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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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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
  
==New Reviews==
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Want to learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]].'''
 
  
'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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==The Best New Books==
__NOTOC__
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{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|author=David Ruffle
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|title=Sherlock Holmes and the Lyme Regis Horror - Expanded 2nd Edition
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|rating=4
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{{Frontpage
|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|isbn=1529077745
|summary=Taking a rare holiday on the Dorsetshire coast, Dr Watson manages to persuade Sherlock Holmes to join him. Delighted to spend time with his old friend Godfrey Jacobs, and charmed by widowed boarding house proprietor Mrs Heidler, the good doctor is set for a pleasant and relaxing stay – until mysterious events occur, pointing to an unimaginable evil, and the game’s afoot once more!
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780920563</amazonuk>
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|author=Ann Cleeves
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Crime
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|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled 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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1399613073
 +
|title=Moral Injuries
 +
|author=Christie Watson
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Thrillers
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|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century.  Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.  Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor.  Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP.  When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy.  We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences.  Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends.  This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0241636604
 +
|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
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|author=Gary Stevenson
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|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 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Leanne Egan
|author=Charlie Price
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|title=Lover Birds
|title=Desert Angel
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Fourteen-year-old Angel is alone in an open desert. The man who killed her mother is relentlessly tracking her, and determined to see her buried. Just as she resigns herself to death, the local community suddenly take her in and give her a new identity and an opportunity to hide with a normal family. They believe that she'll be safe, but Angel knows better. She knows Scotty, and she knows that he won't give up so easily. Her constant paranoia threatens to drive a wedge between her and the family who have taken her in, but she is convinced that it is the only thing keeping her alive, and she might just be right.
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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 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552563366</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sally Rooney
|author=Jonathan Auxier
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|title=Intermezzo
|title=Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=From the very beginning of this delightful book you are left in no doubt about the extraordinary and magical adventures you will experience with Peter Nimble and his friends. As a baby Peter is found floating in a basket across the sea. The magistrates give him a name, as the law requires, then leave him to fend for himself. He is raised for a while by a cat, then adopted by Mr Seamus, a beggarmonger who trains him to steal and beats him regularly to ensure he learns his lessons well.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407120646</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sandra Horn and Ken Brown
 
|title=Tattybogle
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At the start of this story, Tattybogle stands in the middle of the field in which he has stood for a long time. He is made of sticks and sacks, wears the farmer's old clothes and his head is full of straw and cheerful thoughts. It would seem that this scarecrow's life is a very good one especially when the wind blows because he likes a bit of a dance. He also likes the rain and when the stars twinkle at night.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842706853</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571365469
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1009473085
|author=Fadi Azzam and Adam Talib
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|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|title=Sarmada
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|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Politics and Society
|summary='Sarmada' is small and remote village in the Northern hills of Syria, close to the Turkish border. And for much of Azzam's novel it seems a forgotten village, lost in the rituals and mysticism of ancient Druze belief and folk tales that inform the collective consciousness of the place. For the novel weaves the tales of three Syrian women and their relationships with each other, the men of their lives and the fabric of a life almost caught in the timeless past of the Middle East.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906697345</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mark Lingane
|author=Derek Keilty
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|title=Chimera
|title=Will Gallows and the Thunder Dragon's Roar
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Because this series revisits traditional western genre stories, this volume concerns the problems caused by settlers muscling in and making demands on the land and resources of the natives. Because it is also a fantasy series, the settlers are humans fleeing an earthquake-raddled territory for new lives where elves live, and if the cavalry are summonsed to take sides they'll do it on flying horses. And because this is a very enjoyable series, the fix half-human, half-elf Will Gallows - who could also qualify as a young member of the sky cavalry - finds himself in is a most compelling plot.
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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.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849393281</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{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=Victoria Eveleigh
 
|title=Katy's Wild Foal
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=It snowed on Katy's birthday but something even more magical was going to happen that day.  When she went out onto Exmoor she discovered a tiny newborn foal and its dam. With wobbly steps the foal walked right up to her and she was spellbound. It wasn't easy but she persuaded her father that the mare and foal needed help and he got them some hay.  Katy couldn't ride but she still longed for that foal. ''Katy's Wild Foal'' is the story of the next year in Katy's life - and the life of the foal - and what a roller coaster it was going to be.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005413</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.''
|author=Ali Shaw
 
|title=The Man Who Rained
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Do you remember being a child who had only just learned how to read?  Do you remember the very first time you read a fairy story that no-one had told you before?  Can you recapture the joy of entering a truly magical land and (for a time) believing it was real?
 
