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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2423 KP) rated Homicide in the Indian Hills in Books
Mar 26, 2025 (Updated Mar 26, 2025)
Death by Tiger? Or Murder?
Jane and Redvers head to India. The trip is part honeymoon and part work as Redvers is supposed to attend political meetings. While there, Jane befriends a woman who winds up dead just a couple of days later. The death is ruled death by tiger, but Redvers has another cause – murder. Can they figure out what really happened.
I enjoyed this trip to India in 1927. The country and time really came to life for me. Jane and Redvers are the only returning characters, and it was nice to spend time with them again. This also means you can jump in here if you want to. The new characters are a mixed bag, but they are strong enough to pull us into the story. The mystery kept me intrigued until we reached the logical and suspenseful climax. Those who missed the electronic only Christmas novella from a year and a half ago will be happy to see it included here as an extra. Anyone looking for some travel with their historical mystery will be glad they picked up this series.
I enjoyed this trip to India in 1927. The country and time really came to life for me. Jane and Redvers are the only returning characters, and it was nice to spend time with them again. This also means you can jump in here if you want to. The new characters are a mixed bag, but they are strong enough to pull us into the story. The mystery kept me intrigued until we reached the logical and suspenseful climax. Those who missed the electronic only Christmas novella from a year and a half ago will be happy to see it included here as an extra. Anyone looking for some travel with their historical mystery will be glad they picked up this series.
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2423 KP) rated People of Darkness in Books
Apr 3, 2025
Introducing Jim Chee
It seems an odd assignment. Jim Chee is asked by a rich man’s wife to locate an old box her husband cherished. Only she doesn’t know what is in it. And she doesn’t want him to involve the local police. She’s even hiring him off the books. The more Chee begins poking around, the more questions he gets. And every person who tells him to stop just makes him more curious. What will he uncover?
Knowing that Jim Chee becomes the other main character in this series, I was happy to finally get to meet him. The set up has several different elements, and even knowing they’d come together, it seemed like a bit too much. But by the end I was impressed with just how it all connected. There was one character that was a bit of a page hog, but overall, I thought the cast was good and I wish I thought a couple of them were coming back. I also enjoyed how Navajo culture played into the story. I’m looking forward to spending more time with Jim Chee again soon.
Knowing that Jim Chee becomes the other main character in this series, I was happy to finally get to meet him. The set up has several different elements, and even knowing they’d come together, it seemed like a bit too much. But by the end I was impressed with just how it all connected. There was one character that was a bit of a page hog, but overall, I thought the cast was good and I wish I thought a couple of them were coming back. I also enjoyed how Navajo culture played into the story. I’m looking forward to spending more time with Jim Chee again soon.
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2423 KP) rated O, Deadly Night in Books
Oct 16, 2025
Suspicious New Neighbors
It may be busy season, aka December, but Merry’s landlord at home is distracted by the new neighbors who have moved in. Mrs. D’Angelo hasn’t been able to meet them, and as the center of the town’s gossip mill, that doesn’t sit right. And, she keeps noticing weird things going on at the house. Merry’s too busy to give it too much attention. That is, until Mrs. D’Angelo disappears. Was she right about something strange going on across the street?
Being the Christmas lover I am, I’ve generally enjoy this series. And, once again, I did find the setting charming and the characters fun to spend time with. However, there were repetitive passages that should have been edited out or condensed. The pacing was off in general, not helped by Merry’s passive attitude toward the mystery, and Merry was pretty stupid at the end, even though she did figure things out. If the descriptions of food make your mouth water, you’ll be happy to find there are a couple of recipes at the end. Sadly, for me, this was a mixed bag.
Being the Christmas lover I am, I’ve generally enjoy this series. And, once again, I did find the setting charming and the characters fun to spend time with. However, there were repetitive passages that should have been edited out or condensed. The pacing was off in general, not helped by Merry’s passive attitude toward the mystery, and Merry was pretty stupid at the end, even though she did figure things out. If the descriptions of food make your mouth water, you’ll be happy to find there are a couple of recipes at the end. Sadly, for me, this was a mixed bag.
KittyMiku (138 KP) rated Playing Games in Books
May 23, 2019
Playing Games by Liliana Rhodes is a romance novel that is short and quick to read. Cassie Monroe needs a job and when her roommate helps get her into her dream job, she finds herself falling for her boss. Torn between her dream and her heart, Cassie has to find a happy medium to get all that she wants, but will it be as easy as that? Especially since there is another woman already in his life, will Cassie be able to overcome that or will she have to back down? Cassie will have to realize that love is unpredictable and sometimes has a few strings attached.
