Book Reviews From The Bookbag
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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Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Mare is a Red - a race kept in lives of poverty and servitude by the Silvers, a race with wealth and mutant powers that allow them to live lives of luxury. Learning to survive amongst the slum like conditions that the Reds inhabit, Mare is swiftly thrown into the world of the Silvers - one that proves to be more dangerous than she had ever imagined, with treachery, plots and deadly games lurking round every corner. Full review...
The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America by Mike McIntyre and Chris Brinkley (narrator)
In 1994 Mike McIntyre was a thirty-seven-year-old journalist with a secret: he was frightened. There were specific fears, but what it boiled down to was that he was frightened of life - and then there was a memory. He remembered - with some shame - not stopping for a hitchhiker with a gas can in the desert. It was almost on a whim that he decided to cross America, from San Francisco in California to Cape Fear in North Carolina, which might sound like a great adventure, but McIntyre decides to do it without money - to be completely reliant on the kindness of strangers. He was confronting his own fears. Full review...
Vigilante by Shelley Harris
Jenny Pepper is a forty-something wife and mother who is stuck wondering where her life has gone. Privately, Jenny is jealous of her husband, he has a wonderful creative career that people can’t wait to hear more about, while Jenny’s work as a mother and her job at a charity bookshop seems to put a stopper on conversation. Jenny envies her daughter, with her youthful figure and a whole life stretched out in front of her. When tidying up one night, Jenny discovers her husband’s secret and just like that her life changes. Full review...
The War at the Edge of the World: Twilight of Empire: Book One (Rome Reborn) by Ian Ross
Centurion Aurelius Castus has risen through the ranks from the crack legions of the Danube but now finds himself in a Roman army on the very edge of the world – 4th century Britain, near Eboracum. Although his men are kept at battle fitness, his latest mission is one of peace. He must take a cohort to escort an envoy on a visit to the barbarian Picts. The local tribes are in the process of picking a new leader and, as the area's future is resting on it, the Romans want to influence the choice with diplomacy. However not everyone has been honest with Castus; people as well as situations are not all they seem. Castus must depend on his own initiative and ability to survive as he soon realises he can trust no one. Full review...
The Wolf in Winter (Charlie Parker Thriller) by John Connolly
Private investigator Charlie Parker is surprised when Jude, a bum he's befriended and worked with in the past, is found hanged in a basement. It looks like suicide but Jude has been looking for his daughter Annie to rekindle their family relationship and has just raised over $100 to help find her. Odd time for suicide? It becomes an even odder prospect when Annie herself goes missing after heading for the small Maine town of Prosperous. Charlie decides to drop in on the good citizens of the small town and starts poking beneath the respectable veneer. It doesn’t take him long but there is a downside: this investigation may have a body count that includes Charlie. Full review...
Jekyll's Mirror by William Hussey
Sam is doing his best but he feels the Wrath inside him all the time. If your father had beaten your mother to death, wouldn't you? He tries to concentrate on schoolwork and his art and keep that anger locked away deep down inside, but it's not easy. His aunt Cora does her best to support him but his uncle Lionel is distrustful, sure that the (violent) apple in Sam hasn't fallen far from (his father's) tree. Full review...
The Death Season (Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson) by Kate Ellis
When Wesley Peterson was called to investigate the death of a man in a hotel room he thought that it was going to be straightforward, but then there were the credit cards - in different names - and there wasn't a mobile phone. He felt guilty about the little time he'd been able to spend with his family (and about the fact that he was ever so slightly attracted to one of his colleagues...) but the job had to come first and it wasn't long before he realised that there was a complex history to the dead man and that he was almost certainly a murderer. Full review...
Why You? 101 Interview Questions You'll Never Fear Again by James Reed
No-one likes doing job interviews. This includes most recruiting managers, but for candidates it is one of life's most stressful situations. No matter whether it's the next step in our carefully planned career or just a job, no matter whether it's our first job or our fifteenth, that 45 minutes to an hour of conversation has the potential to fundamentally affect our happiness for the foreseeable future. Full review...
The Man With A Charmed Life and his part in saving the planet from WWIII by Graham Fulbright
Englishman Henry Wright is employed by the Common Market (which would become the European Union in 1993) in Brussels and he's not entirely satisfied with his lot: he should be an interpreter but he seems to be restricted to more administrative duties. He could refuse the offer he gets, but the chance to actually use his expertise in Russian, move across to the USA and make a point to his employers is just too tempting. He's also rather taken by Alexy Geary, the attractive woman from the intelligence-gathering agency who makes the offer, and it's not long before he's on his way. Before he does he's peripherally involved in a shooting - and that's not something which usually happens to someone like him. Full review...
The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler by Gene Kemp
Meet Tyke Tiler. I first did so a very long time ago – I might even have my copy of the original paperback, with its ending-spoiling cover artwork, as one of the few books I carried over from those days. Tyke is a schoolchild in the last year before big school, and is permanently in trouble, partly due to hanging round with Danny Price. It seems wherever Danny unfortunately leads, Tyke follows – whether it's digging sheep bones out the town weir system, or handling stolen goods when Danny nicks a high-value note from one of the teacher's purses. How is the term going to end, when everything Danny does seems to reflect badly on Tyke? Full review...
