Book Reviews From The Bookbag
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review 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 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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The Mystery of Wickworth Manor by Elen Caldecott
Paige Owens is really looking forward to going to secondary school. She's sure that a school trip to Wickworth Manor, to meet up with the other students who will be starting their new school in the autumn, will be fabulous. Newcomer Curtis Okafor is far more nervous about the visit, especially since he doesn't know anyone. When he finds a portait of a young black servant hidden away, though, and Paige finds an old letter which mentions it, the pair team up to do some detective work to try and work out why the portrait isn't on display. Full review...
Debutantes by Cora Harrison
The year is 1923. Everyone who is anyone is enjoying themselves in London, coming out as a debutante and eagerly anticipating the royal wedding. But the Derringtons aren’t really anyone – they’re stuck in their run-down house in the country with their father and their great-aunt, without the money or fashionable dresses for eldest sister Violet to have the season she desperately wants. Can these four young ladies make their way in the world? Full review...
The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen
Minou lives on a sparsely occupied, temperate island. In fact the only occupants apart from Minou and her Papa are Priest (the Priest), Boxman (a maker of magical boxes) and a dog called No Name. Minou’s mother used to live there too. She arrived on a boat with a bowl containing a peacock (a real live one called… yes… Peacock). But then one day Mama disappeared completely apart from one shoe. Minou misses her and the way that she encouraged Minou’s imagination, completely at odds with her father’s logical philosophical outlook. Papa doesn’t believe that Mama will return and so has symbolically buried the shoe but Minou thinks differently: Mama will come back. Full review...
The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman
It's hard to know where to start in reviewing Ned Beauman's Booker long-listed The Teleportation Accident. Reading it, you feel like the parent of an ADHD-suffering child. At times it is lovable, brilliant and entertaining, at others you just want to reach for the Ritalin and tell it to sit in a corner quietly while it composes itself. A clue to both the brilliance and frustration of Beauman is in the vast range of writers to whom he has been compared in both this and his first novel Boxer, Beetle. There are hints of people as wide ranging as David Mitchell, P G Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Raymond Chandler even Angela Carter to name just a few. Beauman takes a huge range of styles and genres and pushes them and bends them often to glorious effect, but it can be a challenge keeping up with him at times. Full review...
The Iron Wyrm Affair by Lilith Saintcrow
Someone is killing off Mentaths - geniuses, logic machines - in the city of London and it's up to Emma Bannon, sorcerer Prime, to protect their next target Archibald Clare. Emma is powerful and resourceful, but she has problems of her own - such as whether she can trust her Shield, Mikal, who killed the last sorcerer whose service he was in. And while Clare is as keen as she to uncover the conspiracy behind the murders, the illogical world of sorcery and the logical minds of Mentaths don't mix well. Full review...
The Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin
In a society devastated by an illness which is killing off the poor as the rich are kept safe by wearing special porcelain masks, Araby is seeking oblivion. She is trying to get over the death of her brother, Finn, who even her scientist father - the inventor of the masks - wasn't able to save. Feeling she has nothing left to live for, she's resigned herself to drug-fuelled nights in the Debauchery Club along with April, niece of the city's ruler Prince Prospero. When she meets two different, but enchanting, boys there, and becomes involved in events which will shape the destiny of the city, will she find something worth fighting for? Full review...
Laura Marlin Mysteries: Dead Man's Cove by Lauren St John
Laura has been in foster care since she was born, but Social Services have recently discovered that she has an uncle. So, at the beginning of this adventure mystery she finds herself moving to a house by the beach in Cornwall to live with Calvin Redfern, a man she has never met before. Laura's experiences have taught her to question everything, to be independent and to stand on her own two feet, so having an uncle who trusts her to be sensible, rather than lay down a list of rules, seems ideal. But Uncle Calvin and his house are shrouded in secrets. Why does he work such strange hours? Where does he go late at night? And why are there no signs of his past in the house? Full review...
Albert of Adelaide by Howard L Anderson
Albert the Duck-Billed Platypus lives in an Adelaide zoo but knows there's more to life than this. There must be as he's heard the stories. Somewhere beyond the cages is Old Australia, a land of dreams where there are no zoos and no human captors, just animals who are free to govern themselves and live in perpetual peace and happiness. That's a world that Albert wants to be a part of and so he escapes, realising that for the first time in his short life his future is in his own webbed paws. Full review...