  
No? Then I recommend that you read Ali Shaw's second novel 'The Man Who Rained'.
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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>0857890328</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Colin Grant
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=I & I: The Natural Mystics
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Biography
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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 spookyFor the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tamperingWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|summary=
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|isbn=0008666482
Just mention the word reggae, and the name that nearly always springs to mind is that of Bob Marley and the WailersThe music has always been very much a product of the Jamaican culture, nurtured in years of turbulent historyIn this book Colin Grant, born in Britain of Jamaican parents, goes back deep into its roots, and in the process examines the childhood lives of the Wailers’ three main personalities, namely Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Neville Livingston, better known as Bunny Wailer, to provide an account of the group – but much more than that.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526727</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|author=Celia Rees
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|title=White Nights
|title=This Is Not Forgiveness
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Jamie falls hook, line and sinker for Caro the moment he runs into her at the Rendez. He knows she's bad news. Everyone knows she's bad news. But he just can't help himself. Caro is strong, vital, secretive and beautiful and Jamie is a moth to her flame. He suspects there's someone else in her life but it doesn't make a difference. No matter what everyone else thinks, what his sister Martha says, Caro is not like any other girl Jamie knows. She's worth any risk, despite the disappearances, despite the odd tattoos and scars from self-harm. And there's also Rob. Back from Afghanistan with a shattered leg, Jamie's older brother is descending into a world of drink and drugs. He just can't fit back into small town life. Jamie wants to help him, but Rob is too unpredictable and unstable to reach.  
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408817691</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241619785
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008385068
|author=Anthony McGowan
+
|title=The Midnight Feast
|title=The Donut Diaries: Revenge is Sweet: Book Two
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|author=Lucy Foley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Only the other week I was reviewing and enjoying a book styled as a young lad's diary, where the greatest insult was to call someone a doughnutHere, the hero of a book styled as a young lad's diary, calls himself DonutHe does eat a lot of them, for one, and as a result has a bit of a muffin-top going onHis schoolfriends call him Donut too - those few friends he could gather together into a gang of outcasts and oddments in the first book of this seriesIn this first sequel, covering a couple of months in his second term, there is a very nasty problem, as Donut is framed for leaving unsavoury messages about the school.
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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 MeadowsThe 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552564397</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Baldwin
|author=Philip Palmer
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|title=Giovanni's Room
|title=Artemis
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre=Literary Fiction  
|summary=With every novel, Philip Palmer is going from strength to strength.  I've not always enjoyed his writing style, but his eye for a story is wonderful and his imagination is seemingly endless.  Every time I open one of his novels, I wonder when he will find the limits of his inventiveness and it's never that time.  ''Artemis'' is no exception to that rule.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499455</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0141186356
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Margo Lanagan
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|title=Wild East
|title=The Brides of Rollrock Island
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=On Rollrock Island, the fishermen find their brides from the sea through the usurial offices of the witch Miskaella. They're selkies; seal women who shed their skins to become human. Their husbands are obsessed by them and the men without a selkie will risk anything to become part of the enchantment, even their human wives and children and half their lifetime earnings. Soon there are no human women left on Rollrock - the adults to the mainland and the female selkie babies to the ocean. There are just dads and mams and little boys.  
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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>0857560336</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1635866847
 +
|title=The Lavender Companion
 +
|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Lifestyle
 +
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Han Kang
|author=Matt Haig
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|title=The Vegetarian
|title=To Be A Cat
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Be careful what you wish for - it might actually come true!
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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.
 
