Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

Mimi the Mouse and her family are going on an adventure in the big city, visiting shops, cafes and parks along the way. Mimi wears a bright red bow on top of her head and a pair of pretty pink fairy wings on her back, so you would think she would stand out in a crowd. But does she? Full review...

Monkey Nut by Simon Rickerty

Two curious little spiders find a monkey nut lying on the ground. They don’t know what it is, but they do know that they both want it and that they don’t want to share. But what is this strange, knobbly object? Is it a chair? A musical instrument? Maybe a boat? Whatever it is, the two little spiders are not the only ones interested. A much bigger, hairier spider is lurking in the shadows, waiting for the chance to grab the monkey nut for himself, but will he succeed? Full review...

Nemo: Heart of Ice by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

Graphic Novels

The Nemo here is merely the daughter of the great Captain Nemo, as defined by Jules Verne, although given that heritage there is more than enough talent in her bloodline for piracy and adventure. Here, fleeing a royal family that has just been looted, Nemo turns to her father's logbooks and journals, and decides there is unfinished business in the southern polar wastes. But while she's off looking for more edifying action, others are off looking for revenge on her… Full review...

Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

The celebration of Alcatraz's thirteenth birthday is quite a muted one – he gets a thirteen-year old parcel of sand in the post, claimed to be his inheritance from his birth parents, and he burns down the kitchen in his foster home – the latest in a long line of disasters that have followed him in his short accident-prone life. Expecting to just be farmed out to more foster parents, instead he is the subject of a battle between an armed man and a strange old fellow claiming to be Alcatraz's grandfather. What's more the guy says Al's abilities in breaking things are a Talent with a capital T, and the sands – that were stolen overnight – are a great threat to the world in the hands of Librarians (with a capital L). Against all his own instincts, our anti-hero goes with the latter man, finding his destiny in freeing the western world from the evil Librarians, and telling us about it later as an adult in a most sardonic fashion. Full review...

The Circus: An Inspector Carlyle Novel by James Craig

Crime

Journalist Duncan Brown was found dead in the back of a rubbish truck. It was a prosaic introduction to a major scandal for Inspector John Carlyle and before long his slim resources were stretched even further when a teenager had a bomb attached to his neck and the neighbour who was about to complain about the loud music was shot dead on the doorstep. It might have seemed that it couldn't get much worse, but before long Carlyle found himself up against Trevor Miller, a former police officer who had become security officer to the Prime Minister. He and Carlyle went back a long way and none of the memories were good. Full review...

Burden of the Desert by Justin Huggler

Thrillers

Journalist Zoe Temple can't believe her luck when she's sent to Iraq to cover the birth of an emerging nation, not thinking that such luck can sometimes run out. Mahmoud earns his money driving journalists from story to story, sometimes only just escaping intact. However, the most dangerous thing he will ever do is fall in love. Rick Benes is one of the American soldiers on the news, his only ambition being to get his platoon home safely as Iraq's birth pangs are violent and unrelenting. And then there's Adel, a young Iraqi lad who never dreamt of violence; not until the day that Benes killed his family. Full review...

White Bones by Graham Masterton

Crime

Finding a dead body isn't an unusual occurrence for Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire of the Cork Gardai. But finding the bones of eleven bodies in a mass grave, each with marks that suggest the flesh was stripped from them and with evidence that they were used in a voodoo-like ritual is beyond the pale even by her usual standards. There is some respite when it appears that these bones have been dead bodies for more than 80 years, until another fresh set appear in roughly the same spot. Full review...

Back to Blackbrick by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Cosmo thought he had enough problems, with his absent mother, ridiculous name, and status as 'loser kid' at school. But his Grandfather isn't the man he used to be - the man that Cosmo idolised. Sometimes, he can't remember what day it is, or where certain things go in the kitchen. And then other times, he can't remember who Cosmo is, or that Brian, Cosmo's brother, died. Cosmo does all he can to help him, but post-its on the cupboards and omega-3 oils aren't enough to keep doctors from coming to assess Grandfather and deciding he needs to be taken into full time care. Full review...

Elmer and Aunt Zelda by David McKee

Elmer the patchwork elephant was reminded by his cousin Wilbur that they had promised to visit Aunt Zelda, who is getting old and a little bit deaf. Their visit is peppered with misheard words and misunderstandings but there’s an obvious affection between the two generations. Aunt Zelda is very proud of the two youngsters, and Elmer and Wilbur just love Zelda for what she is. There’s never hint of impatience or frustration, no matter how wrong Zelda hears what the two young elephants have to say. But - just in case Elmer was feeling at all superior - he finds when he gets home that he’s been rather forgetful too. Full review...