Stella by Helen Eve
What do you get when you mix up Cecily Von Ziegesar's delightfully trashy Gossip Girl series with Dickens's classic Great Expectations, and throw in a splash of Animal Farm by George Orwell? A really readable YA contemporary story which has surprising depth and has been one I've been thinking about a lot since originally reading it towards the start of the year. I read Stella for the first time after getting it out of the library, and at the time I was extremely impressed by the voices of lead characters Stella and Caitlin, but had issues with it. On rereading, to prepare myself for upcoming prequel Siena, I think it's one of the relatively few books I've read recently which works even better second time around, although those issues haven't vanished completely. Full review...
Imagination According to Humphrey by Betty G Birney
If you haven't already, meet Humphrey – the most squeakily vocal inhabitant of Classroom 26. The charming and inventive hamster is here with yet another of his main novels – as opposed to early readers, quiz and joke books, anthologies, guides to having pets – there are so many around that my edition didn't try to put them all on one inventory page, but chose to leave a few out. Here the series continues with Humphrey and the same children as he's befriended over the last few volumes, and it's storytime. The class is being read a novel about a boy and the dragons doing evil to his village's weather, and everyone is trying to write creatively about flying as a response. But when someone threatens to bring a real-life dragon to class, how could the little class pet be safe, especially when he hasn't the imagination to see what the result could be? Full review...
The Saint Closes the Case by Leslie Charteris and John Telfer (narrator)
On the way back to London with Patricia Holm late one night, Simon Templar saw a strange pulsing light and couldn't resist going to investigate. What he discovered was a demonstration of a weapon which could well bring the world to war a mere twelve years after the end of the Great War. Templar and his confederates concluded that the weapon could not be allowed to come into the public domain - and if necessary the inventor (who could easily recreate the weapon even if he gave assurances to the contrary) would need to be, er, sidelined. Unfortunately Templar and friends are not the only ones in search of the weapon: his old nemesis, Rayt Marius, has his own plans. Full review...
The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson
Fourteen-year-old David has always known that he is a transgender girl. (Note: As David uses male pronouns in his internal dialogue I have continued to do so in my review.) However David has chosen a new girl's name and collects feminine clothes to express that inner self. This is a secret kept from everyone except his best friends Essie and Felix. When Leo Denton, who also has a secret, moves to David's school Eden Park from the rougher Cloverdale, the worlds of the two collide. Full review...
That Night by Chevy Stevens
It’s been 17 years since Toni went to prison for the murder of her sister. 17 years since she last saw her boyfriend Ryan, also convicted for the murder, since she had a meaningful conversation with her parents, since she went to a coffee shop or walked on the beach. Sent down when she was still a teenager, she’s been incarcerated for virtually half of her life and though she’s now coming up for parole, it’s not as easy as simply going back to her old life from before. Full review...
The Vanishing Moment by Margaret Wild
This book appealed to me on various grounds. It is teen fiction (and, joy of joys, devoid of werewolves and dystopia), it is by an Australian author (under-represented on UK shelves), and it involves parallel universes (tantalising philosophical what-ifs). I was intrigued to see if the author could live up to my expectations. Full review...
The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell
I have my usual problem attempting anything close to a plot summary of something I really love - this will probably make the maximum possible impact if you go into it, as I did, knowing barely anything about it. If you trust my recommendations enough to buy on one sentence, stop reading now and pre-order - this is a heart-breakingly gorgeous read which will almost definitely be one of the best books, YA or otherwise, published in 2015. Full review...
Forty Days Without Shadow by Olivier Truc
After an important Sámi relic is stolen from a museum in Kautokeino, a small, isolated village in the middle of the snowy tundra, tensions begin to rise between the residents. Local detective Klemet Nango and new recruit Nina Nansen are called upon to investigate the disappearance, whereupon they discover a second crime: a local reindeer herder has been brutally murdered. Nina soon suspects that the two events are linked, and, together with Klemet, embarks upon a journey full of secrets, mystery and brutality. Full review...
The Vanished Ones by Donato Carrisi
Room 13 in the basement of the state morgue is where the sleepers are kept. These are the unclaimed bodies that have been classified as PHVs. Potential Homicide Victims. They are kept indefinitely, because they are evidence that a crime has been committed, possibly the only evidence. Full review...
Abattoir Blues by Peter Robinson
When DCI Banks returned from a weekend away in Italy the theft of a tractor (even if it was a very expensive tractor) didn't seem all that important. It was difficult to be enthusiastic about what seemed to be simple case of rural crime. Then an ex-soldier walking his dog discovered what looked like a pool of blood in an abandoned warehouse and the two young men who seemed to be the prime suspects for the theft of the tractor both disappeared without trace. Suddenly 'another rural crime' began to take a very much more sinister turn. Full review...
