown.  These "people" are drawn as various animals, and many of them appear in several stories. The local policeman, Sergeant Murphy is a dog wearing a helmet, riding round on a motorbike, and he is kept busy investigating everything from theft to talking bread. He is often assisted by his friends Huckle (a cat) and Lowly (a worm).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007413556</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008405026
|author=Chris Higgins
+
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|title=He's After Me
+
|author=Jane Casey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=
+
|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.
Anna's father has run off with a younger woman, the hated Jude. Her mother is a wreck because of it. Her little sister Livi is going off the rails and running with a bad crowd. All this mayhem is anathema to Anna, who is a reserved, cautious and hardworking girl with an ambition to study literature at university. If this is what unrestrained, rampant emotions result in, then Anna's having none of it. She's never been in love and in many ways she sees this as a blessing.
 
 
 
And then she meets Jem.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034099701X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529077745
|author=Neil Griffiths
+
|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|title=Mrs Rainbow
+
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Mrs Rainbow lives in Rainbow cottage, an amazing brightly coloured country cottageOn the inside every room is a different colour, whilst Mrs Rainbow herself wears colourful outfits and dyes her hair amazing shades from beautiful blonde through to peacock green!  One day, however, she receives a visit from the local planning councillors and is told she must paint her house to match the rest of the village...grey!
+
|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905434936</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1399613073
|author=Salman Rushdie
+
|title=Moral Injuries
|title=Luka and the Fire of Life
+
|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Back in 1990, Salman Rushdie followed up his controversial 'Satanic Verses' with a book dedicated to his then nine year old son, Zafar, called 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories'. Now, his second son, Milan, finally gets a book of his own, although he had to wait until he was 13 for his father to get around to it. 'Luka and the Fire of Life' is very much a follow up to 'Haroun' and it is certainly helpful, although not necessary, if you have read that book as many of the events in the first book are referred to here.
+
|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor.  Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP.  When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy.  We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences.  Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends.  This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555328</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Karen Abbott
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|title=A Father For Daisy
+
|title=Nowhere Man
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Beatrice Rossall found herself in a difficult position.  Her widowed father was an elderly vicar who took in a young unmarried girl who was expecting a baby. Soon after the baby's birth the mother died and Bea's father died not long after, leaving Bea in charge of Daisy who was only a few weeks old and with the prospect that she would have no home within a matter of days.  She couldn't get work because of Daisy – with a lot of people believing that she was Daisy's mother – but she wasn't going to let Daisy go to the workhouse.  At the end of the nineteenth century this wasn't a good position to be in.
+
|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709092415</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Barbara Sinatra
 
|title=Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank Sinatra
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Barbara Blakeley, born in 1926, was married firstly to Robert Oliver, an executive, with whom she had a son, and secondly to Zeppo Marx. But it was the already thrice-married and thrice-divorced Francis Albert Sinatra, whom she had idolized as a singer for a long time, with whom she would make her most enduring marriage, and vice versa. They tied the knot in 1976, and stayed together until his death in 1998.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937248</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 09:21, 19 December 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

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

0571365469.jpg

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

1803510056.jpg

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

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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

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