Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

'I Can’t Draw, Okay?' Tom Watson apologises in the opening chapter of Stick Dog. He then goes on to lay some ground rules with the reader, explaining that:

'....this Stick Dog story (with the bad pictures that my art teacher doesn’t like) will also be told in a way that I like (but my English teacher doesn’t).'

'Good deal?'

'Excellent. Let’s move on.'

'This is going to be fun.' Full review...

Transforming Pandora by Carolyn Mathews

When we first meet Pandora Armstrong in the spring of 2003 she's grieving for her husband, Mike, who had died just a few weeks before. It hadn't been his first heart attack and he had reduced his workload but this attack was fatal. He was only in his fifties and Pandora feels that he'd been snatched away from her as they'd only been married for a few years. When a friend suggests that she goes with her to an Evening of Clairvoyance she runs out of excuses to refuse and although she's not exactly convinced by what she hears there's a lingering doubt. A spirit voice mentioned her children and Pandora was adamant that she didn't have any children - it's actually quite a sore point - but that wasn't true of Mike. Full review...

The Wayward Gentleman: John Theophilus Potter and the Town of Haverfordwest by Patricia Watkins

In 1778 John Theophilus Potter (Theo to his friends) came to Haverfordwest from Dublin with a group of actors to put on two performances of Romeo and Juliet. A careless accident left him unable to return with the other players - and then he met Elizabeth Edwardes, from a family of local gentry. Friendship turned to love and whilst some in the town wondered (in a rather loud voice) that the Edwardes should allow Elizabeth's friendship with an actor, Theo was no strolling player without a penny to his name. He was a 'gentleman player' with a considerable fortune and a very respectable income. He was also a restless man, constantly driven to achieve. Full review...

The Technologists by Matthew Pearl

Crime (Historical)

The year is 1868 and Boston is under threat from an evil genius who seems to have the uncanny ability to manipulate matter itself. The city has already experienced two attacks; the chaos in the harbour when the navigation instruments went awry and the eerie spectacle in the commercial quarter when every item of glass, including windows, eyeglasses, clocks and watches spontaneously melted. But are these attacks a prelude to something greater? Full review...

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

Literary Fiction

Sendker is German-born (Hamburg 1960) and worked as American correspondent for Stern (1990 to 95) and then as its Asian correspondent from '95 to '99. He now lives in Berlin. This probably gives him enough global insight to write about a US-born high flyer with an Asian heritage heading off to Burma to find out the truth of her father's disappearance. It probably also gives him the language skills to do it in English without recourse to a translator. Full review...

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Thrillers

There’s a distressing moment in any long-term relationship where you realise that, in practice, happily ever after looks a lot like an eternity of small, snarling arguments about who forgot to buy food, who should take out the rubbish and who is responsible for that mouldering pile of clothes in the corner of the bedroom. Domestic bliss is often more like very polite guerrilla warfare between two people who love each other so much that they want to spend the rest of their lives fighting about it. You and your partner are absolutely in each other’s pockets – but no matter how close you are, there’s always one last barrier you can’t break down. You aren’t them, and they aren’t you, and so you can never truly know what’s really going on inside that well-known head. Full review...

The Engagement by Chloe Hooper

Chloe Hooper's gothic, psychological thriller concerns an affair between a thirty-something English girl, Liese, working in Australia at her uncle's real estate business and a blandly handsome Australian farmer, Alexander. Set over one weekend as Liese is heading to Alexander's remote family farm for the first time for a weekend of passion, this is a classic 'girl trapped in spooky house and situation' story with a dark, sexual twist. Liese, who trained as an interior architect, met Alexander while showing him around exclusive Melbourne properties and, has somehow managed to get herself into a situation whereby Alexander pays her for her attentions, believing that she is some kind of prostitute. He's even paying her handsomely for her time at the weekend. With debts of her own, Liese willingly encourages this perception with little idea of the problems to which this fantasy will lead. Full review...

School's Out! by Jack Sheffield

The beginning of September 1983 starts a new academic year for the village primary school of Ragley-on-the-Forest. Headmaster Jack Sheffield starts the autumn term with a skip in his step as he and wife Sally enjoy their new baby, John William despite the broken nights. What else will the year bring? The advent of a new teacher and a tragedy that strikes sorrow in the heart of the village reduces Jack's skip a bit but there are always moments to lift the mood; for instance, whatever it was that little Madonna Fazackerly did in her cat's ear. It's all there in the school's daily log; perhaps not the one that the inspectors see, you understand, all is explained in living detail here in Jack's memoir of life as a teacher and villager. Full review...