Rhodes is able to give the reader a great romance story that won’t take forever to read. However, I found it very anticlimactic and would have loved the extra drama that could be introduced but never was. Though the book was short and only a couple hours if that of reading and lacked the drama most good romance novels have, it does introduce characters that seem to be a part of Rhodes Billionaire novels that she has created and released as a series. If this book is any foreshadowing, I feel that the other books will be a bit disappointing.
I believe I found the part revolving around the other woman and the situation the Cassie’s lover is in to be extremely relatable. After all not, not everyone can enter a relationship without something for the past being there. To see how hard it is to trust someone else with something that means the world to you, made the book feel like it was speaking from the heart. Then you get to see how something that could seem so major to others would not be a huge deal to the person who loves you. I would have loved to read more about the family Cassie adopts as her own instead of it ending only to move onto the next couple in the series. I believe that there could be more added onto this book by adding some additional details and maybe adding a little more conflict to the characters instead of having that love at first sight situation.
The details in the book were well enough that it was able to be easily followed, however with lack of a major conflict and drama that could have kept it completely entertaining; I would not recommend this book to many people. In fact, I believe the book only made 2 stars on my 4 star rating lists. Yes it satisfied my weird need of romance, but it also left something to be desired. I really would have loved more in the book and feel that maybe it was rushed or not well thought about. The idea was great, but the execution wasn’t all that it could have been. I am even now finding it difficult to write this review as the review itself isn’t as long as I would like it to be.
However, even with these flaws, that make it low in my own tastes, I believe Playing Games could be a good book to those who don’t like to read for long session. If you are looking for a quick book to read that has that romantic air to it, the Playing Games is right up your alley. It doesn’t take more than a couple hours to read, has the romantic gestures and the idea of love being unpredictable, and pretty straightforward without the drama. If this sounds like the perfect book to you, please feel free to go grab it. I got my copy on Amazon for my kindle.
Rhodes is able to give the reader a great romance story that won’t take forever to read. However, I found it very anticlimactic and would have loved the extra drama that could be introduced but never was. Though the book was short and only a couple hours if that of reading and lacked the drama most good romance novels have, it does introduce characters that seem to be a part of Rhodes Billionaire novels that she has created and released as a series. If this book is any foreshadowing, I feel that the other books will be a bit disappointing.
I believe I found the part revolving around the other woman and the situation the Cassie’s lover is in to be extremely relatable. After all not, not everyone can enter a relationship without something for the past being there. To see how hard it is to trust someone else with something that means the world to you, made the book feel like it was speaking from the heart. Then you get to see how something that could seem so major to others would not be a huge deal to the person who loves you. I would have loved to read more about the family Cassie adopts as her own instead of it ending only to move onto the next couple in the series. I believe that there could be more added onto this book by adding some additional details and maybe adding a little more conflict to the characters instead of having that love at first sight situation.
The details in the book were well enough that it was able to be easily followed, however with lack of a major conflict and drama that could have kept it completely entertaining; I would not recommend this book to many people. In fact, I believe the book only made 2 stars on my 4 star rating lists. Yes it satisfied my weird need of romance, but it also left something to be desired. I really would have loved more in the book and feel that maybe it was rushed or not well thought about. The idea was great, but the execution wasn’t all that it could have been. I am even now finding it difficult to write this review as the review itself isn’t as long as I would like it to be.
However, even with these flaws, that make it low in my own tastes, I believe Playing Games could be a good book to those who don’t like to read for long session. If you are looking for a quick book to read that has that romantic air to it, the Playing Games is right up your alley. It doesn’t take more than a couple hours to read, has the romantic gestures and the idea of love being unpredictable, and pretty straightforward without the drama. If this sounds like the perfect book to you, please feel free to go grab it. I got my copy on Amazon for my kindle.
Kara Skinner (332 KP) rated Of Mice Not Men in Books
Jun 12, 2019
Genre: Science Fiction, Non-Romance
Page Count: 350 pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
After manmade natural disasters wiped out most humans and life around the world, war breaks out among the remaining humans. The faction called the Developers want to take the resources from Earth and leave the dying planet behind to join the stars. The Harmonizers want to stay and restore Earth’s resources. Both factions race to stop the other, using deadly, even sadistic measures. After all, the fate of the planet and the human race lies in the balance.
I had my ups and downs with this book to be sure. Aside from the book badly needing a proofreader, the writing itself is well done, only dipping into preachiness about human’s greed a couple of times. The brain curdling torture scenes were deliciously awful and made me stop reading a couple times to look up pictures of pet pigs until I calmed down enough to continue.