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
Joe, a poet and Isabel, his war-correspondent wife and their teenage daughter Nina rent a luxurious villa in the South of France and invite their friends Laura and Mitchell to join them. On their first day there Nina finds what appears to be a naked body floating in the swimming pool, but it's Kitty Finch. She pleads a mix-up over booking dates and when told that all the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers her the use of the spare bedroom at the villa. There's no obvious reason for why she does this, but what does become clear is that Kitty suffers from depression - and she's stopped taking her medication. Full review...
Granny Grabber's Whizz Bang World by Charlotte Haptie
It takes a very good writer to make a robot seem endearing, and an even better one to make it nicer and kinder than most humans. But that's what Charlotte Haptie manages in this wonderfully daft tale of a child care robot called Granny Grabber that has more common sense than several parents, a firm called The Happy Home Robotics and a King. Full review...
The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph
Meet what the first chapter calls the underdog family. Tamil immigrants to Madras, they are below the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinking, and by him being a failed writer and mediocre journalist. His wife Mariamma has, shall we say, problems, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next door. But their other son Unni is a cartoonist hottie - a handsome prodigy of the comic strip world - or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years ago, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and output, trying to seek the cause of this suicide, and what we have here is the journey of the family as he struggles towards the truth. Full review...
Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
Lucy wants to celebrate the end of school by finding the mysterious graffiti artist Shadow, whose work she's becoming obsessed with. The last thing she wants is to be stuck with Ed, a boy she briefly dated a couple of years ago, especially since that date ended with her breaking his nose after he put his hands in an inappropriate place. Ed, though, is supposed to be able to help her find Shadow, so she puts up with him. During the night, we see the story from both Lucy and Ed's sides as they gradually grow closer to each other. Full review...
The Dead of the Night (The Tomorrow Series) by John Marsden
Months after the invasion chronicled in the first book in this series, Ellie and her friends are still fighting against the enemy. Their latest plan - to rescue Kevin, who's imprisoned, and Callie, who's in a coma, after the ending of the first novel. Can they succeed? Full review...
Merivel: A Man of His Time by Rose Tremain
Rose Tremain has made fans of her 1989 book Restoration wait for a long time before picking up the story of Sir Robert Merivel. Almost as much time has passed in Merivel's world with the book opening in 1683. Leaving a follow up so long can be fraught with danger. For those, like me, who loved Restoration at the time, the memory of its central character has grown in fondness over time while some of the detail has been inevitably lost to memory. Thankfully, this is one of those rare things in literature; a very good follow up. Full review...
Space Lizards Ate My Sister! by Mark Griffiths
On a school trip to an observatory, a scientist is being very stupid and silly in trying to impress the class of visitors about his work, which is very ironic considering what will happen to two of them. When the session leads to the discovery of an asteroid on its way to collide fatally with Earth, Lance and Tori are shocked to see the evil lizard they had to defeat in the first book in this series being asked for help. Soon they have to enter a cat-and-mouse chase across the very galaxy the scientist was so uncool about, to save the planet - and, as the title says, Lance's sister. Full review...
Ten Weeks in Africa by JM Shaw
Stephen and Martha Odinga live with their younger siblings and ailing mother in the Makera slums, near Kisuru in Batanga, Africa. Their father was killed by the Army of Celestial Peace so they try to make a living on the streets. Corruption flows through Batanga like sewage through Makera though, and the protection payments they need to pay the police to continue trading are becoming prohibitive so Stephen searches for better paid employment in questionable career areas. Full review...
Too Many Blooms (Flower Girls 1) by Catherine R Daly
Delphinium Bloom is devoted to her grandparents and enjoys helping out in their family flower shop. For Del the shop is a haven of peace, quiet and orderliness compared to the rather chaotic, noisy but loving home she shares with her parents and three younger sisters. Del is a sensible and responsible girl and is horrified when her grandparents announce that they are moving to Florida leaving the shop in the tender care of Del’s scatter-brained parents and family. The family’s first order is for a large and very important wedding and one of the bridesmaids is to be Ashley, Del’s arch-rival at school. Will the family, and Del, be able to cope with the stress? Full review...
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy
When 14 year old Janie Scott moves to London from California, she finds it cold, dreary and endlessly dull. She doesn’t fit in at her new school, St. Bedens, and getting used to life in 1950’s London, a life so different to the one she left behind, seems impossible. Then she meets Benjamin Burrows, another misfit. Benjamin wants to be a spy, and at the height of the Cold War, opportunities for espionage abound. But when Benjamin’s father, the local (and mysterious) apothecary is kidnapped, Janie and Benjamin get pulled into a world they could only imagine. Entrusted with the apothecary’s book of ancient knowledge, they must use it to track down Benjamin’s father, all the while keeping it from the hands of Russian spies with nuclear weapons. It seems the only chance to save the world may actually be magic. Full review...
