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Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated The Black Candle in Books

May 18, 2024  
TB
The Black Candle
Catherine Cookson | 2024
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
99 of 220
Book
The Black Candle
By Catherine Cookson
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bridget Dean Mordaunt was a woman of consequence in her own part of the world. Inheriting her father's businesses at the age of nineteen, by the time she was twenty-three in 1880, she was running them as confidently as any man. Yet the path destiny required her to follow was not an easy one. Her feckless cousin Victoria became infatuated with Lionel Filmore, the fortune-hunting elder son of an old but impoverished family living in the decayed grandeur of Grove House. Bridget had no illusions about Lionel, but Victoria's happiness was paramount to her. So a pattern began to form that would shape the lives of generations to come, a pattern of some good and some great evil, but all of it inexorably linking Bridget ever more closely with the Filmores and their house.

Catherine Cooksons books always bring out the emotions a whole range and this one does it best from sympathy to anger with some tears thrown in. This is one of my favourites.
  
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ClareR (5779 KP) rated The Confessions of Frannie Langton in Books

May 3, 2019 (Updated May 3, 2019)  
The Confessions of Frannie Langton
The Confessions of Frannie Langton
Sara Collins | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, Mystery
9
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Frannie has grown up on a Jamaican sugar plantation as a house girl. She is a mulatto slave, and when her master, Mr Langton, is forced to return to England, she accompanies him. Although she is considered free as soon as she enters England in the 1820s, Mr Langton ‘gives’ her to a colleague and friend, Mr Benham. She becomes Mrs Benham’s abigail (companion), friend and lover. However, we first meet Frannie as she sits in Newgate prison, writing the story of her life for her solicitor, and how she came to murder Mr and Mrs Benham. Something that she can’t at all remember doing. She has a lot going against her: she’s working class, a woman, and most importantly, she’s black.
This was a captivating story. I learnt a lot about how black Jamaicans were regarded by Londoners (it’s not good), how laudanum was the ‘mother’s little helper’ of its time (although I think it was pretty much taken by anyone, male or female, who could afford it), and how black people were regarded as little more than animals.
The whodunnit element was really puzzling for me, I honestly couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t think of Frannie as being a murderer and killing the woman she loved.
This is a really good read, and I would highly recommend it.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this wonderful book.
  
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Lee (2222 KP) rated The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018) in Movies

Sep 16, 2018  
The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)
The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)
2018 | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
6
7.2 (73 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
After losing both parents in a car accident, Lewis travels to New Zebedee, Michigan to live with his uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) in his large, creepy house. Jonathan's neighbour, Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) seems to spend most of her time there too as they are old friends. The house is full of clocks and, as you've probably guessed from the title of the movie, an even more mysterious clock lies hidden somewhere within its walls. Lewis discovers that Johnathan is a warlock, Florence is a good witch and that the house once belonged to a powerful warlock, who intended to use the clock as part of a catastrophic evil plan.

Directed by Eli Roth, the movie oozes style and creepiness. It has scares that will terrify younger children, but entertain the parents and it has a good amount of humour throughout. For me though, it felt like all style and not much substance. Despite being based on the first in a series of 12 books, with this first story being published in 1973, the movie version just feels like an amalgamation of things we've seen many times before in recent years. Harry Potter, Miss Peregrine, even the trailer made me think of the Goosebumps movie.

I'm probably being a little harsh, and the latter third of the movie did turn out to be a lot more enjoyable than the first two. I guess I was just hoping for something a bit more.
  
    Georgia

    Georgia

    Tim Burford

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    This new edition of Bradt's Georgia, the only dedicated guide to the country, has been thoroughly...