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Just a Little Fling (Just a Little #3)
8.0
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Nico Nico is all about living his best life, trading the drama of relationships for the thrill of...
Contemporary MM Romance Daddy / Little Romance Age Play
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2395 KP) rated A Killing in Costumes in Books
May 9, 2025
Memorabilia to Die For
Jay and Cindy were on their way to a successful career in Hollywood until their marriage ended when they both realized they were gay. Now, a couple of decades later, they are opening a Hollywood memorabilia shop in Palm Springs. Things are off to a slow start until aging actress Yana Tosh contacts them about selling her collection of Hollywood costumes. She’s talking to a larger auction house as well, and when Cindy and Jay’s competition dies, they quickly find themselves suspects. Can they clear their names?
This book has been on my radar for a while, and I’m glad I finally picked it up. The writing did make it hard to get into the story originally, but soon I was hooked on the mystery. There were several good twists and surprises on the way to the logical climax. Jay and Cindy share lead character duties, and they lead a cast of characters I enjoyed getting to know. And I smiled at the many references to classic movies, tv shows, and stars of the screen. We also get talk about classic musicians. At this point, this is looking like a standalone novel, but if a sequel does pop up, I’d be happy to visit Cindy and Jay again.
This book has been on my radar for a while, and I’m glad I finally picked it up. The writing did make it hard to get into the story originally, but soon I was hooked on the mystery. There were several good twists and surprises on the way to the logical climax. Jay and Cindy share lead character duties, and they lead a cast of characters I enjoyed getting to know. And I smiled at the many references to classic movies, tv shows, and stars of the screen. We also get talk about classic musicians. At this point, this is looking like a standalone novel, but if a sequel does pop up, I’d be happy to visit Cindy and Jay again.
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2395 KP) rated Murder Italian Style in Books
Jun 18, 2025
Samantha Sleuths in Style on a New Continent
Samantha and her husband thought his father was treating them to a vacation to visit family friends in a small Italian village over New Years. When they arrive, however, they learn that Samantha’s ability to solve crime has been requested. Twenty-six years ago, a murder occurred in the village, and their hostess’s boyfriend has been serving time for the crime ever sense. While reluctant at first to figure out what happened, Samantha soon becomes intrigued. Can she overcome the language barrier to find the truth?
Since we are out of the country, we don’t see most of the usual gang, but the new characters make up for it. We come to care for them enough to make us care about the outcome of this cold case. There are a couple of small things that could have used a little more explanation, but the main questions are answered satisfactorily. We may be in a foreign country, but we still get Samantha’s usual wit and breezy narration. And her love of snack foods takes an Italian turn, which left me hungry. Fans will enjoy this trip abroad. Pack your bags for another fun mystery.
Since we are out of the country, we don’t see most of the usual gang, but the new characters make up for it. We come to care for them enough to make us care about the outcome of this cold case. There are a couple of small things that could have used a little more explanation, but the main questions are answered satisfactorily. We may be in a foreign country, but we still get Samantha’s usual wit and breezy narration. And her love of snack foods takes an Italian turn, which left me hungry. Fans will enjoy this trip abroad. Pack your bags for another fun mystery.
Debbiereadsbook (1487 KP) rated Dick Move: Island Confidential Novella in Books
Jul 24, 2025
IT's cute and fun, steamy and smexy!
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this book.
Danny's ex left a box of toys. Danny isn't quite sure what to do with them, so he approaches said ex's best friend to see if he knows who they might belong to. Will just wants a quiet night, but spending time with Danny will do. Then Danny springs his dilemma on him and Will makes his mind up to help Danny.
What I did not like about this book was that it was short! Short on page space: only 90 odd pages and short on time: whole book takes place over couple days.
What I loved about this was it was short! Contradictory, I know! I loved that we get this short burst, because I really don't think it would've worked as a longer book. But I still didn't like that it was short, as I wanted more of Danny and Will!
It's cute, it's funny, it's steamy and smexy but it carries some emotion too. Especially for Danny finding out about his ex and about said ex was doing. Will was shocked by his so called best friend!
A thoroughly enjoyable 4 star read.
*same worded review will appear elsewhere
Danny's ex left a box of toys. Danny isn't quite sure what to do with them, so he approaches said ex's best friend to see if he knows who they might belong to. Will just wants a quiet night, but spending time with Danny will do. Then Danny springs his dilemma on him and Will makes his mind up to help Danny.
What I did not like about this book was that it was short! Short on page space: only 90 odd pages and short on time: whole book takes place over couple days.
What I loved about this was it was short! Contradictory, I know! I loved that we get this short burst, because I really don't think it would've worked as a longer book. But I still didn't like that it was short, as I wanted more of Danny and Will!
It's cute, it's funny, it's steamy and smexy but it carries some emotion too. Especially for Danny finding out about his ex and about said ex was doing. Will was shocked by his so called best friend!
