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The Serpent's Mark
The Serpent's Mark
S.W. Perry | 2019
2
2.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
<a href="https://diaryofdifference.com/">Blog</a>; | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/diaryofdifference/">Facebook</a>; | <a href="https://twitter.com/DiaryDifference">Twitter</a>; | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/diaryofdifference/">Instagram</a>; | <a href="https://www.pinterest.co.uk/diaryofdifference/pins/">Pinterest</a>;

<b>Nicholas Shelby Series</b>

#1 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39904044-the-angel-s-mark">The Angel's Mark</a> - Not Read
#2 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2849284383">The Serpent's Mark</a> - DNF

<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Book-Review-Banner-1.png"/>;

<b><i>The first book in 2019 that I didn't manage to finish is The Serpent's Mark by S.W. Perry.</i></b>

I am sad and disappointed. If you know me, you will know how I don't want to leave things unfinished, especially when reading books. I want to finish every book I read, so I can have a thorough opinion and valid comments.

I stopped reading this book at page 75, which is very early days, but I just couldn't continue because of a few points.

Before I start, I need to mention all the things that attracted me to this book in the first place. I love mysteries, and this book promised conspiracy, murder and espionage in Elizabethan London. It is set in the year 1591, where a doctor is investigated of his questionable practices. This was, by itself a promising start. And if you haven't seen the beautiful cover already, please do. It's art to have this book on your shelves.

However, while reading those 75 pages, I haven't encountered any murder. Conspiracy and espionage maybe, but it is so subtle, that everything else comes in first place, while I am here, flipping pages and desperately waiting for something to happen.

A book that contains a lot of politics and religion in a same chapter is just not the book for me. As a person that moved into the UK, I know a little bit about politics and not much about history politics, but I am also not very interested in it either. Documentaries, yes - but books for pleasure, not quite so much. This book was over-flooding with politics and religion, and it is something I just couldn't put past me. After deciding to DNF it, I also realized that it was a second book of a series, but can also be read as a standalone.

I wish I enjoyed it, but I just couldn't. However, if the book seems like something you might enjoy, please go for it, read it, and let me know how it went. <b>We all have different tastes in book - and that's OKAY! :)</b>

Thank you to ReadersFirst, a UK based website that sends me books every month in exchange for my honest reviews. What you do it absolutely amazing!

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Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated The Exorcist - Season 1 in TV

Oct 30, 2017 (Updated Oct 30, 2017)  
The Exorcist  - Season 1
The Exorcist - Season 1
2016 | Horror
If it ain't broke, don't fix it
The issue with remakes is that it tries too hard to connect itself to the original while putting its own stamp as something new. This is no different.

Here we see a young woman becoming possessed with a demon said to be the same as the one before. But it has spread and gathered followers across Chicago. The priests involved include Father Tomas, flawed by temptations and questioning his faith, and Father Marcus, a known exorcist, who feels guilty about the death of one of his charges. So it's a similar setup as before, but their backstories are explored in detail unlike the first film.

The whole possession culminates up to a bigger conspiracy - a plot to kill the Pope visiting the city. There is a twist in between which reveals the connection between the film and the series.

While it's an easy watch, and the make up on the woman while possessed is pretty graphic, it finishes quite quickly all in the last episode. The build up takes a while, you have to get to the third episode for it to start getting interesting. And to be honest some of the episodes in between were quite boring and tried too hard to be dramatic. The most important part of the film was the subtletly of the story and the series is the opposite. Overall, watchable but not if you keep comparing it to the film which was a masterpiece.
  
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Lee Nightingales (73 KP) Aug 9, 2019

The show never positioned itself as a remake. It's set in the same universe and the timelines interlink, but it's not a remake.

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Suswatibasu (1703 KP) Aug 10, 2019

It's still no reason to recycle a plotline.

True Crime Garage
True Crime Garage
News & Politics
8
8.6 (10 Ratings)
Podcast Rating
The chemistry between the hosts (2 more)
The research
Variety of topics
Occasional personal views (0 more)
Serious, But Amusing
Nic and the Captain bring personality and camaraderie to the true-crime table without the outright silliness and irreverence of some of the more popular podcasts. Soft-spoken and smooth-voiced, they weave stories of victims and crimes with vivid detail while still respecting the dignity of the victims. They are never careless in that respect.

Even the stories that are familiar to the average listener are compiled in such a way as to make them feel fresh, and most are peppered with items that may not be so widely known.

Nic and the Captain are lifelong friends and their chemistry is one of the best parts of the show. From the first few minutes of your first episode, you will feel as if you are in the garage with them, having an IPA and talking about true crime.

I suggest The Boys On The Tracks as a good first show to throw you headfirst into a multi-part, multi-layered story that showcases the amount of research the guys put into their work. Unfortunately, I feel that it also is one of the episodes where their personal views made me a bit annoyed. They rarely seem to cross over into the realm of conspiracy, but this one episode seems to do that. But it is very good, nonetheless.