I thought I had a stomach for violence. I read Stephen King books and have watched plenty of horror movies. In middle school I reveled in shocking my classmates with presentations of General Sherman’s March to the Sea and torture practices from the Spanish Inquisition. In high school I was the only one who could watch the video of a shark eating a turtle without looking away ( but I ended up crying about shark fin soup later that year).
The point is, violence in books usually doesn’t bother me. But Canterbury takes it to a whole new level in a few of the torture scenes. It wasn’t just the twisted sadism in the scenes that bothered me, however. It was the fact that both sides are tooth achingly aware of the finite resources left and yet they both spend resources making inefficient weapons. The Developers do it in the name of sadism and the Harmonizers end up with weapons that are less effective than gun powder guns. I guess it shows that humans don’t make sense.
There are a lot of characters in this book, but Jasmine is the main character. I didn’t like her at first. I found her too cold-hearted and hot-headed. Granted, she’s in deeper and darker shit than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, but despite her parents dying, she isn’t a sympathetic character for most of the book. Her relationship with Thomas feels as forced as a cheap jigsaw puzzle. Mostly she is indifferent to him or pushing him away. For awhile the only reason she was still with him was out of fear of being alone. And then suddenly she loves him? I never really bought it. Cynthia’s relationship with an alien artificial intelligence robot feels more real and she thought she was hallucinating it.
But I ended up really liking Jasmine in the end, and even Thomas. The plot was fascinating, even a couple of parts I was skeptical about at first and this book turned out to be entertaining, even though I guessed two of the biggest plot “twists” (if you can even call them that) as soon as the foreshadowing again. But one plot twist I didn’t see coming at all, which was great.
I do wish the sides were not so black and white. The Developers were clearly evil with practically no human sides in any main characters while the Harmonizers were clearly peaceful with no dark streaks to be found. It ended up making what could have been a great story about needless conflict and saving the world sound a little like anti space exploration propaganda. That being said, it is still entertaining.
While Canterbury’s writing skills are rough, he has the potential to be a great science fiction/horror writer.
Page Count: 350 pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
After manmade natural disasters wiped out most humans and life around the world, war breaks out among the remaining humans. The faction called the Developers want to take the resources from Earth and leave the dying planet behind to join the stars. The Harmonizers want to stay and restore Earth’s resources. Both factions race to stop the other, using deadly, even sadistic measures. After all, the fate of the planet and the human race lies in the balance.
I had my ups and downs with this book to be sure. Aside from the book badly needing a proofreader, the writing itself is well done, only dipping into preachiness about human’s greed a couple of times. The brain curdling torture scenes were deliciously awful and made me stop reading a couple times to look up pictures of pet pigs until I calmed down enough to continue.
I thought I had a stomach for violence. I read Stephen King books and have watched plenty of horror movies. In middle school I reveled in shocking my classmates with presentations of General Sherman’s March to the Sea and torture practices from the Spanish Inquisition. In high school I was the only one who could watch the video of a shark eating a turtle without looking away ( but I ended up crying about shark fin soup later that year).
The point is, violence in books usually doesn’t bother me. But Canterbury takes it to a whole new level in a few of the torture scenes. It wasn’t just the twisted sadism in the scenes that bothered me, however. It was the fact that both sides are tooth achingly aware of the finite resources left and yet they both spend resources making inefficient weapons. The Developers do it in the name of sadism and the Harmonizers end up with weapons that are less effective than gun powder guns. I guess it shows that humans don’t make sense.
There are a lot of characters in this book, but Jasmine is the main character. I didn’t like her at first. I found her too cold-hearted and hot-headed. Granted, she’s in deeper and darker shit than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, but despite her parents dying, she isn’t a sympathetic character for most of the book. Her relationship with Thomas feels as forced as a cheap jigsaw puzzle. Mostly she is indifferent to him or pushing him away. For awhile the only reason she was still with him was out of fear of being alone. And then suddenly she loves him? I never really bought it. Cynthia’s relationship with an alien artificial intelligence robot feels more real and she thought she was hallucinating it.
But I ended up really liking Jasmine in the end, and even Thomas. The plot was fascinating, even a couple of parts I was skeptical about at first and this book turned out to be entertaining, even though I guessed two of the biggest plot “twists” (if you can even call them that) as soon as the foreshadowing again. But one plot twist I didn’t see coming at all, which was great.
I do wish the sides were not so black and white. The Developers were clearly evil with practically no human sides in any main characters while the Harmonizers were clearly peaceful with no dark streaks to be found. It ended up making what could have been a great story about needless conflict and saving the world sound a little like anti space exploration propaganda. That being said, it is still entertaining.
While Canterbury’s writing skills are rough, he has the potential to be a great science fiction/horror writer.