A thoroughly enjoyable 4 star read.
*same worded review will appear elsewhere
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2395 KP) rated Stuff to Spy For in Books
Jan 24, 2025
Spying, Even Accidentally, Can Be Deadly
When Skip Moore lands a sale for a company looking to upgrade their security system, he thinks he’s finally made the big time. He even gets his best friend, James Lessor, a job on the installation team. Then Skip is offered a couple of extra assignments with big paydays. What could possibly go wrong? A suspicious death for starters. Then there are things that aren’t adding up, and evidence that someone is spying on them. Can the pair figure out what is going on?
This series is a mixed bag for me, and this book was no exception. I appreciate the friendship between Skip and James, but the ideas and James leads them into make me smack my head sometimes. I appreciate some of the humor, but other bits make me cringe. The plot was compelling, but the ending was rushed. And a key scene makes little sense (why are the characters there?). Then there’s also the needless tease in the opening. Yet, I plan to keep going forward with this series. If you pick the book up, keep in mind that it came out in 2009, which explains some of the dated technology. If the premise sounds interesting pick up the series. Otherwise, you can skip them.
This series is a mixed bag for me, and this book was no exception. I appreciate the friendship between Skip and James, but the ideas and James leads them into make me smack my head sometimes. I appreciate some of the humor, but other bits make me cringe. The plot was compelling, but the ending was rushed. And a key scene makes little sense (why are the characters there?). Then there’s also the needless tease in the opening. Yet, I plan to keep going forward with this series. If you pick the book up, keep in mind that it came out in 2009, which explains some of the dated technology. If the premise sounds interesting pick up the series. Otherwise, you can skip them.
The Kraken's Queen (Grym Hollow #3)
10.0
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For the past five years, all Erin has known is pain. But no longer. With the help of Grym...
Fantasy Romance
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2395 KP) rated The Final Draw in Books
Mar 26, 2025 (Updated Mar 26, 2025)
The Kingdom Kids Face Their Final Battle
Eli Finn and his friends are in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom for the fireworks on Friday night. But the fireworks all go off at once. And then the kids make another discovery – all the villains and henchmen have vanished from the various rides in the parks. Can they figure out the riddle they got from Tiana in time to save the magic? Or will it be lost for good?
If this is your introduction to the Kingdom Keepers universe, you will be very lost since it is the wrap up to over a dozen books across several series. But fans of the series will know what to expect here and will enjoy what we get. It’s pretty much par for the course, with lots of great scenes with Disney characters and the parks in spooky circumstances. The characters are thin, but that’s been true all along the way. Having said that, I really loved a couple of scenes with Eli and his parents that break out of some of the usual interactions with parents in middle grade books. If this does turn out to be the last adventure in the Kingdom Keepers universe, fans will be satisfied.
If this is your introduction to the Kingdom Keepers universe, you will be very lost since it is the wrap up to over a dozen books across several series. But fans of the series will know what to expect here and will enjoy what we get. It’s pretty much par for the course, with lots of great scenes with Disney characters and the parks in spooky circumstances. The characters are thin, but that’s been true all along the way. Having said that, I really loved a couple of scenes with Eli and his parents that break out of some of the usual interactions with parents in middle grade books. If this does turn out to be the last adventure in the Kingdom Keepers universe, fans will be satisfied.
Warrick (Rocky Mountain Pack #2)
7.0
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Will she give him another chance, or will she reject her mate for good? Aspen Every chance...
Paranormal Romance Shifters Second Chance Romance Small Town Rejected Mate
Merissa (13169 KP) rated Seven Hundred Beachfront in Books
Jul 25, 2025
SEVEN HUNDRED BEACHFRONT is a story about a house, if the title didn't clue you in. This is not the usual genre I go for, but the blurb had me intrigued.
It is a cosy read that takes place over a couple of months during the summer, when Bec rents the house while she looks after her five-year-old brother, Bobby. Their summer stay becomes more interesting when the house starts making her opinions known, and both Bobby and Bev are able to understand her.
With a small town cast of supporting characters, there is a love interest in Jeff, the next door neighbour, plus some angst in the most un-mother I've ever had the displeasure of reading about.
Told from Bev's perspective throughout, this was a sweet read that I enjoyed. The intimate scenes are either very low spice or fade-to-black. If you want a story with a beach setting while you're sat at the beach, then I can definitely recommend this one.
** Same worded review will appear elsewhere. **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book; the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Jul 25, 2025
It is a cosy read that takes place over a couple of months during the summer, when Bec rents the house while she looks after her five-year-old brother, Bobby. Their summer stay becomes more interesting when the house starts making her opinions known, and both Bobby and Bev are able to understand her.
