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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and children's books plus author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>
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<metadesc>Expert, full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
<h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>
 
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
 
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''],  [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''],
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==New Reviews==
 
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]].'''
 
  
'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
  
{{newreview
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Want to learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
|title=All my Friends are Superheroes
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|author=Andrew Kaufman
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==The Best New Books==
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529077745
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
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|author=Ann Cleeves
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|rating=4.5
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|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
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|title=Moral Injuries
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|author=Christie Watson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary='There are 249 superheroes in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.' Tom is not one of them, but he had just got married to one – the Perfectionist – when her jealous ex, Hypno, hypnotised her into being completely unable to see or hear or otherwise respond to himIt certainly led to the wedding night Tom was least expecting – instead of the usual, he began to work out her new responses to him when he tried to touch her, such as hiccupping when he touched her head, spasms when he tried hand contactNow, six months on, the Perfectionist is quitting the city for a new life.  He is in the plane seat right next to her, hoping against hope to get what they had back…
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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 doctorAnjali 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>1846591600</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0241636604
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
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|author=Gary Stevenson
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|rating=4.5
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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 StevensonA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injusticeThere was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of 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
|title=Curtsies and Conspiracies
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|title=Lover Birds
|author=Gail Carriger
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=With the end of her first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality fast approaching, Sophronia is caught up in a conspiracy involving a mysterious trip to London, a prototype that everyone wants to get their hands on, and a potential threat to a friend. Can she save the day?
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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>1907411607</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sally Rooney
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|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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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1009473085
|author=MRC Kasasian
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|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|title=The Mangle Street Murders
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|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=March Middleton's father dies, and she becomes a 20-something alone; not a good status for a Victorian womanShe therefore moves in with her guardian, Sidney Grice, personal (not private!) detectiveAlthough, as Sidney has a case to solve, March may as well be invisibleGrice has been employed by shopkeeper William Ashby who has savagely murdered his own wife by stabbing her 40 times and leaving the Italian word for 'revenge' on the wall. Everyone says he did it apart from Ashby, of course.  Therefore Grice teams up with Inspector Pound of the Yard to solve the conundrum and March is there to help, whether Sidney wants her to or not.
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|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for youIf that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous yearsIt's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics.  ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different 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>1781851840</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Mark Lingane
 +
|title=Chimera
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|rating=4.5
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|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.''
|title=A Christmas Story
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|author=Brian Wildsmith
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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.''
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=''A Christmas Story'' starts with a birth in a stable. Not the arrival of the baby Jesus, but the birth of a donkey.   Like most young creatures, the little donkey wants to be near to his mother. So when she leaves the stable to carry her owner on a journey to Bethlehem her baby misses her.  With help from a young girl, Rebecca, the little donkey manages to follow the family to Bethlehem and all the events of the nativity are seen through their eyes.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192736264</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.
|title=Bit-Bot and the Blob
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|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2
|author=Jo Litchfield
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=This book really has everything; an absent minded adult to laugh at, a sensible robot butler, a dog and a robot for the main character's best friends and a scary monster from  a slimy swamp ..... or is it? It all begins when George's parents are snowed in on an expedition to the North Pole. This means George must spend his holidays with his uncle, but with the new robot companion his uncle has created for him, this sounds a real dream holiday. The only hitch is when his uncle insists that he go to bed instead of staying up late to watch a scary monster film. Bit - Bot comes up with the perfect solution, allowing them to stay in bed and watch the film, but things get a bit more frightening then they had planned when a real live blob shows up in the bedroom.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405255137</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title=The Slightly Annoying Elephant
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=David Walliams and Tony Ross