Travelling to Infinity: The True Story Behind the Theory of Everything by Jane Hawking
Travelling to Infinity maps the tapestry of a rich and complex life.
Jane Hawking, the first wife of acclaimed scientist Stephen Hawking, reveals the inner-workings of their life together. Reflecting on the meteoric rise of her husband alongside his physical deterioration, she charts the path of their marriage and family throughout the highs and lows of their circumstance. As asserted by the author herself this story could indeed belong to any English family of the era. What sets this one apart, however, is the fame and publicity of one family member, the widely celebrated, Stephen Hawking. Full review...
The Earl I Adore by Erin Knightley
Poor Sophie Wembley has been placed in a desperate situation thanks to her sister Penelope, who has eloped with the 'hired help'. Once news of the scandal reaches the gossip-mongers of the 'ton', Sophie and her family will be ousted from polite society and her hopes of finding an eligible husband will be ruined. It is therefore up to Sophie's scheming mother to persuade her to snare herself a man before the gossip becomes public knowledge. Time is clearly of the essence and when it comes to suitable husbands, Sophie knows only one man will do: the handsome Earl of Evansleigh, for whom she has been harbouring a 'tendre' for the past year. Full review...
Letters to Lovecraft : Eighteen Whispers to the Darkness by Jesse Bullington (editor)
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was, to me, the author of ruinously mediocre post-Victorian penny dreadful horror fiction, concerning far too numerous many-tentacled, secretly-worshipped, extra-dimensional monster threats to mankind for his – and our – own good. It's little wonder that he lived and died in poverty, and only became of note posthumously. That note seems to be building, however, hence this collection of stories by many award-winning modern writers of the dark and macabre, all looking back yet going much further, and pretty much all providing us with a showcase for their own, contemporary talent. Full review...
Tennyson: To strive, to seek, to find by John Batchelor
Most readers, if they were asked to name the ultimate poet of the Victorian age, would almost surely choose Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He was Poet Laureate for over forty years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and inevitably her favourite versifier. Full review...
My True Love Gave to Me by Stephanie Perkins (Editor)
I mentioned when reviewing Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle that there was a real lack of festive YA around – at the time, I think the choice seemed to be pretty much limited to that or Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. Both fantastic books, but a thin spread compared to the amount out there for adults and for younger children. (If I’m missing obvious ones, by the way, please let me know!) Thankfully, a dozen authors, with Stephanie Perkins as the editor, have got together to produce a perfect Christmas present here with twelve short stories set around the holidays. Full review...
No Known Grave (A Detective Inspector Tom Tyler Mystery) by Maureen Jennings
By the middle of 1942 Detective Inspector Tom Tyler has had a difficult two years and he's making a fresh start in Ludlow. St Anne's Convalescent Hospital is on the outskirts of the town and it's staffed by nursing sisters who are Anglican nuns and they're there specifically to help people who have been maimed and injured by the war. It should be a peaceful place of recovery but then a double murder in the grounds of the home shatters all that has been so carefully built up. Many of the patients are blind or unable to walk and most are suffering from what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder - but it seems as though one of the patients must be a murderer as this is almost a classic 'locked room' mystery. Full review...
Goodhouse by Peyton Marshall
There have been times in history when governments have thought they knew who the criminal underclass was. This did not lead to anything good under the Nazis and the same can be said of the Goodhouse regime. If we knew that certain genetics led to an increased chance of criminality, wouldn’t educating these people when they were young be a good thing? Prevention is better than cure, but I am not sure if fascism is. Full review...
Silent Night by Jack Sheffield
I read a couple of Jack Sheffield’s books about five years ago, and enjoyed them very much. They were written in a similar style to those popularised by, for instance, James Herriot or Gervase Phinn, told mostly in the first person, describing the author’s first couple of years as Headmaster at a small village primary school in Yorkshire. The village of Ragley is fictional, as are most of the characters, but the incidents and situations encountered are based on the author’s experience. Full review...
Sausage Hall by Christina James
Kevan de Vries, food processing magnate and grandson of a Dutch immigrant to Lincolnshire, is trying to help his terminally ill wife Joanne relax on an exotic holiday. Unfortunately the news he receives from home is less than relaxing: a random break-in committed by local opportunistic youths has uncovered a batch of counterfeit passports. Kevan travels back to the UK to answer questions but it gets worse. Skeletal remains are found in his cellar followed by a discovery elsewhere of an all too fresh employee's dead body. This is bread and butter to DI Tim Yates of the Lincolnshire Constabulary but it's another complication in Kevan's all too complicated life. Full review...
The Jolly Dodgers! Pirates Who Pretended by Neil Griffiths and Janette Louden
I’ll get started with this point; the layout of this book is utterly wonderful. It’s got a great subject matter, pirates are always popular both with adults and children, and the story of a group of pirates who don’t really want to be pirates but who are being forced into it by their pushy wives, is a terribly entertaining one. But it is the layout, style and all the extras which are working the hardest in this book's favour. Full review...