With a small town cast of supporting characters, there is a love interest in Jeff, the next door neighbour, plus some angst in the most un-mother I've ever had the displeasure of reading about.
Told from Bev's perspective throughout, this was a sweet read that I enjoyed. The intimate scenes are either very low spice or fade-to-black. If you want a story with a beach setting while you're sat at the beach, then I can definitely recommend this one.
** Same worded review will appear elsewhere. **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book; the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Jul 25, 2025
Piper (13 KP) rated Halloween (2018) in Movies
Nov 27, 2019
Strong Characters (3 more)
Clever Camerawork
Myers is Finally Threatening Again
Callbacks and Subversions
"You're The New Doctor Loomis" (3 more)
Plot Holes
Predictable
Too Much Off-Screen Action
Halloween: Predictably Unpredictable
Contains spoilers, click to show
After the nightmare of a film that was Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake, I refused to bother seeing the new Halloween on its release, choosing instead to pick up a DVD when the price got knocked down significantly enough - after all, we’ve had sixty-three Halloween films now and only half of them were worth watching (really, Season of the Witch?) and this looked, in all honesty, like just another slasher-film-reboot that wasn’t worth the time. Now don’t get me wrong, it absolutely was just another slasher film, but I wish I’d seen it in the cinema. And a year earlier than I did, too, because I missed out big-time with this one.
The plot is predictable, because of course it is. It’s Michael Myers, what’s he going to do except escape from a mental institution and murder some people? But it’s beautifully subverted; some of the characters you might expect to last till the end die before the halfway mark, and while there are a fair amount who are clearly written in just to be killed minutes later, they contribute to some fine, gory moments, so it’s kind of okay. There’s no real heartbreaker here - everyone you really rooted for just about makes it, and everyone that was kind of a dick is killed. And that’s fine, because in a way this isn’t the kind of slasher where it matters who lives or dies. This is a film about preserving a legacy, or perhaps just making one, and it works. We’re told fairly early on that this is a direct sequel to the original Halloween (Myers’ death toll at the start of this version, apparently, is five, which matches the amount of kills he made in the first movie - as far as I’m aware, Myers has actually killed over 100 people in all the films combined, so this is a nice subtle way of telling us what to remember and what to ignore completely). Having said that, references are made throughout to previous films, the best of which is of course a callback to the infamous scene where Myers tumbles out of a window only for his body to completely disappear - this time it’s Laurie Strode who does the tumbling, and she very much intends to do a little vanishing act of her own, Michael, so keep an eye on - oh, no, you looked away, I wonder what’s happening down there!
Focusing on Laurie for a moment, Jamie Lee Curtis does an absolutely excellent job here. Age has given her character wisdom, paranoia, and a whole lot of guns, and the acting carries a huge amount of weight and strength with it. Having said that, there are a couple of moments where all of Laurie’s fear-induced calculations don’t seem to have quite worked out - why bother going to such extreme measures to protect your house, if the front door you’re standing behind is half glass? But that’s the thing about this movie - whatever you plan for, whatever you think Michael Myers is capable of, he’s stronger than you think, he’s far more terrifying than you remember, and right until the end, he’s here to remind you that nothing you can plan for will ever be enough. Of course, we never actually see him die (again) so here’s looking forward to the next sequel…
The cinematography is something to at least wonder over - settings and locations are used well and established with some wonderful wide shots, and some of the best scenes are those where the camera just stays in one place, at a very carefully-selected window for example, and watches. Two scenes are worth a particular mention; the first, in which we follow our two podcast-host characters to a gas station, seems fairly dull until Myers catches up to them, but if you watch the background carefully enough you’ll see he’s there all along, beating people up and murdering quite happily (swapping his prison jumpsuit for those traditional blues in the process). The second seems a little superficial, in the grand scheme of the movie, but it’s well-shot nonetheless - we watch, from that aforementioned window, as a woman hears about all the nasty things Michael might do, and of course we can see him through another window, heading for her front door, and when he finally appears inside the house he’s all the way across the room, somehow, and he calmly wanders on over and stabs the woman quite coolly through the throat, in a scene which I think is most reminiscent of the original films.
However, there are moments when you don’t see Michael at all, just the aftermath, or where we watch him enter a room and are forced to linger in the corridor while he does the dirty work. A couple of times that’s just fine, but considering the nature of the film it would be nice to watch the magic happen a couple more times. And while we’re on the negatives, I might mention that the reveal that the Doctor Loomis-type character who looked, felt, and sounded like a rip-off of Doctor Loomis, and was even referred to as “The New Doctor Loomis” did EXACTLY the same thing that Doctor Loomis did, surprise, and we were somehow expected to not see that coming like it was all one big, obvious, heavy-handed bluff. A couple of the other characters, too, felt like they were purely rammed in there to be irritating - there were a couple of strong scenes with our podcast hosts, but ultimately they were rude, on-the-nose and annoyingly egotistical, and I was happy to see them go, just like Alison’s friend Foggy Nelson.
