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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.
 
  
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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!
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
__NOTOC__
 
==New Reviews==
 
  
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]].'''
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Want to learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
  
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''<!-- Remove  -->
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==The Best New Books==
{{newreview
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|author=Rebecca Mascull
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|title=The Visitors
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Adeliza Golding is comfortably off by Victorian standards.  She lives in a not insignificant house, her parents can afford servants, Liza's father owns and runs a hop farm, but...  The but is considerable as Liza is different from most: she's deaf/blind and isolated from the world with only 'the visitors' for company and communication in her mind.  Almost in desperation when Liza is six, her father calls on Charlotte Crowe for help.  Lottie penetrates Liza's lonely world by teaching her finger writing.  However, in doing so she unlocks revelations that Lottie would rather be kept secret.  For not everything changes; the visitors remain, whoever they are and whatever they want.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444765205</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|title=
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{{Frontpage
Knowing, Doing, and Being: New Foundations for Consciousness Studies
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|isbn=1529077745
|author=Chris Clarke
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
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|author=Ann Cleeves
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Man suffers from a regrettable lack of a ’hotline to reality’, or to ''noumenon''. In order to give a relatively faithful rendition of reality, however, people use two aspects of consciousness. By researchers, they've been termed the relational and the propositional. A number of thinkers from a number of fields propose that the structure of consciousness may be unveiled using the tool of quantum physics.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845404556</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1399613073
|author=Amy Tan
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|title=Moral Injuries
|title=The Joy Luck Club
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|author=Christie Watson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary= The Joy Luck Club was Jing Mei's mother's ideaAfter arriving in the US from China in 1949 she invited three other Chinese immigrant ladies to joinThe four would meet to play Mah Jong and feast on morsels that none of them could really affordOnce played out, they shared stories of the land they'd leftThe evenings evolve over time; the food becomes affordable, men join the discussions but the core remains the sameFour Chinese mothers living a new life while sharing moments enjoyed and regretted, discussing their children and parents and telling stories of wisdom, happiness and, sometimes, intense pain.
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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 centuryOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeonLaura 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 tragedyWe don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences.  Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friendsThis time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0031Y9DPU</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0241636604
|title=When Did You See Her Last?
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|author=Lemony Snicket
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|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary=At first glance, it's difficult to separate ''All the Wrong Questions'' from Snicket's first and far more famous series, ''A Series of Unfortunate Events''. However, the further into it I read, the more I realised that I was actually reading a Film Noir. A classic detective story with all the right characters. A little less subtle than some, perhaps, more Bugsy Malone than Sunset Boulevard but that's fine given the intended audience and makes it no less enjoyable.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405256222</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Leanne Egan
|author=Sam Byers
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|title=Lover Birds
|title=Idiopathy
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Literary Fiction
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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?
|summary=Katherine no longer seeks or expects to be happy.  She's stuck in a place and a job she hates and her relationship with Daniel broke up over a year agoSince then she's had sexual encounters with a few men but her motivations have been confusing and disturbing - not least to Katherine.  She has a vicious wit (actually, calling it ''wit'' is perhaps stretching the point a little...) which repels the people she'd like to attract and attracts the people she'd prefer to repel. Daniel is with a new girlfriend (well, there was a ''slight'' overlap) but he's not certain that he loves Angelica. He's in a difficult situation: not telling her that he loves her becomes tantamount to telling her that he doesn't love her and as a result he has to tell her that he loves her just to keep on the level.
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|isbn=000862657X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007412088</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sally Rooney
|title=Salvage
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|title=Intermezzo
|author=Keren David
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cass is adopted. She's always been happy in her new family, getting on well with her parents and feeling protective of their natural son Ben. So when her father, a high-ranking MP, is revealed to be having an affair with a woman not much older than her the betrayal hits her hard. Aidan, her brother, manages to get back in touch with her shortly afterwards and seems to be the bright spot in her life. But how much do these siblings really know about each other?
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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>0349001375</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571365469
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1009473085
 +
|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
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|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
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|rating=5
 +
|genre=Politics and Society
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|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''.  If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you.  If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years.  It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics.  ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast.  It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Mark Lingane
 +
|title=Chimera
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Science Fiction
 +
|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.''
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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.''
  