Lee (2222 KP) rated Men in Black International (2019) in Movies
Jun 16, 2019
A complete waste of time
Aside from Avengers Endgame, 2019 is shaping up to be pretty disappointing when it comes to blockbuster movies. Godzilla received a bit of a panning from the critics (although I personally quite liked it), then Dark Phoenix took an even bigger hit in the reviews, which I completely agree with. And now we have a sequel that nobody asked for, to a movie which has already had a couple of fairly average sequels, which has also received a wave of early bad reviews this week. To be honest, the trailer for Men In Black International certainly looked a bit....meh. A bunch of random stuff happening, no real indication of any plot, some annoying looking CGI aliens and an attempt to just coast off the back of having Thor and Valkyrie reunited on screen. I still remember how memorable the original trailer for the 1997 MIB movie was when it featured in cinemas - the shades, the guns, the aliens, the massive flying saucer crash landing in front of a cool looking Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. This trailer had none of that wow factor, but I went in, hopeful as always that the reviews were wrong.
The movie begins in 2016, with Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) and High T (Liam Neeson) as they ascend the Eiffel Tower, interrupting a man who is about to propose to his partner, before saving the world from an incoming alien race called The Hive. Then we jump back 20 years into the past to a family who are disturbed one night by a cute little alien in their back garden. As the young daughter, Molly, hides the alien in her bedroom, she looks out of her window to see her parents as they are neuralysed by a couple of Men in Black.
Back in present day, Molly (Tessa Thompson) is now all grown up, but hasn't forgotten that eventful night. While working in a call centre, she uses her computer to connect to satellite equipment in order to track alien landings and therefore try and gain access to the Men in Black, and hopefully get a job with them. Eventually finding her way into their headquarters, she is recruited by Agent O (Emma Thompson) and sent on her first mission, where she partners up with Agent H. The pair get caught up in a mission involving an assassinated alien VIP and some kind of super weapon. And, as the title of the movie suggests, plenty of international travel, as we switch between New York, London, Paris and Marrakesh.
The problem is, whereas the original Men in Black boasted a lot of humour, along with some great visual gags and action and a great double act, in the form of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, this movie does nothing to successfully recapture any of that. As much as I love Chris Hemsworth, I felt that he was the worst thing about this movie. Somebody simply thought they'd take the character of Thor and try to have that for the entire movie, but without making him funny, heroic or even that likeable in the process. As with Dark Phoenix recently, a great cast is let down by an awful script, with any attempts at humour or entertainment falling completely flat.
Elsewhere, the fun and wacky inventiveness behind the different alien species in the original movie is completely absent here. Apart from some interesting and formidable twin villains, there's a fairly wasted role for Rebecca Ferguson as a three armed ex lover of Agent H. Otherwise, the main alien throughout the movie is just an annoying little CGI character.
To be fair, there are a couple of fun action sequences and some nice visuals, but overall this is just a completely forgettable and unnecessary movie. Here's hoping that Toy Story 4 will finally bring us a worthy blockbuster when it opens later this week.
The movie begins in 2016, with Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) and High T (Liam Neeson) as they ascend the Eiffel Tower, interrupting a man who is about to propose to his partner, before saving the world from an incoming alien race called The Hive. Then we jump back 20 years into the past to a family who are disturbed one night by a cute little alien in their back garden. As the young daughter, Molly, hides the alien in her bedroom, she looks out of her window to see her parents as they are neuralysed by a couple of Men in Black.
Back in present day, Molly (Tessa Thompson) is now all grown up, but hasn't forgotten that eventful night. While working in a call centre, she uses her computer to connect to satellite equipment in order to track alien landings and therefore try and gain access to the Men in Black, and hopefully get a job with them. Eventually finding her way into their headquarters, she is recruited by Agent O (Emma Thompson) and sent on her first mission, where she partners up with Agent H. The pair get caught up in a mission involving an assassinated alien VIP and some kind of super weapon. And, as the title of the movie suggests, plenty of international travel, as we switch between New York, London, Paris and Marrakesh.
The problem is, whereas the original Men in Black boasted a lot of humour, along with some great visual gags and action and a great double act, in the form of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, this movie does nothing to successfully recapture any of that. As much as I love Chris Hemsworth, I felt that he was the worst thing about this movie. Somebody simply thought they'd take the character of Thor and try to have that for the entire movie, but without making him funny, heroic or even that likeable in the process. As with Dark Phoenix recently, a great cast is let down by an awful script, with any attempts at humour or entertainment falling completely flat.
Elsewhere, the fun and wacky inventiveness behind the different alien species in the original movie is completely absent here. Apart from some interesting and formidable twin villains, there's a fairly wasted role for Rebecca Ferguson as a three armed ex lover of Agent H. Otherwise, the main alien throughout the movie is just an annoying little CGI character.