The score, incidentally, is worth mentioning, from a haunting retune of the original Myers theme to darker and more dramatic variations on it later on that really would have been quite something to hear in surround-sound. I’m never usually one to appreciate the music of a film quite fully enough, so it was nice to have this grab my attention in quite the way it did. Overall, it’s a genuinely good follow-on that takes the best of the films before and makes the best use of the worst of them. Some of the characters might be a little annoying, some of the action could have translated better on-screen than off, but it was an honest and straight-up slasher film and it just wasn’t that bad at all.
The plot is predictable, because of course it is. It’s Michael Myers, what’s he going to do except escape from a mental institution and murder some people? But it’s beautifully subverted; some of the characters you might expect to last till the end die before the halfway mark, and while there are a fair amount who are clearly written in just to be killed minutes later, they contribute to some fine, gory moments, so it’s kind of okay. There’s no real heartbreaker here - everyone you really rooted for just about makes it, and everyone that was kind of a dick is killed. And that’s fine, because in a way this isn’t the kind of slasher where it matters who lives or dies. This is a film about preserving a legacy, or perhaps just making one, and it works. We’re told fairly early on that this is a direct sequel to the original Halloween (Myers’ death toll at the start of this version, apparently, is five, which matches the amount of kills he made in the first movie - as far as I’m aware, Myers has actually killed over 100 people in all the films combined, so this is a nice subtle way of telling us what to remember and what to ignore completely). Having said that, references are made throughout to previous films, the best of which is of course a callback to the infamous scene where Myers tumbles out of a window only for his body to completely disappear - this time it’s Laurie Strode who does the tumbling, and she very much intends to do a little vanishing act of her own, Michael, so keep an eye on - oh, no, you looked away, I wonder what’s happening down there!
Focusing on Laurie for a moment, Jamie Lee Curtis does an absolutely excellent job here. Age has given her character wisdom, paranoia, and a whole lot of guns, and the acting carries a huge amount of weight and strength with it. Having said that, there are a couple of moments where all of Laurie’s fear-induced calculations don’t seem to have quite worked out - why bother going to such extreme measures to protect your house, if the front door you’re standing behind is half glass? But that’s the thing about this movie - whatever you plan for, whatever you think Michael Myers is capable of, he’s stronger than you think, he’s far more terrifying than you remember, and right until the end, he’s here to remind you that nothing you can plan for will ever be enough. Of course, we never actually see him die (again) so here’s looking forward to the next sequel…
The cinematography is something to at least wonder over - settings and locations are used well and established with some wonderful wide shots, and some of the best scenes are those where the camera just stays in one place, at a very carefully-selected window for example, and watches. Two scenes are worth a particular mention; the first, in which we follow our two podcast-host characters to a gas station, seems fairly dull until Myers catches up to them, but if you watch the background carefully enough you’ll see he’s there all along, beating people up and murdering quite happily (swapping his prison jumpsuit for those traditional blues in the process). The second seems a little superficial, in the grand scheme of the movie, but it’s well-shot nonetheless - we watch, from that aforementioned window, as a woman hears about all the nasty things Michael might do, and of course we can see him through another window, heading for her front door, and when he finally appears inside the house he’s all the way across the room, somehow, and he calmly wanders on over and stabs the woman quite coolly through the throat, in a scene which I think is most reminiscent of the original films.
However, there are moments when you don’t see Michael at all, just the aftermath, or where we watch him enter a room and are forced to linger in the corridor while he does the dirty work. A couple of times that’s just fine, but considering the nature of the film it would be nice to watch the magic happen a couple more times. And while we’re on the negatives, I might mention that the reveal that the Doctor Loomis-type character who looked, felt, and sounded like a rip-off of Doctor Loomis, and was even referred to as “The New Doctor Loomis” did EXACTLY the same thing that Doctor Loomis did, surprise, and we were somehow expected to not see that coming like it was all one big, obvious, heavy-handed bluff. A couple of the other characters, too, felt like they were purely rammed in there to be irritating - there were a couple of strong scenes with our podcast hosts, but ultimately they were rude, on-the-nose and annoyingly egotistical, and I was happy to see them go, just like Alison’s friend Foggy Nelson.
The score, incidentally, is worth mentioning, from a haunting retune of the original Myers theme to darker and more dramatic variations on it later on that really would have been quite something to hear in surround-sound. I’m never usually one to appreciate the music of a film quite fully enough, so it was nice to have this grab my attention in quite the way it did. Overall, it’s a genuinely good follow-on that takes the best of the films before and makes the best use of the worst of them. Some of the characters might be a little annoying, some of the action could have translated better on-screen than off, but it was an honest and straight-up slasher film and it just wasn’t that bad at all.