The People of Forever are not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu

Literary Fiction

Yael, Lea and Avishag go through their final years at high school in a little Israeli town on the Lebanese border and then on to the inevitable: the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Gender is immaterial, all Israeli citizens must serve at least two years and for these girls the moment arrives after graduation. Yael's posting seems futile as she guards a training base against marauding lads, sneaking across the border to pinch perfume from pockets rather than pose any real security threat. Lea's assignment on a border checkpoint searching the daily line of immigrant workers is riddled with routine. Avishag joins up with her own demons, her brother Dan having died after his national service. She knows how it happened but continues to struggle with why; something she must handle alone. Full review...

Anton and the Battle by Ole Konnecke

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with small children will know of the 'well I'm taller than you!' arguments which seem to appear, all of a sudden, and carry on for years! Everything becomes a competition, and it's all about who is stronger or bigger or can eat more beans or can run the fastest or jump the highest or has the noisiest baby brother...This story captures the way these arguments begin, and escalate, as we meet Anton and his friend Luke and see them imagining bigger and bigger ways of being 'better' than each other! Full review...

That's Mine! by Michel Van Zeveren

I've come to look forward to picture books published by Gecko Press. They always seem to come up with something a bit different, and this book is no exception. This is the story of an egg, found by a small green frog who claims it for his own. But then snake says it's his egg, and eagle says it's his egg. Just whose egg is it?! Full review...

Pedigree Mum by Fiona Gibson

Women's Fiction

When Kerry Tambini moves to Shorling, she has high expectations that she and her family will live there happily forever. Within weeks though, her dreams are shattered after her husband Rob shocks her by an indiscretion that he can hardly remember. This indiscretion turns out to have a devastating consequence leaving Kerry with no option but to ask Rob to move out. This leaves her alone with the children in Shorling and pretty much friendless as she struggles to find anything in common with the snooty mums she meets at the school gate. Full review...

Sorrowline by Niel Bushnell

Jack's mother was killed when he was a young boy and now, just before his thirteenth birthday, he learns that his father is leaving him too — for a spell in prison. And then things get seriously weird, because his long-dead grandfather appears to warn him that his life in in danger. The old man is closely followed by a bunch of murderous creatures called the Dustmen, and in order to escape them Jack is forced to flee back to 1940, using a sorrowline. Full review...

Angel Creek by Sally Rippin

It is Christmas Eve and Jelly's family are gathered together to celebrate. It should have been a perfect night but for Jelly it is not because her family have recently moved to the other side of the city, far from all her friends, just as she is about to start at senior school. She is feeling so alone and miserable that nothing will brighten her mood and to avoid the festivities Jelly and her two cousins slip away in the darkness to the nearby creek. Full review...

Smuggler's Kiss by Marie-Louise Jensen

Fifteen-year-old Isabelle has given up on life. Walking into the sea, she is ready to drown herself - until she changes her mind, too late. But instead of drowning, she's pulled from the waves by smugglers. While the crew aren't all happy that a couple of their men have jeopardized them by rescuing her, she quickly becomes useful to them and starts to get a thrill from helping to evade the Preventives. Can she be happy in her new life, or will her dark secret catch up with her? Full review...

House of Secrets by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini

The Walker family used to have a big house in San Francisco, but after their father lost his job in mysterious circumstances, they were forced to move into the spooky Kristoff House, a strange place once occupied by a disturbed fantasy author. Soon after they move in, they realise that their arrival has set terrible events in motion, and children Cordelia, Brendan and Eleanor are forced to try and rescue their parents from a terrible fate. Full review...

Girl Genius: Agatha H and the Airship City by Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio

Science Fiction

Agatha Clay has had a bad day. Waking up late was just the beginning. She got mugged in a dark alley on her way to university and her precious locket was stolen. Things did not get any better when she arrived at the university. When demonstrating her latest mechanical design, it malfunctioned and exploded in front of her instructor. Then, without warning, the faculty had an impromptu inspection by Baron Wulfenbach, the ruthless dictator who controls most of the continent. By the time the day was through, the university had been reduced to a pile of rubble and her beloved mentor killed. And then,of course, she had those blinding headaches to deal with. But if today was bad, tomorrow is set to be even worse... Full review...