To be fair, there are a couple of fun action sequences and some nice visuals, but overall this is just a completely forgettable and unnecessary movie. Here's hoping that Toy Story 4 will finally bring us a worthy blockbuster when it opens later this week.
Darren (1599 KP) rated Marriage Story (2019) in Movies
Dec 6, 2019
Verdict: Powerful
Story: Marriage Story starts as we meet theatre director Charlie (Driver) and his wife actress Nicole (Johansson) they are about to go through a separation, with Nicole starting a new life in LA where she is trying to return to the television or film, moving away from the New York theatre lifestyle.
With the lives going on completely different directions, Nicole is pushed into getting a lawyer in Nora Fanshaw (Dern) which sees the two looking at a divorce, something neither thought would come their way, where they end up seeing the darker side of a break up even if they want to remain friends for their son.
Thoughts on Marriage Story
Characters – Nicole is an actress, mother and wife, she is given a chance to leave the theatre and return to television, while the couple are going through a separation and her moving to LA. She has given up a lot of her dreams for her marriage in the past, which is one of the reasons why she wants to get a divorce. Charlie is the theatre director, father and husband in New York, he wants to stay in New York running his theatre company. He is more stubborn that he wants to admit. Nora Fanshaw and Jay are both the lawyers hired to represent the divorcing couple, they show their ruthless sides whenever the two are trying to get the upper hand.
Performances – Adam Driver gives us one of the best performances of the year, where he shows one that suddenly sees his whole life come crashing around him, showing the signs of his anger of everything happening. Scarlett Johansson is fantastic too where we see how she is escaping from a trapped life showing her character start a new life. Laura Dern and Ray Liotta are both great in the supporting roles usually getting the bigger and louder scenes.
Story – The story here follows a couple that are going through a separation that turns into a messy divorce as they expose the problems, they both had through the years. The best way to describe this story is brilliant, when we break it down, it shows how relationships can break down and how two people want to end things calmly and for the right reasons, remaining friends for their son. It shows us how things can get out of hand when lawyers get involved and how everybody seems to know best apart from the two who are going through the breakup. We see how lives can change, people can move on and how holding on can be heart breaking. It is watching how both Nicole and Charlie are reacting to how everything is spirally out of hand which is easy for the highlight of the storytelling.
Comedy/Romance – The comedy in the film is brilliant, it does get a perfectly laugh when needed, while staying straight when it doesn’t, the romance does show us how love can go from the heights to the end.
Settings – The film uses the two main settings of cities, New York and LA, the locations are used to show how the lives will need to be changed, not just for Nicole and Charlie, but their son too.
Scene of the Movie – Let’s try and talk this through without a lawyer.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The timeline isn’t the best.
Final Thoughts – This is easily one of the best films of the year, it shows us how love can end and how a divorce can spirally out of control, the two lead performances are easily within the best of the year too.
Overall: Awards Guaranteed.
Story: Marriage Story starts as we meet theatre director Charlie (Driver) and his wife actress Nicole (Johansson) they are about to go through a separation, with Nicole starting a new life in LA where she is trying to return to the television or film, moving away from the New York theatre lifestyle.
With the lives going on completely different directions, Nicole is pushed into getting a lawyer in Nora Fanshaw (Dern) which sees the two looking at a divorce, something neither thought would come their way, where they end up seeing the darker side of a break up even if they want to remain friends for their son.
Thoughts on Marriage Story
Characters – Nicole is an actress, mother and wife, she is given a chance to leave the theatre and return to television, while the couple are going through a separation and her moving to LA. She has given up a lot of her dreams for her marriage in the past, which is one of the reasons why she wants to get a divorce. Charlie is the theatre director, father and husband in New York, he wants to stay in New York running his theatre company. He is more stubborn that he wants to admit. Nora Fanshaw and Jay are both the lawyers hired to represent the divorcing couple, they show their ruthless sides whenever the two are trying to get the upper hand.
Performances – Adam Driver gives us one of the best performances of the year, where he shows one that suddenly sees his whole life come crashing around him, showing the signs of his anger of everything happening. Scarlett Johansson is fantastic too where we see how she is escaping from a trapped life showing her character start a new life. Laura Dern and Ray Liotta are both great in the supporting roles usually getting the bigger and louder scenes.
Story – The story here follows a couple that are going through a separation that turns into a messy divorce as they expose the problems, they both had through the years. The best way to describe this story is brilliant, when we break it down, it shows how relationships can break down and how two people want to end things calmly and for the right reasons, remaining friends for their son. It shows us how things can get out of hand when lawyers get involved and how everybody seems to know best apart from the two who are going through the breakup. We see how lives can change, people can move on and how holding on can be heart breaking. It is watching how both Nicole and Charlie are reacting to how everything is spirally out of hand which is easy for the highlight of the storytelling.