The Baby And Fly Pie by Melvin Burgess
Fly Pie, his sister Jane and his friend Sham live in an alternate London, one full of brutality and ghettos. They are rubbish kids, employed by Mother Shelley (an alternate Fagin) to pick through rich people's rubbish for profit. Their lives are hard and brutal and, often, hungry. But they still have their dreams. Fly Pie longs to become a baker. He has cold hands; perfect for pastry. Sham wants to become one of Mother Shelley's Big Boys - and, eventually, to rise as possible through the criminal ranks to become an important person in a big gang. Jane, she's a bit different. She wants more. Not more money. More integrity. Jane wants to live a life where lying and cheating aren't necessities. Full review...
American Weather by Charles McLeod
Jim Haskin is a very odd man, doing a very odd job, in a very odd country if this book is to be believed. An advertising guru in San Francisco, he owns a touchy feely company which boasts such wonders as a ‘Dream Pod’, a room for his team to relax in with sleeping bags, TVs and a cooler brimming with organic fruit tea. That’s for their down time in between saving the world, promoting one eco-friendly item after another and doing other worthy things. Except behind the scenes, Jim Haskin is not that man. While his team are organising poetry slams to help homeless prostitutes, he’s coming up with fight-back campaigns, showing that bleach makes a beach better, chemical spills aren't as bad as you first might think, and other quite inexplicable things. Full review...
The Dotty Dalmatian by Anna Wilson
Mrs Fudge's hairdressing salon and pooch-pampering parlour is doing great business and it's obvious that she can't really cope with just Pippa Peppercorn's occasional help. She needs another assistant, but finding one proves to be more difficult than she expected. Pippa's quite pleased about this as she really doesn't want to be ousted as THE personal assistant. Then Minx Polka arrives on the doorstep and she seems to have a real affinity with dogs - Mrs Fudge jumps at the opportunity to employ her. Pippa's not pleased, but she has something else on her mind. Who owns the out-of-control Dalmatian who is terrorising the neighbourhood and causing quite a bit of damage too? Full review...
Hello Kitty Dictionary by Various
The Hello Kitty Dictionary takes a concept that many young students might not find too interesting (me, on the other hand, I love books full of words) and puts a colourful and fun spin on it. Because if you’re having to look up how to spell a word, or what something means, it helps to have pages with lemon and violet and aquamarine borders, dotted with presents and hearts and stars. That’s not to say the dictionary isn’t clear and easy to read because it certainly is: the decorations don’t extend into the centre of the pages, and the entries themselves are bold fuchsia followed by neat black explanations, all neatly formatted on crisp white pages. Full review...
Sunshine on Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith
I can hardly believe this is the eighth book about Scotland Street, and it's so nice to just pick up where we left off and discover what's been happening to all our friends. This time we have Angus and Domenica's wedding, Cyril's adventures whilst they're away on their honeymoon, Bruce encounters a rather strange gentleman and of course there's plenty of Bertie to entertain us! Full review...
The Shadowed Sun: Dreamblood: Book 2 by N K Jemisin
Ten years after the events of The Killing Moon, the events of the earlier book have left their mark on the world. Gujaareh is now under the oppressive rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. Worse, a plague of nightmares is killing the once peaceful city's inhabitants in their sleep. It falls to two unlikely heroes, Wanahomen, son of the late Prince, and Hanani, the first female to train as one of Hananja's priesthood, to try to save the city from both of these problems. Full review...
The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket by John Boyne
Whereas some children's authors make their young heroes and heroines out to be as regular human beings, John Boyne does things differently. After the boy whose dad had the strangest job in this world, came Noah Barleycorn and his unusual parentage, and now Barnaby Brocket. He shouldn't have turned out extraordinary in any way - both his parents are Mr and Mrs Average Australian, and his dad certainly keeps both feet on the ground - it's just Barnaby cannot. From the moment he was born, gravity has had the wrong effect on him, and he's spent his life bumping into the ceiling. Until one fateful day, when he is forced to both go and grow up, and finds out just what a rarity being normal is. Full review...