{{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.''
|title=Wish Upon a Star
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|author=Trisha Ashley
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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.
|rating=3.5
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|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2
|genre=Women's Fiction
 
|summary=Cally is a single mother. The novel begins with the birth of her daughter Stella, and the discovery that her baby has a serious heart condition. Stella’s first few years are taken up with hospitals and medical procedures but eventually the NHS can provide nothing further. Then Cally learns that a doctor in Boston is able to do a new kind of operation, one that could potentially give Stella a totally normal life. The only problem is the enormous cost of surgery in the US, not to mention the need for flights and accommodation.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847562787</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title=Mouse Guard - the Black Axe
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=David Petersen
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Long before there can be peace, there is warLong before there is something to believe in, there is empty hope.  Long before the legend, there is the truthAnd so, long before the events of the first two collected Mouse Guard volumes came the story in this third, that of how the heroic, mythical character Celanawe became so notoriousOur tale starts with him just a guard mouse and tutor to those who would follow him, but an unlikely connection to an already fabled weapon is about to be shown to him, in the equally unlikely form of a scholarly old female mouse, Em.  When she says the ancient legacy is situated far across unmapped seas, an unusual trio of explorers is pushed to the limit and beyond, in search of the unseekable.
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldBut 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 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>0857681435</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|title=Then We Take Berlin
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|title=White Nights
|author=John Lawton
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|rating=5
|rating=4
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|genre=Short Stories
 +
|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
 +
|isbn=0241619785
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0008385068
 +
|title=The Midnight Feast
 +
|author=Lucy Foley
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Do we really need another Cold War-era thriller? Especially one that also covers the already saturated Second World War years? Well yes, if the thriller in question is John Lawton's new offering, 'Then We Take Berlin'. Despite sounding like a chant from a mob of England football fans rampaging through Germany in the 1980s, Then We Take Berlin tells the story of cockney John 'Joe' Holderness, better known as Wilderness to all of his female acquantances.
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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>1611856124</amazonuk>
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}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=James Baldwin
 +
|title=Giovanni's Room
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|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Literary Fiction
 +
|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.
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|isbn=0141186356
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=John Van der Kiste
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|title=Wild East
|title=Alfred: Queen Victoria's Second Son
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Biography
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white schoolThe move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapperBut now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
|summary=Prince Alfred was the second son of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg GothaAt the time of his birth he was second in line to the throne after his brother, the Prince of Wales and was generally known within the family as Affie.  In his early teens he joined the Royal Navy - at his own request - and whilst his family and status was undoubtedly no disadvantage to him, he worked hard and had a genuine talent for the navy, eventually receiving his Admiral's baton and visiting all five continents in the course of his service. He was created Duke of Edinburgh (along with various other titles) by the queenHis marriage - to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia - was not a happy union, with his wife being not well-liked in society and obsessed by her precedence.  They had six children (one of whom was stillborn) but only one son - 'young Affie' who committed suicide at the age of twenty four.
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|isbn=0241645441
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178155319X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1635866847
|title=Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop
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|title=The Lavender Companion
|author=Jenny Colgan
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Rosie Hopkins lives with her boyfriend Stephen in the village of Lipton, and we meet them first on a winter’s evening, with snow gently falling on the picturesque buildings around their cottage. Or, rather, Rosie’s great aunt Lilian’s cottage. For Rosie is a town girl who came to look after Lilian some time previously. Lilian has moved to a lovely care home, and Rosie runs her traditional sweet shop.
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|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you.  Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage.  I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally.  (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751551805</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Han Kang
|title=You, Me and Thing: The Great Expanding Guinea Pig and Beware of the Snowblobs!
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|title=The Vegetarian
|author=Karen McCombie
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the acclaim. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, elusive souls.
|summary='You' is Jackson, a very dim-seeming boy next door.  'Me' is Ruby, our much more intelligent, thoughtful and active narrator.  Thing is – well, the thing is, Thing is a mystery – a weird sort of winged mogwai-type critter, that only 'you' and 'me' know about. All three have a den at the bottom of the humans' respective gardens, close to the built-upon former home of Thing. Oh, and Thing is also capable of some very silly, quite inappropriate and very inappropriately timed magic, so a lot of time Jackson, and especially Ruby, have to worry about keeping their secret friend a secret.  As you can see by the two full adventures in this book.
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|isbn=1803510056
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571310559</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|author=Olivia Laing