Comedy/Romance – The comedy in the film is brilliant, it does get a perfectly laugh when needed, while staying straight when it doesn’t, the romance does show us how love can go from the heights to the end.
Settings – The film uses the two main settings of cities, New York and LA, the locations are used to show how the lives will need to be changed, not just for Nicole and Charlie, but their son too.
Scene of the Movie – Let’s try and talk this through without a lawyer.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The timeline isn’t the best.
Final Thoughts – This is easily one of the best films of the year, it shows us how love can end and how a divorce can spirally out of control, the two lead performances are easily within the best of the year too.
Overall: Awards Guaranteed.
Night Reader Reviews (683 KP) rated Lithium in Books
Jan 9, 2020
Lithium by Asina C is not the typical book style that comes to mind when I think about a fiction book based in Chernobyl. Normally I would expect such a book to be full of zombies or mutants who go around terrorizing a group of tourist that get lost but that is not the case with Lithium. Instead, this book mixes truth with science and a little bit of fantasy and gives readers a different type of story altogether. This book also talks about the Red Forest in Chernobyl and it sparked an interest in me to look up some pictures of the forest. I also did not notice too much that widely away from the actual facts about Chernobyl, though I would by no means consider myself to be well informed on the subject.
Zurin has lived with her mother for all of her twelve years in a small shack in Pripyat. Her mother has always kept Zurin inside her home for fear of radiation sickness and being seen. This is in part because the area in which they live is believed to be uninhabitable because of all the radiation still in everything following the explosion. Zurin has always been obedient to her mothers rules until one day when her mother goes to get supplies and Zurin decides to step outside for the first time but may have been seen by someone.
Then one day, shortly after her birthday Zurin wakes up to find her mother gone and blood on the floor. Zurin then ventures out into the Red Forest in search of her mother but gets extremely lost and succumbs to radiation sickness. Luckily she is found by a young couple who work for a travel company and snuck into a restricted area of Chernobyl to take pictures for their website. The couple takes Zurin to the hospital and adopts her once she gets better. As fate would have it months later Zurin returns to Pripyat in search of her mother yet again and finds herself in an abandoned hospital. It is in this hospital that she learns the truth about her mother and her life up to this point. Her only hope is to team up with a doctor she is not completely trusting of, the young couple, and a man she has never met before.
What I liked best was the idea of people still being able to live in a highly irradiated area such as Pripyat with few side effects was interesting. The book also offered some mystery as to who Zurin and her mother are and why they chose to continue to live in an isolated area such a Pripyat. What I liked least was a little more complicated. I understand the fact that people exposed to nuclear radiation and or uranium may mutate both physically and/or mentally if they survive. What I did not understand was Nikolavs goal by purposefully mutating the patients who survived the explosion but were trapped in the mental ward of the hospital.
This is definitely a young adult book, but for many, after high school, I feel like it would quickly lose its strong appeal. It is a good book but I feel like it would need to be a little more detailed, making the book a bit longer in order for it to have more of an appeal to adults. I ended up rating this book a 2 out of 4. This is because while I enjoy books set around Chernobyl (especially if mutated people or zombies are involved because it offers a plausible explanation for it) this book fell short of my expectations. One of the main issues I had was how the book fails to give solid reasoning and jumps from one topic to another.
https://nightreaderreviews.blogspot.com/
https://www.austinmacauley.com/book/lithium
Zurin has lived with her mother for all of her twelve years in a small shack in Pripyat. Her mother has always kept Zurin inside her home for fear of radiation sickness and being seen. This is in part because the area in which they live is believed to be uninhabitable because of all the radiation still in everything following the explosion. Zurin has always been obedient to her mothers rules until one day when her mother goes to get supplies and Zurin decides to step outside for the first time but may have been seen by someone.
Then one day, shortly after her birthday Zurin wakes up to find her mother gone and blood on the floor. Zurin then ventures out into the Red Forest in search of her mother but gets extremely lost and succumbs to radiation sickness. Luckily she is found by a young couple who work for a travel company and snuck into a restricted area of Chernobyl to take pictures for their website. The couple takes Zurin to the hospital and adopts her once she gets better. As fate would have it months later Zurin returns to Pripyat in search of her mother yet again and finds herself in an abandoned hospital. It is in this hospital that she learns the truth about her mother and her life up to this point. Her only hope is to team up with a doctor she is not completely trusting of, the young couple, and a man she has never met before.