About Zooming Time, Opal Moonbaby! by Maudie Smith

Martha feels lonely without her Best and Only Friend, Opal Moonbaby. That's obviously a rather unusual name but it's not the only thing about Opal which is unusual. She's an alien from Carnelia and she originally came to earth as part of a challenge. She had to make a human friend and despite the fact that Martha was determined that she would never have another friend, the relationship somehow worked. When we last saw her she was on her way back to Carnelia and Uncle Bixie. Martha was heartbroken to see her go - and I'll confess to being just a little bit upset myself. But don't worry - she's back! Full review...

The Revenge of Frankenstein by Shaun Hutson

Horror

Imprisoned and sentenced to death for the crimes he feels were caused by his creation and not his drive to bend the reach and morals of medical science, Doctor Frankenstein is given a way out of the guillotine's grasp, and gains a loyal adherent in the misshapen form of Carl. They move on to work together at a charitable hospital, which serves merely as a front for the Doctor's usual experiments, transplanting body organs, reviving corpses or bits thereof, and bringing new forms of life to the world. Cue yet another problematic creation, with an unfortunate way of leaving a trail of violence and vehemence, but with another innocent female to tender him, in this respectful and intelligent sequel. Full review...

Monstrous Maud: Scary Show by A B Saddlewick

If you have a series of books set in a school, all to feature a different aspect of school life, you are duty bound it seems to feature a talent contest for the pupils. This series is no different, although of course the school is. It's where Maud goes, and she's the only human. So her fellow pupils can do formation vampire bat flying, or a wicked spell casting, and even the invisible girl will join in, showing off her gymnastics. What hope the poor human girl Maud, who has pretended to be an evil nasty 'Tutu' all year just to try and fit in? Full review...

A Horse For Angel by Sarah Lean

Eleven year old Nell feels as though her life is a list of pointless activities that she didn't choose and that she doesn't enjoy; the drama club, the maths tutor, the swimming lessons and the endless waiting for her busy, single mum between them all. Nell is looking forward to spending two restful weeks with her Grandma over the Easter holiday but at the last minute she discovers that she is to stay with relations that she doesn't know. Nell has a secret and when she travels to her Aunt's home she takes a suitcase containing her secret with her and on the first day of her stay she has a chance encounter with a local girl, Angel, who has secrets of her own. Despite the initial hostility between the two girls they gradually realise that they must learn to trust each other if they are to care for the things they love. Full review...

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym

Literary Fiction

Wilmet Forsyth is a married woman, childless and living a life of leisure. She and her friend Rowena met their husbands - both Majors - in Italy, where they served as Wrens during the war. Rowena now has three children and her husband David might just be developing a wandering eye. Wilmet's husband, Rodney, is still Noddy to his mother with whom they live. Unburdened by children or domestic responsibility Wilmet lunches or shops and becomes involved in the social life of the local church, St Luke's. But it's her relationship with Piers, Rowena's somewhat wayward brother, which might pose the biggest threat to her comfortable, if rather boring existence. Full review...

Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates

A short while ago, I read The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates and was moved by the sheer emotional impact of the stories it contained. This was especially true of the title story, which looked at the impact on a family torn by the disappearance of their daughter. The synopsis of Daddy Love suggested a similar impact, given the nature of the story and what I'd recently discovered about the power of Oates' writing. Full review...

Money Never Sleeps by Stella Whitelaw

Crime

Fancy Jones is a crime writer. Actually, it’s Francine Double-Barrelled name but her brother never got further than being able to pronounce ‘Fancy’ and the name stuck. Her Pink Pen Detective stories are one of the main reasons that she was invited to attend a writers’ conference in Derbyshire. But Fancy has other reasons for going: in London someone is trying to kill her. It was difficult to think otherwise when you only just avoid being pushed in front of a tube train and have a rucksack hurled at you as you get on a bus. The bubble-wrapped piece of concrete hurled through the bedroom window as she slept convinced her - if she still had any lingering doubts. There was just one problem: the attacks continued when she got to Derbyshire and it soon became clear that she wasn’t to be the only victim. Full review...

Blood Pool by J E Ryder

Samantha Shelley was surprised to become the owner of a boatyard when her husband died in a cliff fall. She had worked in the East Devon boatyard - run it in fact - for quite some time but it's the men of the Shelley 'blood pool' who have always inherited the land for the past two hundred years. She was aware of ill-feeling against her in the village, but her priority was to keep the business running as smoothly as possible for herself and for the staff she employed. There was some support in the village - an old friend, known to one and all as 'the Prof' - had always been there for her and willing to listen to her outpourings or just to chatter as she drank coffee. Then he disappeared in violent circumstances. Full review...