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|rating=5
|rating=4
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Biography
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|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connectionThey meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time.  But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable.  Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
|summary=Coming from a family with an alcoholic background, Olivia Laing became fascinated by the idea of why and how some of the greatest works of twentieth-century literature were written by those with a drink problem.  The list soon became a long one – Dylan Thomas, Raymond Chandler, Jack London, Jean Rhys, to name but a few, instantly came to mindIn the spring of 2011 she crossed the Atlantic to take a trip across the USA, from New York City and New Orleans to Chicago and Seattle by hired car and train, in the course of which she took a close look at the link between creativity and alcohol which inspired the work of six authors, namely F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver.  Taking her title from a character in Williams’s play ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ who says he is taking a trip to echo spring, an euphemism for the liquor cabinet, she travels to the places which were pivotal in their often overlapping lives and work.
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|isbn=1471196585
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847677940</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1787333175
|author=Robert Lyndon
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|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|title=Imperial Fire
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Nine years after his return from the perilous trek to the Middle East, Frankish mercenary Vallon is now a general in the Byzantine armyHe leads the 'Outlanders', a Babel of a mercenary force from every corner of the known world fighting those threatening the Empire. However, The Emperor has plans for them. On hearing about the [[Hawk Quest by Robert Lyndon|Hawk Quest]] expedition, the Emperor wants to send Vallon and his men on a more challenging trip: to bring a new wonder weapon back from far off ChinaThe good news is that this 'fire drug' is more destructive than anything they already have.  The bad news is that they could be away for at least 3 years and that Lucas, a young stranger accompanying them, has a secret that could prove as dangerous as the journey.
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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 psychiatristI did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847444997</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
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|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|title=Marriage Material
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=On the morning after his father's funeral Arjan Banga was surprised to see his mother opening up the family shop.  She was in her sixties, recovering from cancer and besides, Bains Stores wasn't exactly thriving. You could even be forgiven for wondering if it was ''open'', with the advert for a bar of chocolate discontinued in 1994 having pride of place in the window and the security shutter stuck at a quarter open.  Much as he might wish otherwise Arjan has no choice but to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, leaving his job as a graphic designer and his girlfriend, Freya, in limbo.  They were supposed to be getting married in December, but that looked increasingly unlikely.
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|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021903</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1803511230
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=December
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|author=Phil Rickman
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Horror
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On December 8th, 1980, a quartet of musicians record an album in the ruins of a haunted abbey. Tragedy strikes, and they split up, deciding never to work together again. Fourteen years later, they're persuaded to return to confront the evil they discovered - but can they find a way to stop it?
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain.  Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so.  Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857896954</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=David Chadwick
|author=Lois Walden
+
|title=Headload of Napalm
|title=Afterworld
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Thrillers
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|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=The Duvalier family owe their wealth to sugar cane although their gratitude is shown in varying degrees and various ways. From the patriarch William (who never recovered from being hit by a manhole cover) through his wife and children, down to Theodore, the lad who gained comfort (and a certain amount of secrecy) from travel and on to their black servant Rheta B, each has had a life. Each also has a story to tell and, whether alive or in Afterworld, they're going to tell it.
+
|isbn= B0D321VJ76
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908129859</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Christmas Present (Hello Kitty and Friends)
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Linda Chapman and Michelle Misra
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Emerging Readers
+
|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.
|summary=Hello Kitty and her friends have a series of books but you don’t need to know about their previous adventures to enjoy this one. There’s a helpful illustration of the whole gang at the beginning, including Grandpa and Grandma who don’t feature in these two stories, and you also get to see all the friends with their mixed up names: Hello Kitty’s twin is Mimmy (why not Hi Mimmy?!) and then there’s Tammy, Fifi and the slightly odd Dear Daniel.
+
|isbn=1398527122
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007515812</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz
+
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|author=Thomas Harding
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=This dual biography concerns, as the title makes clear, two men.  One was from an inherently German, rich Jewish family – they had a powerboat so he could waterski on the lake at their country cottage – who fled the rise of the Nazis early in the 1930s, and got away moderately lightly, only losing properties and a large and successful medical career.  The other was from an inherently German family, who signed up for First World War service before his age, but only really wanted to be a farmer and family man, yet who ended up running probably history's worst slaughterhouse. Both had a connection and a shared destiny that was largely unknown before this book was researched, there's a chance that both of them had the blood of one man and only one man directly on their hands from WWII service, and both of them – again, as the title makes clear – are given the dignity of the familiar, first name throughout this incredible book.