The Ambassador's Daughter by Pam Jenoff

In 1919 the Great War - the First World War - was over and all that was left was to work out the terms of the peace treaty. Margot Rosenthal accompanied her father, a diplomat, to Paris, where he was part of the German delegation and in the invidious position of being disliked by the French because he was the enemy and mistrusted by fellow members of the delegation because he was Jewish. They'd previously been in England where they'd simply been the enemy. Margot could have gone home to Berlin but that would have taken her back to her fiance, who'd been seriously injured in the war. She'd rather fallen into the engagement, feeling that it was what she ought to do. Passion played no part. Full review...

The Twyning by Terence Blacker

Fantasy

Efren is a nobody in the kingdom of rats till he witnesses the kidnapping of the king. His future changes in a moment as he's sent up to the human world to rescue him. Talking of humans, 11 year old Peter is abandoned by his parents and left to scrape a living from London's streets. His affinity with animals gives him the name 'Dogboy' and employment with rat catcher Bob and scientist Dr Ross-Gibbon. The Doctor's ambition is to encourage humanity to annihilate the rats by dragging them into a war. Efren and Dogboy, both insignificant in their own worlds, must make both man and rodent see sense; easier said than done. Full review...

The Smug Pug by Anna Wilson

We first met Pippa Peppercorn and the pooch-pampering parlour in The Poodle Problem and then in The Dotty Dalmatian. Pippa is a whole six months (and a little bit) older now but she still bounces off the page like a rubber ball with red pigtails. I did worry about her just a little bit as she didn't seem to have any friends of her own age. The elderly Mrs Fudge, the ladies who have their hair done at the salon and Raphael the postman are really no substitute for someone of your own age with whom you can have fun and giggles. And pass notes to each other in school - which is an essential part of growing up. Full review...

Flight of the Last Dragon by Robert Burleigh and Mary Grandpre

Told in rhyme, this is the tale of the very last dragon on earth. He hides away, deep underground, remembering the times when the dragons ruled the earth until one day a voice from the heavens calls him, summons him, up and away, to fly far, far into the sky and leave this world behind. I rather like the idea of dragons. They're one of those mythical creatures that I still sort of hope might actually be real! My daughter likes dragons too, although when she saw the title of this book she was prepared for a sad story, sensing that we weren't heading towards a happy ending. Full review...

The Princess and the Peas and Carrots by Harriet Ziefert and Travis Foster

Rosebud is a good girl, for the most part, neat and tidy and a happy little girl, at which times her daddy calls her Good Princess Rosebud. But then sometimes things go a little bit wrong, or they aren't quite as Rosebud likes them, so perhaps there's a hole in her tights or snow in her boots or, heavens above, her peas are touching her carrots on the plate at dinner time! When this happens Rosebud becomes Princess Fussy and my, doesn't everyone know about it! Full review...

Harbour Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh

Crime

The Hollywood Station series is set (no prizes for guessing) in Hollywood. Hollywood is, almost by definition, a bit weird. A full moon is known as a Hollywood moon, because that's when all the weirdoes come out to play. But it's a district that needs to be policed like any other. It has its fair share of RTAs and domestics and sad and lonely people. Not for nothing has the night shift sergeant instituted pizza-rewarded awards for best 'True Hollywood Romance' or 'Quiet Desperation' reports from a given shift. You need a black sense of humour to work the mean streets. Full review...

The Dogs of Winter by Bobbie Pyron

Little Mishka finds his cosy world turned upside down after the death of his beloved Babushka Ina. Unable to cope, his desperate mother finds solace in the arms of an abusive, alcoholic boyfriend and things go from bad to worse. When his mother mysteriously disappears, five year old Mishka flees to the heart of the city, where he joins up with a gang of street children, begging and stealing to survive. Full review...

The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story by Catherine Fletcher

History

Henry VIII’s protracted divorce from Catherine of Aragon, often referred to as ‘The King’s Great Matter’, has been described in detail many times before. In this book on the subject, the focus is on the role of Italian diplomat, Gregorio Casali, ‘our man in Rome’, as the hardback edition was titled. In the preface, Ms Fletcher explains that the average reader may be conversant with the basic facts of Henry and his six wives, but has probably never heard of Casali, who played a lengthy role in the proceedings. Full review...