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Sam filled out the elephant adoption form at the zoo, he never imagined the elephant would actually be coming to live with him. Silly boy - he should have read the fine print. Of course many children would love having an elephant as pet, but this elephant is not a pet. He is rude, bossy and really a ''very'' annoying house guest who will very quickly out stay his welcome - but what can Sam do? A deal is a deal and he did sign the contract. As soon as the elephant arrives he begins issuing demands, making complaints, and turning the house into a disaster zone and things are only going to get worse. Sam really should have read the adoption form - especially the part about the elephant's friends.
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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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007493991</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|title=The Great Moon Confusion
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|title=White Nights
|author=Richard Byrne
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Aldrin knows everything. At least he thinks he does. So when rabbit asks why the moon is getting smaller, Aldrin is to embarrassed to admit he really doesn't know. Instead he launches an investigation and quickly comes to the conclusion that the moon is being stolen. This is one of the most fun books we have read recently. You can't help but laugh at poor Aldrin and his expertise, and the beautiful illustrations make this story very easy to follow, even for the youngest reader. Before the book is finished, Aldrin will not only learn about the moon, but also about friendship, boasting, jumping to conclusions,  accusations and apologies, and along the way he will stumble into one hilarious situation after another.
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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>0192735039</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241619785
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008385068
|title=Bones Rock
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|title=The Midnight Feast
|author=Peter L Larson and Kristin Donnan
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|author=Lucy Foley
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Most children go through a dinosaur phase, but there are always a few children who are completely captivated by dinosaurs - and everything that goes with them. This is the most detailed palaeontology book for children I have ever found. This book is written for older children, even teens who may wish to seriously consider palaeontology as a career choice. The book begins, not with dinosaurs, but with science. The book explains how science works. It presents science, not as a set of facts, but of theories and ideas that are subject to change. Science becomes a living and fluid thing rather than a stuffy set facts to memorise. Reading this book, I can almost forget how much I hated science as a child.
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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>193122935X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Baldwin
|title=Butterflies in November
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|title=Giovanni's Room
|author=Audur Ava Olafsdottir
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Literary Fiction  
|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
|summary=' 'It's all threes here,' she says, 'three men in your life over a distance of 300 kilometres, three dead animals, three minor accidents or mishaps…  animals will be maimed…  it'll wet more than your ankles…  it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy a lottery ticket'.'  And so an over-priced but miraculously accurate fortune-teller sets in process a narrative that provides for a very quirky read, with quite a bit of charm amongst the unusual.  The lottery ticket and a loose end and a best friend stuck in hospital all conspire to make the narrator and said best friend's four-year-old son embark on a journey of discovery, all on the southern stretch of the ring road that encircles Iceland.
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|isbn=0141186356
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270108</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=Call of the Undertow
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|title=Wild East
|author=Linda Cracknell
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white schoolThe move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of troubleHe 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.
|summary=If you read a lot of books, then the fact of your life is that you are always part-way through at least one of themYou read all of the time.  Over breakfast, in the bath, waiting for trains, on trains, between trainsYou make a cup of tea in order to have an excuse to sit-and-read for half an hour.  But even so, most of your reading is done in stolen moments – often in moments when a nagging voice from the gremlin-centre of your brain is reminding you that you ''should'' be doing something else.
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|isbn=0241645441
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754303</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1635866847
|title=A1 Annual
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|title=The Lavender Companion
|author=Dave Elliott (editor)
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=It's perhaps a little surprising how few comics anthologies there are on the shelves of regular bookstores.  The whole world of sequential art is so fragmented the choices to be made are infinite, everyone who comes into some renown soon wishes for a self-published collection of his favourites or her friends' work, and there definitely is too much out there for anyone in the audience of comix to fully grasp without some kind of editorial spoon-feedingOne such editor is Dave Elliott, whose A1 Comics has been collating what it deems the world's greatest since 1989, but even with that pedigree it's only now that full hardbacks of their greatest hits are being launched – hardbacks such as this book.
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|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for youBefore I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the 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>1782760164</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Han Kang
|title=Crow Blue
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|title=The Vegetarian
|author=Adriana Lisboa
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Having lost her mother at the age of thirteen, Evangelina embarks on a quest to not only find her biological father, but to delve into the past and discover things about her mother she never knew. Set predominantly in North America and Brazil, this novel explores Vanja's journeys, both physical and emotional, as well as her relationships with key characters, in particular, that of her Mother's ex husband, Fernando. Uprooting herself when barely a teenager, Vanja leaves her home country of Brazil to live with Fernando in Colorado, the only connection she has at her disposal to enable her to trace her roots and biological family. Narrated beautifully in the first person, the reader is propelled into the thoughts and feelings of the young but courageous, determined and, at times, very wise, adolescent girl.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408838303</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Substitute Creature (Tales from Lovecraft Middle 4)
 