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|isbn=1803510056
If someone had said this to Barney Willow before he wished to be a cat, if someone had made him believe it, then he might have avoided a great deal of trouble. But if you want to find out what he'd also have missed out on, then you'll need to read this lively and tragi-comic body swap story.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370332067</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Don Calame
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Beat The Band
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's a welcome return for the trio of Matt, Sean and Cooper from the [[Swim the Fly by Don Calame|earlier book]], but there's a significant difference, as Cooper - something of a zany sidekick in the original - takes centre stage here. Moving on from wanting to see a naked girl last year, this time his goal is to go all the way with a girl. Things are looking bad for him, though, when he's paired up for a health project on safe sex with social pariah Hot Dog Helen. Deciding the only way to overcome the humiliation of association with her is to give the school something else to remember him for, Coop persuades the other two members of the trio to enter the Battle of the Bands competition. Can any of them play an instrument? Oh, come on, what do you think?
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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>184877057X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1787333175
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
+
|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|title=A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Sports
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Horrid Henry is back with another book of freaky facts and random triviaWe loved his book about [[A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Bodies by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross|Bodies]] and this time the lovable lad (well, I'm sure that's what his mother said...) is back with a book about sport.  And in the year of the London Olympic Games, what could be more suitable? It's not just a crammer for [[How to Watch the Olympics: Scores and laws, heroes and zeros – an instant initiation to every sport by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton|every sport in the Games]] or [[The Story of the Olympics by Richard Brassey|the background to the Games]] themselves.  This is the book which swoops into the World Cow Poo Throwing Contest and delves into the Bog Snorkling Championships.
+
|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>1444001647</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|author=Karen Harper
+
|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|title=Shakespeare's Mistress
+
|rating=5
|rating=2
+
|genre=Short Stories
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|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.  
|summary=
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|isbn=1803511230
The conceit of ''Shakespeare's Mistress'' is that Shakespeare was married to Anne Whateley the day before he was married to Anne Hathaway, and Anne W remained the love of his life, with an affair (if you can have an affair with your 'wife') continued in London where the same Anne was also the famed ''dark lady'' of his sonnets. There is some basis for this theory in that the parish records do show a mysterious entry into the register for just such a contract the day before the Hathaway marriage but although the author claims this is 'faction', it's very much at the fiction end of that scale and is really a 'what if?' piece.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091940427</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|author=Margaret Park Bridges
+
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|title=My Dear Watson
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Crime (Historical)
+
|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainNow Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her.  Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing soMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empireCan she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|summary=''My Dear Watson'' is written by the hand of Holmes, Lucy Holmes, whom the world came to know as SherlockYes, the well-loved detective is a female cross-dresser but with good reason.  The young Lucy, having watched her mother die tragically, rushed off to live with her brother, Mycroft, at universityIn order to stay, undetected (no pun intended), she had to dress as a manBeing slight and gamine, this wasn’t difficult and, after a while, she preferred the lifestyleWatson hasn’t seen through the disguise, continuing to live with Holmes between marriages as they combat the odds and solve crimes in (or despite) the police.
+
|isbn=0861546873
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780920768</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=David Chadwick
|author=John R Fultz
+
|title=Headload of Napalm
|title=Seven Princes: Books of the Shaper: Volume 1
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=Thrillers
|genre=Fantasy
+
|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....
|summary=Elhathym gatecrashes a feast at the court of Vod-the-Giant-King demanding the throne, which he asserts was his 3,000 years ago. Vod is a little incredulous and refuses to abdicate. Elhathym then lives up to his job description (evil sorcerer), destroying the entire court... apart from his son, Prince D’zan who manages to escape with his bodyguard, Olthacus the Stone.  Prince D’zan wants to fight to regain his kingdom but the only way to counter Elhathym and his armies of the dead is to form alliances with other nations; alliances that create friendships but also bring treachery and betrayal. Behind it all is Iardu the Shaper, a creation god-like figure who plans and plots.
+
|isbn= B0D321VJ76
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356500810</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tom Percival
|author=Ivan Brett
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=Casper Candlewacks in the Claws of Crime!
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is the second outing for Casper and his friend Lamp, who likes inventing things, but don't worry if you haven't read the first book: this one is fine as a stand-alone. Casper's village is chock-full of idiots, who spend their time doing such ridiculous things you wonder how most of them managed to survive to adulthood. But the idiocy in these books does not encourage the reader, or indeed the author, to sneer: rather, it is a fond and glorious celebration of eccentricity taken to such extremes that it almost seems a different form of sanity. And it seems little lasting damage is done, either. People fall down, over and into things regularly, but never seem to suffer anything worse than a few cuts and bruises. A poor old lady in a wheelchair is thumped over the head, but the next time we see her she's grinning at the crowd and slapping her head to demonstrate what happened. And Casper's mum is such a bad cook she doesn't even take food out of the tin before cooking it, but no one starves. All in all, reading and enjoying the antics of the inhabitants of Corne-on-the-Kobb requires a major suspension of disbelief, which is of course not going to be a problem for the majority of the confident readers these books are written for. Indeed, the only difficulty such readers are going to have is to get through a whole paragraph of the book without dashing off to find someone to read a choice expression or joke to.