The Prey by Andrew Fukuda

Having escaped the vampires hunting them on the boat left by the Scientists, Gene, Sissy and the boys make their way down the river and arrive at the Mission. Food is abundant, the place is peaceful, and the Elders promise them a trip on the next train to Civilisation. Gene and Sissy can hardly believe it. But it's soon apparent that the Mission is not all it seems and Gene begins to wonder if they haven't simply exchanged one hellhole for another. Although they find out a great deal more about the Scientist - he developed the Origin, a cure for vampirism - understanding his plans is as frustrating as ever. And with the vampires coming ever closer, even to the Mission itself, and the Elders making moves of their own, time is running out and Gene and Sissy must decide what to do... Full review...

The Silly Satsuma by Allan Plenderleith

Once there was a boy called Eric Greenbogle. I'd like to be able to tell you that he was a good boy, but that would be wrong. Eric was a bad boy and we all know what happens to bad boys on Christmas morning, don't we? Good boys (and girls) find lots of presents under the tree, but Father Christmas knows who has been good and who has been bad and Eric was about to be taught a lesson. There was just one present under the tree for Eric: a satsuma. Oh, there was something else - there was a note from Father Christmas explaining why there were no presents. Eric was furious. Eric cried, but then... Full review...

Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black

Vanessa is just one of many new students at the New York Ballet Academy - but while they're all trying to become the best dancer, she has her own reasons for being there. Three years ago her older sister disappeared from the school, and she's determined to find out what happened to Margaret. Can she find out? And will the two boys taking an interest in her, charismatic Zeppelin and incredibly intense Justin, help or hinder her search? Full review...

The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan M Katz

Politics and Society

It was January 12, 2010 and AP correspondent Jonathan M. Katz was preparing to ship out of Haiti after spending the last two and a half years reporting about political instability, riots and disasters. He was preparing for a change of scene, a stint in Afghanistan, concluding that It sounded like a good place for a break. Nature had other plans.

When the earthquake struck, Katz was unexpectedly thrown into the thick of the action. As the only American reporter on the ground at the time of the quake, he felt duty-bound to break news of unfolding events to an oblivious world. Full review...

A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger by Lucy Robinson

Women's Fiction

Charley is a have-it-all alpha-female. She takes cooking lessons, learns Mandarin, volunteers her time to worthy causes. But she’s not a lady who lunches, trying to fill her days, she’s a high-flying communications manager at a Pharma company who dreams big and works relentlessly to achieve her goals. So, when she’s side-lined by a nasty accident that leaves her leg broken in 3 places, she panics. Not for her are months off sick, lounging on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle and eating Thorntons straight from the box. She can’t return to work, so she needs a new plan, something to occupy her time and stop her brain going to mush. Full review...

Secret Meeting by Jean Ure

Megan loves to read and she especially loves to read books by her very favourite author, Harriet Chance. Over the years she has collected all of Harriet’s books and as her birthday approaches Megan wonders if she will be able to buy a copy of Harriet’s latest novel with her birthday book tokens. Megan’s best friend, Annie, is determined that Megan should have a birthday she will never forget so when she meets Harriet’s daughter in an on-line chat room she decides to arrange the best birthday present ever for her friend. Megan is stunned when Annie reveals that Harriet has agreed to meet Megan and have a special birthday tea with her as part of her birthday celebrations. The two friends plot the secret meeting with care and feel sure that nothing can go wrong but when they finally meet the celebrated author Megan has an uneasy feeling that all is not as it seems. Should she have listened to her mother’s warnings about the dangers of meeting people you chat to on the Internet? Full review...

Ant and Bee by Angela Banner

When you learn to read it has to be fun. You have to master the skill but it mustn't be too daunting or you're not going to enjoy it and - worst of all - you might be put off reading for life. It's best if you can share the reading until you get to grips with decoding what's on the page, so if an adult could read most of the words but you read others to which you've already been introduced and which are in a different colour then that is going to be a help. If the words are introduced with a nice big picture and if they appear in alphabetical order, then that's going to be fun, isn't it? Full review...

Rift by Andrea Cremer

After a mysterious healer saved the life of Ember, and her mother, when she was just a baby, Ember was promised to the mysterious order Conatus. It's a debt her father is not happy about paying - determined to see his younger daughter married to a suitable husband, he tries everything in his power to stop Ember joining the order of knights. Full review...

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Autobiography

One day Susannah Cahalan was a bright, outgoing tabloid reporter in New York, with a promising career ahead of her. Within weeks a mysterious illness reduced her to an incoherent shadow of her former self, struggling with basic tasks, and left doctors at one of the world's top medical centres baffled. In Brain on Fire, Cahalan – now in the 'post-recovery' stage of her life – attempts to recapture the memories and events from the her 'month of madness' before diagnosis and cure. Full review...