|author=Charles Gilman
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've never been to an American middle school, so I didn't realise people held Valentine's balls at them in the middle of the morning, with classes to be had afterwards.  But Robert and Glenn didn't realise they would spend the duration of the Valentine's ball balanced on a thin ledge of stonework four floors above a concrete ground, outside their school.  They have had a head start, of course, with three books' adventures for them, as they discovered the truth of the singular world of Lovecraft Middle – and the demonic worlds it holds portals to. Once inside, however, things don't get any better – a nightmarish snowstorm strands Robert at the school, along with the caretaker of dubious repute, his school nurse mother, the ghost of a girl thirty years gone – and the substitute librarian, fresh from said demonic worlds. And all the while, the Old Ones are waiting underground for the time to be right…
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594746400</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1803510056
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=The Iron Man (Faber Classics)
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|author=Ted Hughes
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary=I'll start with a confession. I read a book recently, and got all the way through and still didn't realise I'd read the whole thing about eighteen months beforeI mention it only to say that such a thing is impossible with The Iron Man. With the opening scene, of the behemoth on top of the cliff he is about to fall over, I was there.  I was immediately transported to a much younger me, sat in the primary school library or classroom, getting the willies from the vivid description of the Iron Giant's hand helping put the whole robotic monster back together.  I don't know of a better way to paraphrase the word 'classic' – but this book stayed with me for over thirty years, and it's just fine to revisit.
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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 timeBut 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>0571302246</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1787333175
|title=Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore
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|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|author=Lance Parkin
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
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|genre=Popular Science
|summary=I don't think that I ever saw [[:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]] when I lived in Northampton, and I don't think I coincided with the publication of ''Maxwell the Magic Cat'' in the local newspaper.  So I missed out on the memorable frame of someone else who is six foot two, albeit a generation older and looking so hirsute he would seem to be afraid of scissors. But I certainly would not have been alone in not recognising him for what he is. How many Northampton housewives flicked past the daily panels of ''Maxwell'' in complete ignorance of who Alan Moore actually is? – With no idea that the years he spent drawing that cartoon for £10 a week – later to be £12.50 – were just him gearing up to be the biggest man of letters in the comic book world?
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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>1781310777</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|title=Doug the Bug That Went BOING
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|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|author=Sue Hendra
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|rating=5
|rating=4
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|genre=Short Stories
|genre=For Sharing
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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.  
|summary=Ever found an insect in your attic or an arachnid on your roof and wondered how DID they get there?  Doug the Bug c.ould tell you and you can find out too in Sue Hendra’s picture book, ‘Doug the Bug That Went BOING!’.  
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|isbn=1803511230
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857074466</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=The Boy on the Porch
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|author=Sharon Creech
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=
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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 herAnuri 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?
When Marta and John wake up one morning, there's a surprise in store. A little boy is asleep on their porch. He has an unsigned note asking the couple to care for him. And so they do. And they soon come to love him, even though he cannot talk. But they can't help but worry. Who is Jacob? Will his parents return for him? And if they do, how will Marta and John bear to give him up - this little boy who paints blue trees, rides cows and can make music from anything?
+
|isbn=0861546873
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849397724</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Wallace and Gromit - The Complete Newspaper Strips - Volume 1
 