+
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident.  Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000741157X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1398527122
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
 +
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Science Fiction
 +
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
 +
|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786482126
|author=Robin Wasserman
+
|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|title=The Book of Blood and Shadow
+
|author=Elly Griffiths
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Nora is an unusual heroine. She is sharp, snarky and funny, and her wry tone and contemporary references will resonate with her readers. But she is also uncompromisingly geeky, and she opts to complete her independent study assignment by joining her three friends at the local university in a research project on the Voynich Manuscript by Edward Kelley (This manuscript actually exists, and has taxed the abilities of some of the greatest code-breakers in the world in the last hundred years.). However Professor Hoffpauer does not consider Nora mature enough to work on the manuscript itself, despite the fact that her linguistic ability is far superior to that of the others, and instead he gives her the lesser task of translating the letters of Kelley's step-daughter Elizabeth Weston.  
+
|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>1907411445</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Joan Didion
|author=Stephen Mackey
+
|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|title=Pushka
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=Autobiography
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|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.
|summary=The circus train is coming to town and little Pushka is asleep in the last wagon. Unfortunately, he topples out and wakes up in fright amongst the enchanted trees of the forest. He is scared by enormous thuds on the ground but then he spies a beautiful dancing girl and instantly falls in love. Little does he know that the lovely girl, Lulu, is a puppet and there is an evil giant controlling her strings and using her to lure Pushka to danger. He finds himself in a lot of trouble when he is enticed into the giant's oven with its fierce burning flames. Luckily, the giant does not reckon on the strength of the love that Lulu feels for her new friend, at it is the power of this that helps her to save him.
+
|isbn=0007216858
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444901346</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008551324
|author=Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
+
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|title=Noah's Child
+
|author=Neil Lancaster
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Joseph, a young Belgian Jew, is sent away by his parents when they grow nervous about the treatment of Jews during World War TwoHe is taken in by a village priest, Father Pons, and given a new identity and a place in Father Pons' school along with an assortment of other children, some of whom are genuine pupils and others who are, like Joseph, seeking sanctuary.
+
|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 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>1848874189</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0241678412
|author=Hiawyn Oram and David Melling
+
|title=The Proof of My Innocence
|title=The Totally Terrifying Three
+
|author=Jonathan Coe
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=This story sees the gathering together of three unlikely friends: a dragon, a witch and a giantThey all consider themselves to be TOTALLY TERRIFYING, yet when they meet each other, they're not scaredAs they wander around together they come across a toddler.  She isn't phased by any of them and the totally terrifying three soon find themselves entertaining her with a shoulder ride, a trip on the broomstick and a sweetly crooned dragon lullaby.  It seems the three friends are not so terrifying after all!
+
|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 nothing.  The situation improves when 'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughter, RashidaChristopher Swann (described by some as a lefty blogger) is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University in the 1980s.  It plans to push the government in a more extreme direction and is ready to act.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444903020</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
|author=Sue Townsend
+
|author=Claire Dederer
|title=The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
+
|rating=3
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|genre=General 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=The country might be at war over the Falklands but life is hardly straight-forward in the Mole household.  Adrian's parents are back together after both had disastrous affairs and it's not long before Adrian is shocked to learn that his mother is pregnant. He's equally shocked to see his father helping Doreen (a.k.a. the 'stick insect') along a path which isn't particularly slippy, although he does notice that she seems to have put on quite a bit of weight. Pandora Braithwaite is as fickle, but adorable, as ever and Adrian's hormones are still playing hop-scotch with his brain. So, what's new?
+
|isbn=1399715070
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046430</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1739526910
|author=Susan Hill
+
|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|title=A Kind Man
+
|author=Glen Sibley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Eve, and her husband, the title character, Tommy.  She's at a bit of a sticky wicket in life, for however much they want a baby, her sister and his feckless husband churn out son after son after son, and go no lengths at all to love them. So when Eve and Tommy do at last have a child, it's a tragedy for it to die when only three years old. But in this plot, which you'll thank me for not going into further, there will be a lot more swings and roundabouts, of torment and ecstasy, doldrums and delights, hell and heaven, to come.
+
|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555441</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008405026
|author=Paul Geraghty
+
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|title=Slobcat
+
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=''Slobcat is our cat.''<br>
 