The Sweet Girl by Annabel Lyon

The Sweet Girl is a novel fictionalising the life of Pythias, the Greek philosopher Aristotle's daughter. The reader looks at the world through Pythias’ eyes, from the age of 7 until her late teens, starting in Athens, and ending up in Chalcis. One gets to delve into the experience of life in the household of a highly esteemed ancient philosopher, and the uncertainty which the main characters are thrown into after the death of King Alexander, making life unsafe for anyone previously affiliated with him – this includes Aristotle, who was once his teacher. Full review...

Cockadoodle-Doo, Mr Sultana! by Michael Morpurgo

There was once a very rich and very greedy and very fat sultan who kept his people in poverty and everything else for himself. One day when he was out riding (and being very mean to his horse) he lost a diamond button. His people were made to search for it on their hands and knees, but it was found by a little red rooster, who was very cheeky and who forced the sultan into a merry chase and finally a humiliating defeat. It's the stuff of traditional fairy tales given some delightful twists by a master storyteller and hilariously illustrated by Shoo Rayner. Full review...

Pea's Book of Big Dreams by Susie Day

For as long as she can remember, Pea has wanted to be a writer like her mother, the famous Marina Cove. But when she loses confidence in her writing ability, she decides it's time to look for a new career to aspire to. What should she be? An artist, a footballer, a pet therapist, or something else? One thing's for sure... there'll be lots of laughs, love, and even a little lunacy as she finds out. (Especially when little sister Tinkerbell, in her most Stinkerbellish of moods, gets involved!) Full review...

Irresistible by Liz Bankes

After finishing her GCSEs, Mia gets a job at Radleigh Castle, working as a waitress. She quickly meets fellow worker Dan, who she likes, but is he the boy for her - or would she be better off with Jamie, son of the owners and all-around arrogant idiot. Incredibly, it's a somewhat harder decision than that last sentence would suggest. Full review...

Never Odd Or Even by John Townsend

Elliot is twelve. He's obsessed with numbers and letters, especially palindromes. He loves to spend his spare time playing about with words or numbers, when he can avoid school bully Victor Criddle, his arch-enemy. But when 'the biggest mystery that struck our school in the history of the world' has to be solved, Elliot's forced to use all of his brain power. Full review...

The Rook (The Checquy Files) by Daniel O'Malley

Fantasy

A woman wakes up with amnesia surrounded by dead people wearing gloves. In her pocket she discovers a letter from Myfanwy Thomas, the previous inhabiter of her body. Myfanwy tells a strange story of working for 'the Checquy', a paranormal version of MI5 which has been permeated by a web of betrayal and danger. The problem is that Myfanwy never discovered the source before her body changed hands (so to speak). The amnesiac has a clear choice: to continue Myfanwy's investigation or to do a runner. It's her decision but Myfanwy's warning is less than encouraging:

Remember they want you dead.

Something for her to bear in mind along with the fatal, unintended consequences of permitting cheap cheese into the UK. Full review...

Unleashed 2: Mind Over Matter by Ali Sparkes

To recap; this is the second in a series of five stand-alone books, where Ali Sparkes drags all the minor characters from her first, Shapeshifter, set of five books out into the daylight. They've all got to be introduced with the intention to make us aware how rare it is that they see the light of day – as Children of Limitless Ability they're normally stuck in a school for the superpowered. But here are Gideon and Luke, the boys who can move things with thoughts alone, on holiday. For their own adventure Sparkes has put them together with prehistoric animals, a girl with a weirdly old-fashioned, almost Dickensian problem, and a dog called Fish. Oh, and some very nasty men with guns… Full review...

The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry

Prepare yourself to try a book the likes of which you'd never particularly expect, and prepare yourself to find it becoming a favourite – one that has a snappy story, yet is a monologue, one that concerns what we all love – books, and love, yet one that also intrigues and tempts us with other, very diverse subjects. One morning our narrator turns up to start work early at her geography station in a very large but provincial library, and finds a locked-in regular. Over the next hour and twenty or so (for I read it out loud) she talks to him, barely allowing him a word in edgeways, and what we get is one big, fat lump of a paragraph of her world. Told you to be prepared for the unusual… Full review...

The Queen's Vow by C W Gortner

Queen Isabella of Spain will always be regarded as a bit of an enigma. On the one hand, contemporary sources claim that she was wise, kind and gentle, hating any kind of cruelty, including the popular sport of bullfighting. Her rule brought about the unification of Spain and heralded a new era of peace for its people. On the other side of the coin, she and her husband Fernando sanctioned the infamous Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of all Jews from Spain. Her most vehement critics may also point out that her sponsorship of Columbus brought untold misery to the inhabitants of the Americas, although in her defence, there is no way that she could have predicted the eventual consequences of his pioneering voyage. Full review...