What I liked best was the idea of people still being able to live in a highly irradiated area such as Pripyat with few side effects was interesting. The book also offered some mystery as to who Zurin and her mother are and why they chose to continue to live in an isolated area such a Pripyat. What I liked least was a little more complicated. I understand the fact that people exposed to nuclear radiation and or uranium may mutate both physically and/or mentally if they survive. What I did not understand was Nikolavs goal by purposefully mutating the patients who survived the explosion but were trapped in the mental ward of the hospital.
This is definitely a young adult book, but for many, after high school, I feel like it would quickly lose its strong appeal. It is a good book but I feel like it would need to be a little more detailed, making the book a bit longer in order for it to have more of an appeal to adults. I ended up rating this book a 2 out of 4. This is because while I enjoy books set around Chernobyl (especially if mutated people or zombies are involved because it offers a plausible explanation for it) this book fell short of my expectations. One of the main issues I had was how the book fails to give solid reasoning and jumps from one topic to another.
https://nightreaderreviews.blogspot.com/
https://www.austinmacauley.com/book/lithium
Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Black Water: Abyss (2020) in Movies
Aug 22, 2020
I don't know how I've never seen Black Water, but I saw the trailer for Abyss and it caught my eye so I'll be going back to check the first one out as they're usually better.
When Cash finds a cave while out searching for two missing hikers he invites his friends to explore it with him. Deep in the cave system they come upon a cavern, as they look around they're suddenly hit by a torrent of water and become trapped by the rising water... and they might not be alone.
Where to start... I love creature features, at this point that's common knowledge, but there are some that make me a little sad. Black Water: Abyss might be one of those. It has all the potential but somehow it wasn't engaging, perhaps it took itself a little too seriously?
It suffered from excessive length, or rather the perception of length as it had a runtime of just 1 hour 38 minutes. It felt a lot longer. 98 minutes would be a perfect length for this sort of film but this dragged on and on.
There's a tried and tested formula: group gets trapped, there's peril, group have to escape, most die or at least get maimed. 47 Meters Down, Deep Blue Sea, Crawl... I won't go on. It's a simple story that so many films before have done, it shouldn't have been hard to recreate.
The actors are all good. Luke Mitchell (Blindspot) and Jessica McNamee (The Meg) were both faces I recognised and their previous roles sat positively with me. They play Jen and Eric who are a happy couple on the surface but the tension builds, they work well together. Anthony J Sharpe as Cash givens off some heavy Murdock vibes, the slightly crazy character did lighten everything a little but I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing in the long run. Our other couple are Yolanda and Viktor (Amali Golden and Benjamin Hoetjes), they're made to be the opposites of Jen and Eric seemingly one particular line of dialogue in the middle. They didn't have the same presence but that wasn't really necessary.
CGI crocs. I'll give them some credit for the fact that there were a couple of shots where I couldn't say if they were CG, real or practical. For the most part though I wasn't excited by what I saw, there was a lot of eye and snout shots or just ripples in the water. The bigger shots were chaotic and mainly obscured by fast motion and water, when you do get a good view it doesn't gel with anything around it, the colourings in particular seem to be inconsistent with the light inside the cave.
There are a lot of leading shots that should help with suspense, but somehow don't. They're typical off-set characters with open space that make you think a croc is going to jump out, classic right? But it seems like they made a concerted effort to combat predictability by putting a few of those shots together and not using the first one for the scare... which had a negative effect for me. Part of the fun of these films is that you know something is coming and you can get a gratifying win from guessing what's going to happen, after a few thwarted attempts at that it became really frustrating and less than satisfying to watch.
Despite a lot of disappointment this isn't a bad film, swapping some of the drama for more action and giving the viewers a few "wins" would have easily made the runtime a bit more bearable. I did get a solid laugh out of it towards the end, perhaps it missed its calling as a comedy.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/08/black-water-abyss-movie-review.html
When Cash finds a cave while out searching for two missing hikers he invites his friends to explore it with him. Deep in the cave system they come upon a cavern, as they look around they're suddenly hit by a torrent of water and become trapped by the rising water... and they might not be alone.
Where to start... I love creature features, at this point that's common knowledge, but there are some that make me a little sad. Black Water: Abyss might be one of those. It has all the potential but somehow it wasn't engaging, perhaps it took itself a little too seriously?
It suffered from excessive length, or rather the perception of length as it had a runtime of just 1 hour 38 minutes. It felt a lot longer. 98 minutes would be a perfect length for this sort of film but this dragged on and on.
There's a tried and tested formula: group gets trapped, there's peril, group have to escape, most die or at least get maimed. 47 Meters Down, Deep Blue Sea, Crawl... I won't go on. It's a simple story that so many films before have done, it shouldn't have been hard to recreate.
The actors are all good. Luke Mitchell (Blindspot) and Jessica McNamee (The Meg) were both faces I recognised and their previous roles sat positively with me. They play Jen and Eric who are a happy couple on the surface but the tension builds, they work well together. Anthony J Sharpe as Cash givens off some heavy Murdock vibes, the slightly crazy character did lighten everything a little but I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing in the long run. Our other couple are Yolanda and Viktor (Amali Golden and Benjamin Hoetjes), they're made to be the opposites of Jen and Eric seemingly one particular line of dialogue in the middle. They didn't have the same presence but that wasn't really necessary.
CGI crocs. I'll give them some credit for the fact that there were a couple of shots where I couldn't say if they were CG, real or practical. For the most part though I wasn't excited by what I saw, there was a lot of eye and snout shots or just ripples in the water. The bigger shots were chaotic and mainly obscured by fast motion and water, when you do get a good view it doesn't gel with anything around it, the colourings in particular seem to be inconsistent with the light inside the cave.
There are a lot of leading shots that should help with suspense, but somehow don't. They're typical off-set characters with open space that make you think a croc is going to jump out, classic right? But it seems like they made a concerted effort to combat predictability by putting a few of those shots together and not using the first one for the scare... which had a negative effect for me. Part of the fun of these films is that you know something is coming and you can get a gratifying win from guessing what's going to happen, after a few thwarted attempts at that it became really frustrating and less than satisfying to watch.
Despite a lot of disappointment this isn't a bad film, swapping some of the drama for more action and giving the viewers a few "wins" would have easily made the runtime a bit more bearable. I did get a solid laugh out of it towards the end, perhaps it missed its calling as a comedy.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/08/black-water-abyss-movie-review.html
Whatchareadin (174 KP) rated Private #1 Suspect (Private, #2) in Books
May 10, 2018
Private really has their work cut out for them this time. Two major cases that have very strong implications to the community. First, there are four dead and burned bodies that have been found on the beach. They carry a sign that says 'No Prisoners'. Days later there are more dead bodies, another sign, and promises that this is not the end. Then they have the case of the Harlows. A Hollywood couple who make great movies and do amazing philanthropy work all over the world. When they go missing without a trace, it's up to Private to find out why they were taken and where they could be.
Another interesting book by James Patterson. This is the third book for the Los Angeles Private offices series and the sixth book for the entire Private series. I think next I'm going to read Private Games that has to deal with the Olympics in London since the Olympics are going on right now.
For the first few chapters of this book, I wasn't sure what was going to happen or if I was going to continue to read the book. But after a while, the action got going and my attention was held. Let's start with the first case of dead bodies showing up on the beach. There is a group out there who is looking to get revenge, but for what? And who are these people. They want the city of Los Angeles to pay them big money or they will continue to kill people. One more person per day than the day before. How are they going to be stopped if they can't be found. When one of Private's own investigators gets seriously injured on the job, Jack, the head of Private is even more determined to find out who these people are.
For the Harlow's, on the surface they seem like your typical Hollywood couple, but they have some skeletons in their closet. Skeletons their closest team members do not want to let the whole world know about. So, when they ask that Private not involve the police or the FBI in this case, this make the situation even more difficult. When the skeletons come to the surface, it's easy to see why the Harlow's wouldn't want this getting out to the public.
Packed with adventure around every corner and a few funny bits along the way, this was a great Private book by James Patterson.
Another interesting book by James Patterson. This is the third book for the Los Angeles Private offices series and the sixth book for the entire Private series. I think next I'm going to read Private Games that has to deal with the Olympics in London since the Olympics are going on right now.
For the first few chapters of this book, I wasn't sure what was going to happen or if I was going to continue to read the book. But after a while, the action got going and my attention was held. Let's start with the first case of dead bodies showing up on the beach. There is a group out there who is looking to get revenge, but for what? And who are these people. They want the city of Los Angeles to pay them big money or they will continue to kill people. One more person per day than the day before. How are they going to be stopped if they can't be found. When one of Private's own investigators gets seriously injured on the job, Jack, the head of Private is even more determined to find out who these people are.
For the Harlow's, on the surface they seem like your typical Hollywood couple, but they have some skeletons in their closet. Skeletons their closest team members do not want to let the whole world know about. So, when they ask that Private not involve the police or the FBI in this case, this make the situation even more difficult. When the skeletons come to the surface, it's easy to see why the Harlow's wouldn't want this getting out to the public.
Packed with adventure around every corner and a few funny bits along the way, this was a great Private book by James Patterson.