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Traitor's Moon (Gladstone Shifters #2)
Traitor's Moon (Gladstone Shifters #2)
Alexander Elliott | 2019 | LGBTQ+, Paranormal, Romance
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
TRAITOR'S MOON is the second book in the Gladstone Shifters series and it does follow on from book one so I definitely recommend you read that book just to get the full picture.

Ben and Evan are still trying to make their Pack a safe home but Wilburn still has other plans. Jack and William are 'on tour' trying to bring the reality of True Elders to other packs.

There is so much intrigue in this book, making it fast-paced and full of action without it being rushed. As a reader, you daren't blink in case you miss anything. And yet, there is still time for romance, for love, for hope. And not just for MM couples either. Personally, I think this is one of the best parts of these books - instead of just one romance, you get a couple or more!

The world-building is excellent and you also get the political structure and problems too. Although there are a host of characters, each one is fully fleshed out, making every single one of them completely believable.

This is a fantastic addition to the series and I look forward to carrying on with their stories. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Jonah!

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
  
Killing in a Koi Pond
Killing in a Koi Pond
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Jessica Gets Back on the Road to Murder
Jessica Fletcher is traveling down to South Carolina to visit a college friend. Delores has just married Willis, and she is over the moon. She is also blind to the way that Willis treats the majority of those around them, but Jessica observes the way others are reacting to his almost abusive behavior at dinner. When Jessica sets out for a run the next morning, she finds Willis dead in the Koi Pond. While Delores doesn’t want to believe that anyone could have killed Willis, the police being to treat Delores as a suspect. Can Jessica figure out what is really happening?

Although I’ve been a fan of the TV show for years, I just started reading the books a couple of years ago. While I enjoyed those books, they felt a little off for the franchise. This book captures the feel of the show much better, especially Jessica on a trip episode (which were the majority). Jessica is her charming best here, and I enjoyed several other characters as well as appreciating the growth in Delores. I did feel that Delores’s step-granddaughter was a bit young for the age she was supposed to be and the suspects were thin. The plot was good, although the pacing was off. Still, it did provide some enjoyable red herrings before we reached a classic Murder, She Wrote climax. Fans of the series will feel right at home here.
  
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Tyondai Braxton recommended Multistability by Mark Fell in Music (curated)

 
Multistability by Mark Fell
Multistability by Mark Fell
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Revelatory meditations on a classic FM synth sounds. The end of an era and the beginning of one. I came to his music maybe later in my life, and he's one of those guys where you just slap your head and go "Oh man, how have I not known about this guy?" Only in the last couple of years have I approached him. He does micro-electronic stuff, kind of like preceded a lot of labels that have since flourished with that, like Raster-Noton and Editions Mego. What he's done - and I think this must be a running theme of things that I like – as far as liberating an idea from its historical context. Like Feldman and Varese, it's him taking these dance sounds, these FM synth sounds that you hear in techno even, and isolating them, turning them into this simple object which is hanging on your wall. And in doing so, it's reduced to something so pure that it's profound and it's absurd. And it's powerful and funny. It's so simple, the idea behind it. Production-wise, he has his own methodology that I'm not too sure about. It's not basic, but it's so obvious in its clarity, that it makes you ask, "How has someone not done this already?" So profound in a way. It's so simple, this idea. It's literally one pulsing sound. You understand it, but you are thinking "How do I listen to this? What is it for?""

Source
  
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ClareR (5945 KP) rated Expectation in Books

Jul 6, 2021  
Expectation
Expectation
Anna Hope | 2019 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Expectation was a book that really sneaked up on me. I started reading it, and discovered that I didn’t actually want to stop. It was fascinating.

It looks at the lives of three women: Hannah, Cate and Lissa, who are best friends. Hannah and Cate have known one another since childhood, and they meet Lissa at university. They all come from diverse backgrounds, and they all go on to do very different things after they graduate. We see the pressure that they all feel to succeed on their chosen paths, and the ways that they deal with both their successes and failures at home and at work.

This is a book that has stayed with me since I finished reading it a couple of weeks ago. Their life choices struck a chord of recognition in me, even though my own life is nothing like the three women. It made me think about how we all start off thinking our lives will go down one particular path, and invariably, things happen that completely change what we want.

Expectation is beautifully written, and I often lost myself completely in the story. I liked the slow burn, and the way that the book would go back to childhood or university years in order to emphasise a characters decision in the present. The ending was a real affirmation of the strength and longevity of female friendship. Just my kind of book.
  
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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2395 KP) rated Pint of No Return in Books

Jul 8, 2021 (Updated Jul 8, 2021)  
Pint of No Return
Pint of No Return
Dana Mentink | 2021 | Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Delicious Debut
After finding out that her ex-husband was a thrice-married embezzler, Trinidad Jones moved to Upper Sprocket, Oregon. The reason? Her ex left her a storefront, and she is going to open a shake shop there. One afternoon, she finds a neighboring store owner dead in the back of his popcorn shop. The police start to look at Juliette, one of Trinidad’s fellow ex-wives, as the killer. Trinidad doesn’t think that Juliette committed the crime, but can she trust her instincts?

I found myself at once drawn into the book as I struggled to fully get lost in the world. There were small details that we didn’t get right away that kept me from fully getting emmeshed in the story. On the other hand, the characters were wonderful, and those relationships kept drawing me in. The pacing was a little off a couple of times, but it held my interest as I read, and it led to a great climax. The book does a good job of balancing tone. At times, it’s light, but other times it gets serious. The combination makes for a richer book. I appreciated the slight twist on the cozy mystery set up. The ice cream scenes made my drool, and I appreciate the recipe at the end of the book. I can’t wait to revisit these characters when the second in this series comes out.
  