What Einstein Kept Under His Hat: Secrets of Science in the Kitchen by Robert L Wolke and Marlene Parrish
Everyone knows that when you chop onions, you cry, but have you ever wondered exactly why this happens? More to the point have you ever considered what you might be able to do so that you don't need to look like a snivelling wreck every time you make kedgeree? Life is littered with such conundrums (along with the old-wives'-tale solutions) but there seem to be more of them in the kitchen than elsewhere. Robert L Wolke has a column in the Washington Post in which he debunks misconceptions and answers questions with logic, science and a healthy dose of common sense. Full review...
Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week by Andrew Norriss
Archie Coates has the most amazing talent for trouble, and whatever he does in all innocence, it's other people that suffer. On Monday he ends up with a teacher sitting on him, on Tuesday another one ends up half-naked. Both these and a lot more are shown with all the justification you need - and more humour than you could wish for - in this brilliant little book. Full review...
Mind If I Read Your Mind? (Ghost Buddy) by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver
Every boy needs a mentor, and Billy Broccoli is no exception. His, however, is The Hoove - a ghost, who is able to impart a hundred years' worth of nous and savvy, and yet still able to use words like doofus as if he was a real, live fourteen year old. With nobody else knowing about this friendship, life is certainly lively for Billy, but also helped - when a show-and-tell-type competitive school demonstration leads to the magic the title suggests. But can Billy really rely on such an opinionated, moody helper, when the crunch comes? Full review...
Secrets, Lies and Locker 62 by Lil Chase
Ever since popular, bright, sporty Hillary Randle vanished from Mount Selwyn High 13 years ago her locker - locker 62 - hasn't been used. At least not in the normal sense. Instead, people have posted their deepest, darkest secrets into it, knowing that no-one will find them out. Until a new girl, Maya, comes to school and is given the combination to the locker - and to a generation of people's mysteries. Will she use them to become popular, or to help people? Full review...
The Truth by Michael Palin
Keith Mabbutt was at one of those points in life when everything seemed to be changing. His marriage was on the rocks. His relationship with his children was not good. He knew that he was a writer - he had a British Gas Award to prove it - but the investigative journalist which he once was had been replaced by someone who did corporate vanity projects. He skated over the unpalatable and accentuated what there was that was positive and he was paid passably well for doing it. When he was offered the chance to write a biography of Hamish Melville, the influential humanitarian activist, he seized the chance and not just because the money on offer was beyond his wildest dreams. Full review...
Envy (Fury Trilogy) by Elizabeth Miles
Spring is coming to Ascension and, despite everything that happened in Fury, Em knows that the Furies will be back. With Drea's help, she fully intends to defeat them - only then will she be able to tell JD how she really feels about him. But the Furies are stronger than Em has realised. She's finding it hard to fit back in with Gabby and her old friends and she carries a dark feeling that she can't quite shake. JD isn't speaking to her and Crow, an Ascension high school dropout, seems to show up wherever she goes. Full review...
The Liars' Gospel by Naomi Alderman
In The Liars' Gospel, Naomi Alderman gives the perspective of four people on the recent death of a Jewish man named Yehoshuah, who is more commonly known these days by the anglicized name of Jesus. These perspectives include Miryam (Mary), the teacher's mother, Iehuda of Qeriot (Judas Iscariot), a one time follower of the man, Caiaphas, the High Priest of the great Temple in Jerusalem and finally Bar-Avo, Barabbas, a rebel who is determined to bring down the occupying Roman presence. What makes this such a remarkable book is the sheer visceral nature of the story telling. Each story is vividly told, and Alderman evokes the time and place to such a level that you half expect to have developed a sun tan while reading the book. Full review...
The Wedding Diaries by Sam Binnie
Kiki and Thom are getting married! The proposal might not have been quite as fabulous as Thom would have liked (bad Kiki!) but that’s all sorted now and with barely a year to plan the shindig, Kiki needs to get cracking. With dresses to try on, venues to find, wedding cakes to taste test, there’s lots to be done, and so the sensible option is to start a diary, to chronicle this magical time in her life but also for her to keep track off all those little To Dos which will lead up to I Do. Full review...
Toby's Room by Pat Barker
Elinor Brooke and her brother Toby had always been close but one day their relationship became more intimate than is acceptable. The trick then, as Toby said, was to get back to how their relationship was before. Toby concentrated on calling her 'sis', whilst Elinor was never quite certain how they could turn the clock back to a time when they were more innocent. But looking back, the summer of 1912 would seem idyllic: in 1917 Toby was reported 'Missing, Believed Killed'. Elinor was determined to find out how Toby died and her one route to this knowledge was Kit Neville who was a fellow student of hers at the Slade School of Art and who was in the fox hole when Toby met his fate. Full review...
Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves
Ben is the devoted proud father of two young children, the happily married husband of Carrie and a skilled car mechanic. He has all the makings of a wonderful life that would actually become one if he could just get a decent night's sleep. The problem is that he's haunted by vivid, violent nightmares. Meanwhile across town, 15 year old Toby also has nightmares and, on top of this, a body scarred with abuse, a fact his teacher, Anna, is determined to do something about. His parents have the appearance of people who love him but, where child abuse is concerned, that means nothing. Anna cares enough to get involved, not realising that it's an involvement that could cost her life. Indeed, as all three of them are about to find out, not all nightmares end on waking. Full review...
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
Minerva and Ed were in a relationship. For various reasons, that relationship has come to an end. Minerva decides to help herself to move on from her ex-boyfriend by packing up everything she connects with him into a box and leaving it on his doorstep, along with a long letter explaining why they broke up. A long, long letter. Full review...
The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones by Susie Day
Bluebell Jones is worried about turning thirteen. How is she meant to become a cool, glamorous teenager without some help? When a wish summons Red, her confident, vibrant fourteen-year-old future self to join her on holiday, she thinks that she’s found the answer to her prayers. But Red has secrets of her own – and there’s some things that Blue needs to find out for herself. Full review...
The Grave Robber's Apprentice by Allan Stratton
Families separated and reunited, wandering actors, lovers pretending to be dead so they can be together — is this really a book for confident readers, or a Shakespeare play? Don't worry. The author Allan Stratton may have a deep affection for the Bard, and delight in borrowing some of his most famous ploys, but they are set here in a story which is fresh, funny and more than a little gruesome. After all, one of the two main characters does dig up dead bodies for a living! Full review...
Fire City by Bali Rai
Martha lives with other Unwanted in Fire City, a factory zone which supplies the Wanted and their demon masters. Nobody knows how the Wanted - a shadowy group of the rich and powerful from the world as it used to be - managed to summon the Demons, but all the Unwanted know what it's like to live under their rule - nasty, brutish and short. But Martha isn't the type to give up and she has joined the Resistance, fighting to save the old and infirm from the demons' regular cullings. It's a hopeless task though, and Resistance numbers are shrinking by the day... Full review...
What the Family Needed by Steven Amsterdam
Steven Amsterdam's first novel Things We Didn't See Coming won several awards including The Guardian First Boom Award. His second book, 'What the Family Needed', is similar in that it too contains a large dose of the strange, yet it doesn't quite work as well. The book is centred around the families of two sisters, with each member having their own chapter told at different stages of their lives. In each one the various family members are facing problems of some sort or other and each mysteriously achieves some sort of super-power that they 'need' to partly overcome these, although not always with the desired results. From early on, the reader suspects that Alek, elder sister Natalie's younger son who appears as an imaginative kid when we first meet him, is at the heart of the weirdness and sure enough he has the final chapter in the book. Just don't expect everything to be explained. Full review...
The Milkman in the Night by Andrey Kurkov
If you're going to go sleepwalking, there are better places to do so than in Kiev in the grip of its usual snowy, cold and bleak winter - even if there is a lovely blonde at the end of your journey. Semyon is living this reality, unaware of the strange consequences, just as others around him are unaware of the strange consequences of their actions - such as the airport security men who purloin some impounded drugs and test them on the cat. We also have a young single mother selling herself - just not in that way - commuting into a capital where some are rich enough to try and stave of ageing, and to cheat death in various ways... Full review...
The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson
1610s Lancashire, and Alice Nutter is the best landowner you could wish for. Single, rich and connected, she takes no sides in the religious schisms James I has inherited, and takes no bull from those trying to oppress the poor, putting them up and feeding them when no-one else will. But those poor are seen as sinful by others - amoral, dirty in mind, body and spirit, and in league with the devil. And people are beginning to question Alice's attitudes, choice of company - and ageless beauty. This, then, is the based-on-truth story of how Alice Nutter got to be one of the accused in the Pendle Witch trials. Full review...
The London Stone: The Nowhere Chronicles Book Three by Sarah Silverwood
Looking back at The Double-Edged Sword, when Fin set out on an adventure with his friends Christopher and Joe, everything seemed so much simpler and optimistic. Mysteries represented exciting revelations to be discovered rather than powerful secrets with dangerous implications, and the words of the Prophecy were just a warning for future times. Now the Prophecy, and the chaos it promises, has come to pass and Arnold Mather has seized control of power in Nowhere, becoming its dark king. Full review...
