Book Reviews From The Bookbag

The Bookbag

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, 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, the charity shop 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 author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.

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Review of A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel) by Martin Walker Crime It was a couple of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from his son. Gaston's father had sold the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy which he had used to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlat, owned by a Russian oligarch. Before he even got to go there he died, apparently of a heart attack, and the retirement home collected the proceeds of the policy and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just the contents of the farmhouse. The family hadn't exactly fallen out, but Gaston lived some way away and Claudette had fallen out of favour when she announced that she was gay, but they weren't expecting to be almost completely disinherited. Full Review

Review of Broken Silence (DS Nikki Parekh 2) by Liz Mistry Crime When we first meet him Stefan Marcovici has been in the UK with his daughter Maria for a while. He came expecting to work as a gardener and Maria was to be a nanny. Stefan ends up doing slave labour in a chicken factory: you can imagine what happens to an eighteen-year-old girl. Full Review

Review of This Book Is Alive! (Living Book) by Justine Avery and Daria Yudina For Sharing Books want you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readers. Books want to be read. This is the key message in Justine Avery's latest offering, This Book Is Alive!. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book and young reader, she's sending an invitation to all - pick me up, read me, be my friend, we can go on a journey together. It's a great message, don't you think? Full Review

Review of I Made a Mistake by Jane Corry Thrillers We know from the very beginning that there's a tragedy about to happen. On a January evening on a very crowded platform 3 of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under an oncoming train. That man is Matthew Gordon. Much later we see Poppy Page in the witness box of a crown court, getting a very rough ride from the prosecuting barrister. Full Review

Review of The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana by Maryse Condé Literary Fiction We live in a post-world: post-colonialism, post-modernism, post-truth. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novel, The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana, Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequences. Full Review

Review of Jungle Drop (The Unmapped Chronicles) by Abi Elphinstone Confident Readers Abi Elphinstone has said that she connects with her world-building through her characters. In an interview with [Books For Keeps], she described visualising her characters "wearing head torches which gradually reveal the world they are seeing to her and to the reader." Just as the darkness of a mine is cut through by a spear of light so too do quarrelsome Fox and Fibber get their first glimpse of the phantasmagorical glow-in-the-dark realm of Jungle Drop when they emerge through the mouth of a Dragon on the Here and There Express. Running from the opprobrium of their demanding and selfish parents, they must address what is in their hearts to find what they seek. Full Review

Review of Killing Mind (D I Kim Stone) by Angela Marsons Crime It looked very like a suicide, and to begin with, that was how both DI Kim Stone and Keats, the pathologist called it. It was only later that Stone and her team realised that when Samantha Brown cut her throat, hers was not the only hand holding the knife. It was murder. Sammy's parents. Myles and Kate were a little bit reluctant to say what their daughter had been doing recently. The property where she was found was less homely than most hotel rooms: her mother was about to accuse her husband of saying that Sammy was ready... But what was Sammy ready for and where was their other daughter, Sophie? Full Review

Review of The Unadoptables by Hana Tooke Confident Readers In the winter of 1880, five babies are abandoned at the Little Tulip orphanage in Amsterdam, much to the annoyance of matron Gasbeek. Twelve years later, Milou, the last of the five babies to be abandoned back in that winter, struggles to work out the identity of her parents from the clues she was abandoned with: a small coffin with claw-marks on the outside, a cat doll made by someone called Bram Poppenmaker and a velvet blanket. She, along with the other four, patiently wait for Milou's parents to come back and take her home. However, when the five children are sold to the dodgy merchant Meneer Rotman, they know they have to escape. And so begins the adventure of a lifetime as the Unadoptables join forces to reunite Milou with her parents, all the time being pursued by the Kinderbureau and Rotman… Full Review

Review of Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted Queen by Alison Weir Historical Fiction Katheryn was seven when her mother died, thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time in young Katheryn's life, trying to find a home, both figuratively and literally, where she can grow and grieve. Unfortunately, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lesson, she is too young, too poor and too unimportant to be of any value to anyone, but she is beautiful and surely, that will count for something in the end, won't it? Full Review

Review of The Glass House by Eve Chase Historical Fiction Rita lost both her parents in a car crash when she was just six years old: since then she's always craved a family. She'd lived with her grandmother in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with the Harrington family in London. Soon her engagement to Fred, a Torquay butcher, fell through and the Harringtons became her family. In 1971, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harrington, her children, 13-year-old Hera and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went to the family's house in the Forest of Dean. It wasn't quite dilapidated, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fire. Full Review

Review of Just My Luck by Adele Parks Thrillers Elaine Winterdale took the fall for the landlord. Aged 37, she got a suspended sentence because a faulty gas boiler had caused the deaths of 29-year-old Reveka Albu and her 2-year-old son Benke. Toma Albu, husband and father, had found them when he returned home. Full Review

Review of I Dreamed You by Justine Avery and Ema Tepic For Sharing It is always a pleasure to review a new book by Justine Avery and I Dreamed You carries on the tradition beautifully. This little book is the perfect exemplar of our category name, For Sharing. It is a mother's love letter to her child, told in rhyme form. Full Review

Review of If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie Biography I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better. Full Review

Review of Burn by Patrick Ness Teens On a cold Sunday evening in early 1957 - the very day, in fact, that Dwight David Eisenhower took the oath of office for the second time as President of the United States of America - Sarah Dewhurst waited with her father in the parking lot of the Chevron gas station for the dragon he'd hired to help on the farm. It's 1950s America but not as we know it. In this alternate US, there is still a Cold War with the Russians, still a concomitant arms race. And the stain of racism is just as crushing - something mixed-race Sarah and her Japanese American friend Jason are only too well aware of. As is the deeply unpleasant town deputy, Kelby. But one thing is very different. In this alternate world, there are dragons. The dragons live in an uneasy peace with humans and communication is minimal. But a few of these winged creatures do hire out their labour to human in return for gold - they are dragons, after all. Poor Frankie! Full Review