|author=Nick Park
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=One man and his dog never had such a famous theme tune''One Man and His Dog'' had a piddly little melody, but the triumphal, old-fashioned and charming parp of the theme tune to Wallace and Gromit has resounded out for decades nowWhile Aardman moved away from the near-silent classic animations the series first gave us, the plasticine creations mutated into incredibly popular characters, which included a daily strip in the nation's biggest-selling tabloidHere is the first lump of them, 312 daily doses of tomfoolery, collected for everyone to enjoy.  Even if you thought the franchise had travelled its course a long time ago…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760326</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=David Chadwick
|title=The Flavours of Love
+
|title=Headload of Napalm
|author=Dorothy Koomson
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Saffron's husband, Joel, was stabbed in the street eighteen months ago and no one has ever been arrested for his murder. It's hard for Saffron and her two children, Pheobe and Zane, to live with what happened but somehow they have to find a way of getting on with their lives; lives that no longer have Joel in them. It's hardly surprising that they struggle on a daily basis and it all culminates when Saffron is called into school to discuss fourteen year old Pheobe. Saffron doesn't know how to deal with the situation especially as her daughter won't talk to her. On top of all that, Joel's killer is still out there somewhere and that makes her scared for all her family's safety.
+
|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>1780875002</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0D321VJ76
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Ransom of Dond
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Siobhan Dowd
+
|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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.
Siobhan Dowd wrote just four novels before she died from breast cancer in 2007. All four novels were wonderful and yet they weren't Siobhan's sole legacy to us. Patrick Ness took an idea of hers and, together with artist Jim Kay, turned it into [[A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness|A Monster Calls]], which won both the Carnegie and Greenaway prizes. And now we have ''The Ransom of Dond'', Siobhan's last story.  
+
|isbn=1398527122
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560905</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=The Circle
+
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|author=Dave Eggers
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|genre=General Fiction
+
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|summary=Following a string of recent scandals, the government this month announced that secret cameras could be introduced into care homes in the hope of improving patient care. The theory being that constantly recording staff would prevent any inappropriate behaviour from those in positions of authority. Could such surveillance possibly work? And if it did would any potential rewards be outweighed by the threat to privacy of both the patients and the wholly innocent staff who become caught up in the snooping? It's this question of surveillance over privacy that is central to 'The Circle', the new novel from Dave Eggers.
+
|isbn= 0356522776
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146488</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
 
+
|isbn=1786482126
{{newreview
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|title=Alan Turing (Real Lives)
+
|author=Elly Griffiths
|author=Jim Eldridge
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Crime
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a 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.
|summary=Alan Turing was one of Britain's greatest thinkers of the last century. He did pioneering work on computing and artificial intelligence. He was also a hero of World War II, working in the famous code-breaking community at Bletchley Park, cracking German naval codes used to lethal effect organising U-boat attacks. Turing was the man who beat the Enigma machine.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472900103</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Joan Didion
|title=Dear Life
+
|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|author=Alice Munro
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Alice Munro has made an art form of short story writing.  ''Dear Life'' is a collection of truly beautiful short stories, perfectly crafted in a way that leaves no wanting feeling, as is often an issue with short stories. Each of the 14 stories contained within the collection is just that; a story in its own right. There is no getting caught up and lost in style and literary flare, but a cool prose, a calmness of tone and good strong stories.
+
|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>0099578638</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0007216858
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008551324
|title=Twit
+
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Steve Cole
+
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Emerging Readers
 
|summary=If I asked you to name a clever animal, you’d quite likely choose an owl. After all, they are known to be the wisest of birds, aren’t they? There’s one exception to that rule, though. Meet Twit. He’s rather cute with his big round eyes, and he’s polite and kind… but he’s not very wise.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444009699</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Let It Snow
 
|author=John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=On Christmas Eve, the night of the worst storm in 50 years, Jubilee Dougal's parents are arrested after a riot over decorative houses. Sent to stay with her grandparents, her train gets stuck. She ditches the train, and ends up in a waffle house with fourteen cheerleaders and various teen boys. Three best-selling authors team up to tell the story of this Christmas in a trio of interlinked novellas.
+
|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>0141349174</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0241678412
|author=Tony Benn
+
|title=The Proof of My Innocence
|title=The Last Diaries: A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine
+
|author=Jonathan Coe
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed the way that I viewed a situationHe's a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I opened this volume of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing older, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing health.'' I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be in decline?
+
|summary=Life after university hasn't worked out quite the way that Phyl anticipatedShe'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 1980sIt plans to push the government in a more extreme direction and is ready to act.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
|title=How the Meteorite Got to the Museum
+
|author=Claire Dederer
|author=Jessie Hartland
+
|rating=3
|rating=4
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|genre=For Sharing
+
|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=This is a cumulative tale in which one small event sets off a chain of other events which are repeated throughout the story. If your child loves books like ''This is the House That Jack Built'', this may prove a very useful addition to you home library, but this is a type of story telling which I have found some children really take to, and others do not.
+
|isbn=1399715070
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1609052528</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1739526910
|title=Cher: Strong Enough
+
|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|author=Josiah Howard
+
|author=Glen Sibley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Having looked at the title and sub-title, the latter being no more than the two-word title of one of her latter-day hits, I assumed this was going to be a fairly comprehensive biography of the American singer.  The sub-title, ''Strong Enough'', taken from one of her latter-day hit singles, reveals nothing. Not until I had almost finished it, a little puzzled at it not being quite what I had expected, did I finally look at the blurb on the back – at which point all became clear.  This was not the full story of a showbiz career which has lasted close on half a century, but for the most part an extraordinarily detailed account of her 1975 TV variety show.
+
|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>0859654842</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008405026
|title=Discover the Savage World
+
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Simon Adams, Camilla de la Bedoyere, Ian Graham, Steve Parker, Phil Steele, Clint Twist and Amanda Askew
+
|author=Jane Casey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=The range of subjects covered in ''Discover the Savage World'' is astonishing. The first three chapters are science related topics. The first section ''Earth's Power'' covers the birth of the universe, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters. '' Deadly Nature'' brings new meaning to the phrase ''acting like animals'', as we see the darker side of nature, from venomous creatures, deadly carnivores and a real surprise about a very common and well known bird. ''Wild Science'' has a mixed bag of topics with dangerous elements, explosions, fireworks and exactly how a bullet works, as well as the birth of a star. ''Tough Machines'' dips into technology and innovation with an incredible variety of mechanical subjects with everything from massive transport vehicles and diggers, to robots, military vehicles, ice breaking ships, rockets, and flood control systems. The focus turns to geography with ''Harsh Lands'' show a myriad of cultures and lifestyles in inhospitable locations. Life is difficult in some regions due to nature, but man made hazards like Chernobyl and land mines occur as well. Finally we close with history and  ''Brutal Battles''. This covers ancient warfare with  events such as the Battle of Marathon and the Siege of Masada right up to the Somme, the Battle Of Stalingrad with a heavy focus on snipers and the Battle of Kursk.
+
|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 haltNow, 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>1848109180</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard Webster
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|title=Canton Elegy: A Father's Letter of Sacrifice, Survival and Love
+
|title=Nowhere Man
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Deborah Stone
|genre=Autobiography
+
|rating=4
|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known in his childhood as Ah Nom, was born early in the twentieth century in the village of Dai Waan in rural China. His father died when he was young and he lived with his grandmother, mother and 'Little Uncle', who was only a matter of months older than Ah Nom. They'd become friends as they grew older, but when his Grandfather returned after a long absence in America there as a distinct rivalry between the two. Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home - he intended to take the boys to America to be educated.  It was a wonderful opportunity and Ah Nom left the village and his mother not knowing when he would see either again.
+
|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>
+
|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 09:34, 22 December 2024

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

0241636604.jpg

Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

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

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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

1635866847.jpg

Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

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

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

1787333175.jpg

Review of

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

5star.jpg Popular Science

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

1803511230.jpg

Review of

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

5star.jpg Short Stories

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

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Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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

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Review of

Headload of Napalm by David Chadwick

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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

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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