Encounters of Sherlock Holmes by George Mann (Editor)

Crime (Historical)

Sherlock Holmes remains an enduring icon of English literature; perhaps as popular today as he was back in the late 1800s, maybe even more so with the advent of TV and film adaptations of his adventures. Indeed, such is the lasting appeal of the character that since the death of Conan Doyle there have been literally hundreds of works published, picking up where the original stories left off. Full review...

Countess Dracula by Guy Adams

Horror

1970s Hollywood, and a small group of people on a rough-and-ready coach tour round the stars' homes and scenes of scandal gets diverted to the completely ruined mansion once owned by a true golden couple. Cue a major flashback to the days when cinema idols Frank and Elizabeth were living there, and growing a very singular approach to sex, drugs and each other. Their career – jointly and separately – has been going downhill, hers irreparably as talkies have proven she is not the home-spun American dream, but Hungarian. A freak accident suggests that, like her compatriot and namesake, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, the blood of young women will turn back the clock on Elizabeth's years, and make her youthful, the vivacious beauty of old. Cue a descent into the kind of excess that only Hollywood can produce… Full review...

Monstrous Maud: Horror Holiday by A B Saddlewick

And you think you have it tough… Maud is the only human at a school entirely populated by monsters – vampires, zombies, invisible people and so on. So just put yourself in her shoes when it's parents' evening, trying to divert her family from realising the truth about everyone and everything around them. Worse than that, try and put yourself in her shoes when it's revealed that she has to get an impossibly high score on an essay to not be kept back a year and lose contact with all her best friends. Worse than that, empathise with Maud as her folks meet another pupil's family at the parents' evening, and they therefore agree to go on holiday with a family of werewolves… at full moon… Full review...

Jasmine Nights by Julia Gregson

The temptingly titled Jasmine Nights starts promisingly. Saba, a talented singer whose gift to the war is entertaining the troops, comes from an unhappy family background, and one that has little patience for the opportunities for women brought about by war. Dom, a fighter pilot who has sustained injuries, is feeling displaced - the war has changed his world forever. Full review...

Hysteria by Megan Miranda

Shunned by many of her former friends after killing her boyfriend in self-defence, and unable to remember the details of his death, Mallory feels haunted by his presence. When her parents send her to boarding school, will this be a chance for a fresh start, or will her past catch up with her even there? Full review...

More and More Ant and Bee by Angela Banner

Right at the beginning, when you're just starting to read books which have more words than pictures, you need a book that's structured to help you. You need a book which is comfy to hold in small hands and which has a firm cover so that everything keeps straight. You need to share the reading and to know which words you're going to read and you might perhaps appreciate a hint in the form of a picture which will help you to get the word all on your own. Most of all though, you need to have a proper story and a feeling that you've achieved something when you get to the end. You need Ant and Bee. Full review...

Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Volume 2 by Shiba Ryotaro

Historical Fiction

If Volume 1 built up the characters of Masaoka Shiki and the Akiyama brothers, Volume 2 is a book more about war than about people, at least as individuals. Very early in this volume, Masaoka Shiki passes away at a very young age and so fades from the story. Shortly afterwards, as the war with Russia becomes more inevitable and Japan's preparations for this really kick into gear, the Akiyama brothers blend a little more into the cast of characters working on the war effort and whilst their names appear fairly regularly, we don't follow their stories as closely as before. Full review...

The Queen at War (Chronicles of the Tempus) by K A S Quinn

Katie Berger-Jones-Burg is puzzled. Living with her former pop-star mother in a New York apartment she is having strange visions. It seems she has forgotten all about her previous time travelling adventures (in The Queen Must Die) although someone appears to be trying to send her some clues to prompt her memory. Her friends from Victorian England, Princess Alice and James, are facing difficulties of their own, with a very sick friend and also the threat of war. They need Katie's help, but how can they get her to travel back in time to them? Full review...

Nine Days by Toni Jordan

Christopher 'Kip' Westaway lives in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia with mother Jean, sister Connie and his twin, Francis. Kip's mother considers him a layabout who doesn't deserve the special privileges of his educationally elite brother and so he works at the big house next door for the Hustings, caring for their horses. One day Mr Husting presents Kip with a shilling; their little secret. As its 1939, that's a fair amount of money so Kip hides it away, not realising how special that coin will become as the decades pass. Full review...