Dead in the Water (A Kate Shugak Investigation) by Dana Stabenow

Crime

Kate Shugak is a native Aleut living in an Alaskan National Park and she's currently an investigator for hire. I hesitate to call her a private investigator as so far she's been hired by a government agency, but at just over five feet tall and just over thirty she's the best man when it comes to sorting out what's been going on. This time it's the case of two crew members lost from a ship off the coast of Alaska some months before. Their families want to know what happened to them. That's how Kate came to be signed on as a deckhand on the Avilda. They're crabbing in some of the nastiest and most dangerous conditions you can imagine. And it's not just the weather that's the problem. Full review...

Intermission by Owen Martell

There is a line in Alan Bennett's play 'The History Boys' that I love. It talks about 'subjunctive history', imagining things that might have happened. In Intermission, his first book in English as opposed to Welsh, Owen Martell borrows this idea, taking an event a surmising what may have happened afterwards. Full review...

Shadows of the Silver Screen by Christopher Edge

Kids these days have it pretty good. Not that my generation weren’t lucky – after all, we had first access to J K Rowling – but in 2013 there seems to be a greater choice of good books being published, for a wider range of abilities and interests, than my friends and I ever had access to. Full review...

All is Song by Samantha Harvey

Some books are hard work. I have no problem with that if I feel there’s a reason to persevere; if I can sense that the book is going to deliver a story and the hard work is necessary to enjoy it fully, then I will happily plod along, re-reading sections if necessary, to get the full benefit of the novel. Full review...

The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst

Thrillers

The reluctant, recently widowed Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier is military attaché to the French embassy in the Warsaw of 1937. Decorated during World War I, Mercier would rather be a field officer than attend endless receptions, parties and debriefing sessions necessary for his unofficial role, handling citizens who are encouraged or coerced to work against the interests of other states. He watches whilst Poland is squeezed between the Nazis on one side and the increasing profile of Stalin and Russia on the other, convinced that war will not only be inevitable, but soon. However, no one will listen to him as he gathers evidence and protects those he can from the onslaught to follow. Full review...

The Last Girlfriend on Earth by Simon Rich

Short Stories

There is more opportunity than ever these days to downsize your library. You can take all those lumpen classics to the charity shop now that they can be downloaded for free onto an e-reader. And with these couple of hundred pages you can also divest yourself of a heck of a lot of fiction about love, for this can easily replace so much you've read at greater length, with less imagination and with much less humour elsewhere. That hyperbole is only partly inspired by the style of the contents, for it really is that good. Full review...

The Orchid Field by Amy McLellan

Thrillers

In London petroleums expert Catherine Davenport ponders whether a change of employer is going to be to her advantage. An ill-advised fling with her boss is causing her embarrassment at work, particularly now that he has a new born child. An offer of a job that would take her out to Mexico to do a report on an off-shore oil field is too good an opportunity to miss. In Mexico Inspector Cortez is languishing in Port Luz in the back of beyond, sent in disgrace from his post in the city. He knows that he’s not - and never has been - corrupt but no one else believes him. In fact it’s seen as normal. Then a body appears on the beach and the local fishermen point out into the gulf and tell him that it came from there. When he looks more closely he realises that they mean the oil rigs. Full review...

Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Volume 1 by Shiba Ryotaro

I've long been a lover of Japan, ever since a brief visit to the country more than a decade ago. Whilst I've read several Japanese crime thrillers in translation, I've never really investigated the history of the country. Now available in English for the first time, Shiba Ryotaro's Clouds Above the Hill: A historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War provides just that opportunity. Full review...

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M Valente

September has had various wonderful adventures in Fairyland already, and because she ate Fairy food she knows she will return. But a year has gone by without a word from her friends, and in the meantime she has become a teenager. This changes her, for it is the time when human children grow a heart, and when at last the summons comes, she finds her adventures are far more complex than they were before. Full review...

Jumblebum by Chae Strathie and Ben Cort

Johnny McNess is a young boy whose bedroom is a decided mess! He has clothes lying everywhere, and toys scattered around, food discarded in the strangest of places and it all stinks! Disgusting! But his mum has come in and just warned Johnny about the Jumblebum monster who she feels is sure to be attracted by all this rubbish. Can anything really get Johnny to tidy his room? Full review...

Hostage Three by Nick Lake