+
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022365</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786482126
|title=Secrets of the Apple Tree
+
|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|author=Carron Brown and Alyssa Nassner
+
|author=Elly Griffiths
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|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.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Joan Didion
 +
|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Autobiography
 +
|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.
 +
|isbn=0007216858
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0008551324
 +
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
 +
|author=Neil Lancaster
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|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.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0241678412
 +
|title=The Proof of My Innocence
 +
|author=Jonathan Coe
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=On a cold winter night, long after bedtime, what could be more inviting than curling up under the blankets with a book to read by torch light? What surprises might your torch reveal? In the case of ‘Secrets of the Apple Tree’ you may get more than you bargained for…
+
|summary=Life after university hasn't worked out quite the way that Phyl anticipated.  She's back home, living with her parents and on a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport.  All those ideas of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothing.  The situation improves when 'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughter, Rashida.  Christopher Swann (described by some as a lefty blogger) is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University in the 1980s.  It plans to push the government in a more extreme direction and is ready to act.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782400680</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
|author=John Lee
+
|author=Claire Dederer
|title=How to Make a Million Slowly: My Guiding Principles from a Lifetime of Investing
+
|rating=3
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|genre=Business and Finance
+
|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=You should, of course, remember the old adage. 'If something seems too good to be true, it probably is'. If you find a slim book with the title 'How to Make a Million - Slowly' you shouldn't assume that you're about to have an entirely different relationship with your Bank Manager. On the other hand John Lee - Lord Lee of Trafford - was the UK's first PEP/ISA millionaire, from an investment of £125,000, so there's no need to suspect that you'll open the book to find that you're told to 'do as I do'. This is a man who has done it and has a lot of good advice - after all, he wrote the ''My Portfolio Column'' in the Financial Times for fourteen years.
+
|isbn=1399715070
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1292005084</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1739526910
|title=Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs
+
|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|author=Bob Brier
+
|author=Glen Sibley
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There have been so many books written on the subject of Egyptology, it would be hard to imagine that anything new could be said on the matter. However, TV presenter and researcher Bob Brier, a self-confessed Egyptophile, has managed to approach the topic from a unique perspective by allowing us a glimpse of his fascinating collection of all things Egyptian. The collection is an eclectic mix of objects, including jewellery, private letters from Howard Carter, tobacco packaging, books, posters and tea-sets. In Brier’s collection, his ornate Josiah Wedgwood Egyptian set sits proudly on the shelf next to Barbie of the Nile and a cheap King Tut cologne bottle. As he puts it: 'we all know that something can be so bad that it’s good. The true collector has no shame.'
+
|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>1137278609</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008405026
|title=Bear, Bird and Frog
+
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Gwen Millward
+
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Bear and Bird are friends who live together. They have an exciting day planned but when Frog shows up unannounced, Bear is surprised and momentarily forgets what they had been going to do. Like a good friend, even to those who drop round without warning, he invites Frog in for tea and cake and they have a chat. Bird is a little bored, to be honest. He’s waiting for them to go out, him and Bear, but Bear seems to have forgotten all about it. In the end, it’s Bear and Frog who go out, leaving Bird behind. Bird is really a bit upset about the way he thinks they’re treating him, and even when Bear and Frog try to include him he’s a bit too proud and so stays away.
+
|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>1405266805</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Kate Clanchy
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|title=Meeting the English
+
|title=Nowhere Man
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Deborah Stone
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|rating=4
|summary=Struan Robertson was just seventeen, but set to go to Aberdeen to study dentistry, when his English teacher passed him a short advertisement. A literary giant needed a carer. Why not take a gap year?  Struan had never been to ‘’England’’ before and he would be living in Hampstead.  On the plus side he’d been working in a care home to earn money and he could do the work.  Soon - almost too soon - Struan was the main carer for Phillip Prys, rendered dumb and paralysed by a massive stroke. His family couldn’t take care of him - the young (very young) third wife was too busy with her painting. His son, Jake, had other things - anything else - to do rather than be in his father’s presence.  Juliet had never been her father’s favourite but she wasn’t ‘’exactly’’ stable when it came to helping.
+
|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330535277</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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There are currently 16,126 reviews at TheBookbag.

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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

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

0861546873.jpg

Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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

B0D321VJ76.jpg

Review of

Headload of Napalm by David Chadwick

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0356522776.jpg

Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

1786482126.jpg

Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. Full Review

0007216858.jpg

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

0008551324.jpg

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

0241678412.jpg

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