How to Fall by Jane Casey

Freya dies after a fall from a cliff. But was it an accident, suicide, or - horror of horrors - murder?

Jess Tennant can't bear a mystery and so she sets out to solve the mystery of the death of the cousin she never met. She meets with nothing but obstruction and hostility, but perhaps it's little wonder. Not only is Jess a stranger in the parochial town of Port Sentinel, she is also the spitting image of Freya. She unsettles everyone for these reasons but, even despite them, Jess is an unsettling girl. She's blunt, direct, and she never takes no for an answer. Full review...

Ten Things I've Learnt About Love by Sarah Butler

Alice returns home to spend time with her dying father. She's been travelling in Mongolia, finding temporary escape from the issues that had haunted her life in London but now, on her return, events bring the pain she thought was behind her into sharp focus. Meanwhile Daniel is an elderly vagrant who calls the streets of London home. He seeks his lost child, leaving a trail of random items across the city in the hope of reunion like someone occupying a verse of Eleanor Rigby. Disparate lives, seeking love and acceptance in a world that seems to exclude it. Full review...

Arthur and the Earthworms by Johanne Mercier

Arthur has got himself a new job. He might be only seven but a boy can never start too soon. He's going to be selling earthworms from a table at the side of the road and the idea came when his pet duck started pulling up the worms. They were his favourite food, you see and on a rainy day you could find a lot of them just near the surface. He and Grandad managed to get quite a few worms together, but trade wasn't very brisk on the first and the woman who was determined to buy his pet duck did rather scare him. But the next day, trade picked up (although some of the customers did look suspiciously family) and then the big order came in... Full review...

Everbound by Brodi Ashton

This is the second in the Everneath trilogy and picks up two months from where the first book finished. Two months ago the Tunnels of the Everneath came to claim Nikki Beckett, to take her back to the Underworld where she would be used as a human battery forever. That night, Nikki's boyfriend, Jack, made the ultimate sacrifice and took Nikki's place in the Everneath. Now, Nikki is haunted by Jack, who appears in her dreams every night, lost, confused and slowly having the life sucked out of him. On the Surface everybody is blaming Nikki for Jack's disappearance; Jack's Mum has hired a Private Detective who's following Nikki around, convinced that she will take him to Jack. Full review...

I Love You by Giles Andreae and Emma Dodd

This is the fourth I love … publication from the prolific Giles Andreae, this time partnered by illustrator Emma Dodd. Judging by the little trike the child rides, this book is aimed at one and two year old children. It would be a good choice for a child not yet up for a simple story, since here, the language is the emotional narrative. Repetitive rhyming couplets explore familiar aspects of a young child’s world. The best books for pre-language children at bedtime secure and settle, and the appeal of this book is in its predictable rhythmn and happy emotion, rather than a challenging vocabulary or exciting story line. Full review...

The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

While re-entering the UK with some human ashes and a stash of marijuana, Alex Woods is stopped by customs and referred to the police. It all started 6 years before when, as an 11 year old living in England's West Country, his escape from bullies necessitates breaking into a shed; the shed of a man with a gun pointing at Alex. The man is American Vietnam veteran Isaac Peterson and, whatever his school teachers may say to the contrary, this is the moment when Alex's education really begins; this and the moment when he was hit on the head by a passing meteor of course. Full review...

Maximus Musicus Visits the Orchestra by Hallfridur Olafsdottir and Porarinn Mar Baldursson

Children's Non-Fiction

One day Maxi wanders into a rehearsal of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, where he is entranced to hear Ravel’s Bolero. He encounters most of the orchestral instruments and there’s a lot of whimsical humour as Maxi moves from instrument to instrument. Eventually he falls asleep on the stage, tired out by the excitement of his adventures. He wakes to a loud booming noise as the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is played, and he finds that the orchestra is in concert. He scuttles down into a packed auditorium. At the end of the concert, Maximus joins in the standing ovation which precedes the stirring home-grown encore. Full review...

Publish on Amazon Kindle with Kindle Direct Publishing by Kindle Direct Publishing

Reference

If you're thinking of going down the road of self-publishing your book but are unwilling or unable to fund the services offered by some of the leaders in the field then publishing on Kindle is the obvious place to look first. It's a big step though and you want to get it right - not least because what you publish could be out there to haunt you for a very long time. This book comes, as it were, from the horse's mouth and I was expecting explanations, guidance, advice and, well, something which would leave me with the feeling that I could do this successfully. How did it square up? Full review...

Whizz Pop, Granny Stop! by Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger