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The First Lady
The First Lady
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
It's four weeks until the election for the new President. Current President Tucker is enjoying himself at a hotel in Atlanta with his girlfriend, while his wife and first lady, Grace Tucker, is fulfilling the duties of her office. When the President leave the hotel with his mistress, all hell breaks loose. There are reporters everywhere, there to catch the scandal. It's all just too much for the First Lady to handle, so she retreats to one of her favorite places and then, she turns up missing. Sally Grissom is the Secret Service Agent in charge of the presidential detail and doesn't know how the First Lady going missing isn't something she is told. Until she is called into the President's office and is asked to look for her secretively. What is going on? Something isn't right. And Sally has her eye on the President's Chief of Staff and his strange request. But Sally doesn't work for him, she serves the Office of the President and she will find the First Lady, no matter what.

This is a book I really enjoyed. It captured my attention from the start and had some twists and turns, I didn't see coming. There was only one drawback from this audio version of the book, the narrator. She did a fine job of reading the story and the voices, but her pronunciation drove me crazy. If you're not from the Washington, DC area, you might not notice, but it is so obvious. Pronouncing Maryland like Merry-Land. Potomac like Pot A Mack, and Arapaho like Air a pay ho. I cringed every time.

Imagine in this day and time with smart phones everywhere if the First Lady went missing. It would be all over the news. Why doesn't the Chief of Staff want to share this with the world, to help find her? Why isn't the FBI involved? Something is going on in the White House and Sally doesn't know if the President is aware at all. Or is his mistress and the election much more important to him than finding his wife.

Sally is going to do all she can to do her job even when she is asked to stand down. Even when it seems like there is always an obstacle there to stop her. Will she find the First Lady before it's too late? You'll have to read the book to find out.
  
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JT (287 KP) rated Rogue (2008) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020  
Rogue (2008)
Rogue (2008)
2008 | Horror, Mystery
6
6.3 (4 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Along the quiet river banks of the Australian outback, buried deep within the baron red plains that surround desolate bush, lies a fear, a fear that lurks beneath the murky waters. Greg McLean does to boat trips what backpacking did for Wolf Creek, after seeing it you’re going to want to steer well clear of ever doing it.

Pete (Vartan) is a travel writer, sent around the world to exotic locations he finds himself in a place that he has no idea about. Taking a boat trip up the river with a bunch of people that we really won’t care much about, he goes in search of what the territory has to offer.

Leading the tour is Kate (Mitchell) someone who is the polar opposite to Pete and has never traveled out of her comfort zone once. As the boat glides up the river McLean makes sure he includes sweeping shots of the quiet picturesque landscape, of which is beautiful.

The focus of course is on the salt water crocodile’s that populate the river itself, a quick lesson from Kate about these prehistoric looking creatures sets up for the carnage that is only minutes away. Once the boat is capsized the unfortunate crew end up stranded on an island surrounded by a fast rising tidal river, with no direct route off it.

Like any monster movie we only ever catch glimpses of the predator (at least until the very end), a tail there, a moving ripple in the water there. The stranded patrons of course go through the motions, there’s infighting, emotion, selfishness and a coming together that in the end they are going to be able to escape the island.

It does carry a fairly decent degree of suspense even though it is predictable in places, and has an ending which quite frankly is a little preposterous.

The story line is as basic as it can get and the script is not brilliantly written, the acting has its moments with characters that don’t really have time to reveal their back stories to great effect, before a few all but disappear between the teeth of the seven foot beast.

It’s not overly gory but does have some scenes for those that are blood thirsty. On a whole it’s a decent flick, not as terrifying as Wolf Creek but holds itself well for the 100 minute run time.
  
    Golden Axe Classic

    Golden Axe Classic

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    Cast earth-shattering spells and smash Death Adder’s armies in SEGA’s fantasy classic – Golden...

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Laura Doe (1350 KP) rated The Favour in Books

Mar 12, 2021  
The Favour
The Favour
Laura Vaughan | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
8
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
When I first started reading The Favour, I couldn’t bring myself to like the main character Ada at all. I found her to be quite whiny and wanting to be someone she wasn’t, and as the book continued I started to find myself pitying her as she tried to fit in with the group of (mostly awful) art history students while they were travelling Italy. I then grew to dislike her again as she tagged along with the group well into their adult life and being somewhat oblivious to Lorcan and Annabelle’s “generosity” being because they felt indebted to her. My mind changed again in part three, to genuinely beginning to like Ada as she finally seemed to have figured things out for herself.
The scenes that Laura Vaughn paints of Italy are beautiful, and made me want to visit the various different places that the students did to take in the sights of Italy for myself. The art that was described were so descriptive that I could almost envision them and upon looking them up I found that the pieces that were described more in depth weren’t that far off what I had imagined.
While the first two parts of the book were very descriptive (although I wished that the tour of Italy they went on was described more!) I found them to be quite slow. But when it got to the third part of the book, and the group going back to Italy, that’s when things really started to pick up in pace and get exciting. I couldn’t put the book down at all for part three! In the last 100 pages or so, so much was revealed of that fateful night that I had to go back and reread paragraphs as I was so shocked! It wasn’t until 15 pages before the end I realised what Mallory had actually seen, and the revelation of what had been happening all those years before was something I hadn’t seen coming at all! The last two pages were even more of a shock and completely turned some of the events on their head. Some amazing twists at the end of the book, which made the slow but descriptive start completely worth it. I will definitely be recommending this to anyone who asks and anyone who enjoys a good book with some unpredictable twists!
Overall, I would give this 4/5 stars!