''He does nothing but lie''<br>
 
''about and sleep.''
 
 
 
Well that is what the little girl who tells this wonderful story about a most endearing cat thinks. Actually, she is quite wrong, as the reader discovers, as the story progresses. Because she and the rest of the family only see him lazing around and sleeping, they have named him Slobcat. It is a term of affection though as they do really love their cat, even though they have got him quite wrong. She tells the reader that Slobcat is too lazy to eat his dinner; often comes home soaking wet because he can't be bothered to shelter from the rain and he would be totally useless if there were any rats or mice that might need catching.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849393885</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Phillip Thomas Tucker
 
|title=Exodus From the Alamo
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Remember the Alamo!
 
 
 
The war-cry of generations of Americans is based upon the idea of the hugely outnumbered defenders of the Texan mission against the marauding Mexicans standing in defence of an ideal until death.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1612000762</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Wendy Meddour
 
|title=A Hen in the Wardrobe
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=It was a quiet night in Cinnamon Grove, with all its residents settled in for a peaceful night's sleep. But all is not well with everyone. At number 32, there is a sudden crash and Ramzis’ dad is on the move… looking for a hen in the wardrobe! But that isn’t all. So far, Dad has been chasing frogs across the pantry floor, searching for a leopard in the back garden and sailing to the moon in the bathtub. Dad is sleep-walking again, because he is homesick. The only solution is for the family to take off for an extended visit to his home, a Berber village in the mountains of Algeria. While there, Ramzi encounters Boulelli (a giant spider in the forest), the Wise Man of the mountains and the native Tuareq in the desert in an effort to solve Dad’s problem for good. But will any of it work? Or will it be up to Ramzi and his secret plan to save the day?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847802257</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Belinda Bauer
 
|title=Finders Keepers
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Set in Exmoor, plucky little Jess Took is kidnapped from her father's vehicle while he is off managing the local hunt. Before you can say 'who took Took?' another little boy is plucked from his parents' car. In both scenes the only evidence is a post-it note saying 'you don't love her' or him. On the case is DI Reynolds who is initially more concerned with how his new hair transplant is taking until the crimes escalate to a full scale serial abduction case.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593066901</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Katie Dale
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|title=Someone Else's Life
+
|title=Nowhere Man
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=
+
|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.
Rosie's beloved mother Trudie has just died of Huntington's disease and now Rosie has a terrible decision to make: should she get tested and discover whether or not she has inherited the mutated gene that causes this fatal illness? But just as she decides that truth and knowledge is better than fear, Rosie discovers that Trudie wasn't her biological mother. She and a dying baby were swapped at birth. So Rosie sets out to the States to find her real mother, accompanied by Andy, an ex-boyfriend with whom she hopes to rekindle a love that never quite died. They find more than Rosie could ever have expected, and she is faced with an even more agonising choice: live a lie, or tell the truth and destroy lives just as hers has been destroyed...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857071416</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Ackroyd
 
|title=Dickens: A Memoir of Middle Age
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=
 
With publishers falling over each other in an effort to outdo each other in celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth, it was perhaps inevitable that we should see a reappearance of what has become the modern standard life, by Peter Ackroyd. The 1200-page original was first published in 1990, while this 600-page abridged edition surfaced in 1994, and now makes another timely appearance.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099437090</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Curtis Jobling
 
|title=Wereworld: Shadow of the Hawk
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=At the start of Shadow of the Hawk, our heroes are in disarray. Drew, having bitten off his hand to escape Vanmorten and the undead, is in captivity, about to be forced to fight as a gladiator. The Staglord Manfred and the Wereshark Vega, two of the three remaining members of the Wolf's Council, are on the run, spiriting Drew's mother to safety. And Hector, the third of the Council... oh, Hector!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141340495</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 09:34, 22 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 Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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

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Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

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

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Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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

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Review of

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

5star.jpg Politics and Society

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

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Review of

Chimera by Mark Lingane

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

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

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5star.jpg Short Stories

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

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Review of

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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

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Review of

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

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

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Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

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

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Review of

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

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

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Review of

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

5star.jpg Popular Science

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

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Review of

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

5star.jpg Short Stories

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

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Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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

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Review of

Headload of Napalm by David Chadwick

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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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

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