'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Diane Chamberlain
|title=The Midwife's Confession
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I feel that I've barely finished a Chamberlain review when up pops another of her books - such seems to be proliferation. The story opens with the build-up to the death of middle-aged midwife, Noelle. Her friends, all a little younger than herself and with families of their own, are busy getting on with their daily lives. But someone - suddenly - remembers they haven't heard from Noelle for some days. It's unusual as this group of chatty friends are forever phoning, texting or popping round to each other's houses.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304663</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=Nowadays, when there is a security threat it seems to be mandatory to whisk the leader and other important personages off to a secret location deep inside a mountain or in a distant forest, but Churchill fought his war – our war – from a series of basement rooms right in the heart of London and within sight of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet War Rooms didn't have their own air supply, were infested with vermin and lacked proper toilet facilities, but they were Churchill's choice. He spent a few nights down in the CWR but usually lived in the No 10 Annex upstairs – throughout the worst of the bombing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682312</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Julie Myerson
|title=Then
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The front cover is graphic and telling. A frozen London with its skyscrapers emitting black smoke and random fires across a desolate landscape. As early as the second paragraph we see that something is wrong, something cataclysmic has happened with the lines ''People are eating the birds ... fighting over a handful of scorched sparrows.'' The story is told in the first person by the central character which gives it immediacy and draws the reader straight in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093754</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sue Gee
|title=Last Fling
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Sue Gee is well known for her novels, but this is her first collection of short stories. Short story collections are not for everyone. I've always enjoyed them since they fit easily into a busy life, leaving you feeling as if you've lived through a whole story in just a short space of time. It's easier to find the time for a quick story sometimes than to sit down with a four hundred page novel!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Suzannah Dunn
|title=The Confession of Katherine Howard
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Katherine Howard was Henry VIII's fifth wife. She was perhaps the most seductive of his wives and a considerable contrast to her predecessor, Anna of Cleves. She's been consigned to history as a silly girl, but careful reading gives the lie to this. Suzannah Dunn begins her story when Katherine was twelve years old and went to live in her step-grandmother's household. There she met Cathryn – generally known as Cat – Tilney, but the two girls were very different and didn't hit it off initially. Cat was quietly ambitious, aware that she needed to make a good marriage, whilst Katherine was image-conscious and very interested in the boys.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007258305</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Liz Miles (Editor)
|title=Truth and Dare
|rating=3
|genre=Teens
|summary=I love anthologies, especially ones containing a host of unfamiliar authors, so when I was given the chance to get my hands on a collection of twenty stories by writers who, in the main, I hadn't encountered before, I jumped at it. The selection, however, of
this score of tales about ''slipping on the stepping stones of life'' left me feeling curiously unsatisfied in many cases.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015864</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Simon Mayor and Hilary James
|title=I'm A Parrot
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=I think that most small children will love the friendly, chatty parrot who speaks to them in 'I'm a Parrot'. From the very start of the book, the parrot chatters on, talking what can only be described as nonsense – but it is very amusing nonsense even though he claims to enjoy intelligent conversation. He talks about the different places he would or wouldn't live and the things that he might do. There are many puns and some play on words such as living in 'Polly-nesia' and becoming a 'parrot-trooper'. My daughter also found it quite comical the way the parrot keeps repeating particular words, although I can imagine that if we were to read the book a few times, it might become a little annoying to say the least.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849563187</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=James Craig
|title=London Calling: An Inspector Carlyle Novel
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The current government had been looking a little sickly in the polls for a while and it seemed that Edgar Carlton – charismatic and ruthless – had only to get to the finish line to be the next Prime Minister. His twin brother, Xavier, would be the next Foreign Secretary. Then a murderer targets former members of the Merrion Club – an exclusive, hedonistic group of undergraduates at Cambridge University – and this includes Edgar, Xavier and the current mayor of London, Christian Holyrod. Inspector John Carlyle of the Metropolitan Police doesn't take that long to work out why this is happening and who is at risk – but ''who'' is doing it is an entirely different matter.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849019665</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Back Dated
|author=Chris Niblock
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=
Sci-fi writer Ray Flaxman returns home from a weekend away with his fiancee with a dealine to meet. But he finds his flat broken to into and trashed. Nothing of value has been taken. So Ray suspects his stalker is to blame. Serena has been calling and writing, declaring her love for Ray and her urgent desire to have his child. But Ray has never met her. Even so, he is keen to keep this mystery girl a secret because his fiancee, Frankie, has huge jealousy issues.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B004W0JR7G</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Monica Dickens
|title=Dora at Follyfoot
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Follyfoot Home of Rest for Horses is owned by the Colonel, but he's been very ill in hospital and now he has to go away to a warm climate to recuperate. It's not ''quite '' certain who is in charge of the farm in his absence. It might be Dora or it might be Steve – but there's one thing that is quite clear: they're both under strict instructions not to buy any horses. What's Dora to do though, when she realises that unless she buys the cream-coloured, lame horse, Amigo, it will end its days pulling a log cart? Well, obviously she ''has'' to buy the horse with money she borrows from the shady Ron Stryker. How's she to pay it back though?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849393265</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=The Wolf & Taurus
|author=Joseph Smith
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A combined edition of [[The Wolf by Joseph Smith|The Wolf]] and [[Taurus by Joseph Smith|Taurus]], each taking the reader into the mind of animal. Superb, intense writing that is sometimes quite painful to read.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546728</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Julie Fulton and Jona Jung
|title=Mrs MacCready Was Ever So Greedy
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Mrs McCready ''was'' ever so greedy. She was a cheerful, red-headed lady who simply loved her food. She would eat absolutely anything – sometimes it was quite healthy, such as the berries, especially cherries, but she didn't even worry if there were ''worms'' inside. She didn't even worry too much about whether the foods she ate tasted good together – she just loved to ''eat''. This caused something of a problem with clothes, as absolutely nothing would fit her – not even the wedding marquee or the hot air balloon. Eventually she met her fate…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184886065X</amazonuk>
}}