Review of Roxy and Jones: The Great Fairytale Cover-Up by Angela Woolfe Confident Readers After her father gets married for the umpteenth time, Roxy Humperdinck is sent to live with her half-sister Gretel in Rexopolis, the capital city of the Kingdom of Illustria. Gretel works as a toilet cleaner for the Ministry of Soup. Why does a country like Illustria need an entire ministry dedicated to soup, you ask? Well, after Roxy finds a secret passage in her bathroom and meets a snarky young woman known only as Jones, she soon finds out why. Turns out, fairy tales are real, and the Ministry’s official job is to safeguard all knowledge of them and monitor the living fairy tales. And, when an evil queen breaks out of a maximum-security prison and threatens to reinstate her reign of terror, Roxy and Jones hold the fate of the world in their young hands…so, no pressure then! Full Review

Review of Dangerous Remedy by Kat Dunn Teens It's Paris, 1794. The Revolution is five years old and the country in the midst of violent political turmoil between the Revolutionaries, trying to maintain their control by whatever means necessary, and the Royalists, still loyal to monarchy intent. Caught in a no man's land between the two warring factions is the Battalion of the Dead. Led by a disillusioned revolutionary's daughter, the band of outcasts have made a name for themselves rescuing innocent citizens from the violent fallout. But they may have gotten in over their heads with their latest rescue, Olympe, a girl with a disturbing history and powers that might just make her the spark that blows up the powder-keg of revolutionary Paris. Full Review

Review of A Pocketful of Crows by Joanne M Harris Confident Readers I have always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violence, there is no difference between books for children and books for adults. There are good books and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. A Pocketful of Crows is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use of the middle initial in the author's name to differentiate from her adult offers. Ignore that if you have loved anything from Chocolat onwards you will know that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy tale. This is no different. It is an utter delight. Full Review

Review of The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall Teens On the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl has assumed the identity of Florian the man in an attempt to fit in with the crew. Life is hard as a pirate, trust and empathy are the first things to be discarded, but anything has to be better than starving on the streets. Meanwhile, the young Lady Evelyn Hasegawa boards the Dove, headed off to be married to a military man she's never met on some far-flung colony of the Nipran Empire. Neither of them expects to be thrown together by fate, never mind fall in love… Full Review

Review of A Life Without End by Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator) Literary Fiction I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep ongoing. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice? Full Review

Review of Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson Teens A month on from the explosive conclusion to the Andie Bell mystery, a new normal has settled over Little Kilton. Max Hastings' assault trial thunders on, Pippa's viral podcast detailing her journey of discovering the truth about Andie and Sal's deaths has gained massive media attention, Cara and her sister Naomi are reeling from the realisation that their father, Elliot Ward, had murdered Sal Singh and kidnapped a girl he thought was Andie after she stumbled out of his house, bleeding, and disappeared into the night. As the town tries to heal again, six years on from the events of that night, tragedy strikes again. Jamie Reynolds, older brother to one of Pippa's best friends has gone missing. And so, alongside her difficult life as a semi-famous eighteen-year-old, she is once again taken down a dark, twisted path to discover the truth. Full Review

Review of The Body Under the Bridge by Nick Louth Crime DCI Craig Gillard was annoyed to be pulled away from the funeral service for a serving police officer, particularly when he discovered that he was to take charge of the enquiry into a missing woman. Beatrice Ulbricht was twenty-five years old and a student of music at the Royal College of Music. She had been due to play with the other members of the Lysander String Quartet at the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields but hadn't turned up. Gillard didn't understand why his immediate involvement was necessary until Chief Constable Alison Rigby explained that Beatrice's father was Karl-Otto Ulbricht, Germany's Minister of Justice. Full Review

Review of The Double X Economy by Linda Scott Politics and Society Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in the world. It's a bold statement for an opening chapter, but it's far from hyperbole as the following pages explain. This book shines a light on what is happening in different places, and the impact on the local and world economy. What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling of young women into marriage, and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering? Full Review

Review of Daisy by J Paul Henderson General Fiction This is the story of Herod S. Pinkney, a rather unusual (yet somehow charming) man who is in search of a woman called Daisy, whom he first sees in an episode of Judge Judy on television and instantly falls in love with her! Rod is writing the novel of his quest, guided by an embittered ex-literary agent who is now clearing glasses in a pub for a living. Determined to find and meet Daisy, the book takes us through Rod's life, introduces us to his friends, and tells us of what happens in his quest for love. Full Review

Review of Ambassadors Do It After Dinner by Sandra Aragona Autobiography It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not diplomatic to do so, you know), but the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on. Full Review

Review of The Sideman by Caro Ramsay Crime No one thought that it could happen and can't quite believe that it has: Costello has resigned from Police Scotland. It's all down to her pursuit of George Haggerty whom she believes to be responsible for the murder of Abigail Haggerty (his wife) and Malcolm (her son). Haggerty has a water-tight alibi (caught speeding by Police Scotland, no less) and the powers that be have told Costello to lay off: she's decided to go her own way rather than be hampered by the badge. She didn't even bother telling her long-time partner, DCI Colin Anderson, that she was going. Since then there might have been the occasional text from her, but that's it. Full Review