Pony Up
Pony Up
Sandy Dengler | 2020 | Mystery
5
5.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Settling into Married Life with Danger
This book opens at Joe Rodriguez’s wedding reception over in Ireland, but it isn’t too long before he and his young wife, Bridgid, are back in Phoenix and settling into wedded bliss. Well, they would be if it weren’t for Charlie Stegener. He is still trying to cause trouble for Joe in particular and the entire Phoenix police in general despite the fact that his wife has dropped out of the mayor’s race. Meanwhile, someone has followed Joe and Bridgid back from Ireland intent on ruining their lives. Can Joe stay one step ahead of both of these problems?

This book follows the previous book in the series very closely. In fact, some of the storylines I thought were wrapped up come back into play. The result feels more like a TV show than a novel, however, with the dueling plots. The characters are wonderful, and fans of the series will be excited to see what happens next to them. Well, mostly. There are a couple of scenes that were excessive, and I have to wonder what one character did to the author to get the treatment they got here. The ending, while wrapping up the plot, did seem a bit abrupt. I did enjoy the book because I like the characters and got caught up in the events, but I’ve enjoyed other books from this author more.
  
Judgment Night by Faith No More
Judgment Night by Faith No More
1993 | Hip-hop, Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"This was something of an anomaly in Faith No More’s catalogue, from a film made in the early ‘90s called Judgement Night. The soundtrack was a sort of experiment where they would get bands - white people, essentially - and they would couple them with hip-hop groups and see what happened. This was one of my first introductions to hip-hop to be honest and it wasn’t even ‘proper’ hip-hop, it was bands playing with rapping over the top. “I just thought it was absolutely amazing and I couldn’t get enough of it, this worn-out tape. ‘Another Body Murdered’ was one of the best tracks on it and it ended up introducing me to loads of bands and loads of rappers and this wasn’t like nu-metal, it was mostly edgy rappers. But then there was also a track ‘Fallin’ with Teenage Fanclub featuring De La Soul, things like that. It gave me a really broad introduction via a medium I already understood, which was bands. “But because it was a faceless tape, I didn’t really know who everyone was or who was doing what on each track. I didn’t realise then what cultural lines might have been crossed, because it was all just blurred into one: here’s the guitar, here’s somebody rapping. It didn’t matter to me at all and I think that was a healthy way to discover that sort of music."

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Kurt Vile recommended Live At The East by Pharoah Sanders in Music (curated)

 
Live At The East by Pharoah Sanders
Live At The East by Pharoah Sanders
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I had that record for a long time and didn't pay much attention to it. I turned Jesse onto it. He's since tried to get it, and it's like $20, but I found it in a bin for like $4, $6. I didn't pay much attention to it, but then once I got deep into him - it's an incredible performance around the same time. The first song on there, 'Healing Song', does that very similar thing where it's just a couple of chords, but on this one they have two bass players. So they have one guy that's just playing the basic chords, the other one's really walking around it in this spiritual way, and the piano player's incredible, and people are even singing along. It sounds like late '80s or early '90s pop, like I think about this Janet Jackson song, it's a prototype for African-American pop, where it's all these songs, like... It's not like, "Ah man, I love me some Janet Jackson" - that stuff just gets embedded just 'cause you hear it on the radio 24/7, [but] you know that song, 'Escapade'? There's a riff in that song that I play on my guitar as a joke, but it's actually the best riff ever, it's sort of like that: this simple hook, but obviously they take it beyond, because they're all such good players. It's just pop that you can't deny mixed with free spiritualism."

Source
  
Runaway Boys: A Retrospective '81-'92 by Stray Cats
Runaway Boys: A Retrospective '81-'92 by Stray Cats
1997 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Stray Cat Strut by Stray Cats

(0 Ratings)

Track

"Then we became rockabillys and got really into the Stray Cats, This was about 1982. It was my brother and his mates who started brushing their hair up, and me and Sice joined in. It felt like years at the time, but it was probably for 12 to 18 months we became rockabillys. We had our hair piled up, baggy trousers and crepe shoes. I still love the Stray Cats. They had this cartoon image - their hair was much bigger. I had such a crush on Brian Setzer, he's a great singer. But the guitar playing is phenomenal. The B-side is called 'Drink That Bottle Down' - I think it's live in Newcastle - and you've got the double bass player Lee Rocker shouting these blues. It really is a racket, but the guitar playing is unbelievable. The variety and dexterity and fluidity - the ferocity of his guitar playing is wonderful. I was into them for a couple of albums, but by the third album we kind of gave up. My brother got deeper into it - he started getting into psychobilly and all that, The Sharks, Tall Boys, The Meteors, The Milkshakes - all that Klub Foot stuff. And there was a psychedelic wave - The Purple Things and The Vibes - and it all got really strange. I was out of it by then. I think 'Relax' came out and I was back in the modern world."

Source
  
Hilarious (2 more)
Mad characters
Unbelievable situations
Too short!! (0 more)
Such an easy read, and one that had me giggling throughout.
We follow a group of writers through emails, both to the group and some privately between members. This eclectic group would in both way be friends outside of the group, and it shows with just how different they all are. A couple do meet up outside of the group, with hilarious results (the night in the hotel before comic con being the one that sticks in my mind the most!) that mean you can’t help but wonder just how these people get through day to day life.
It was great to follow this group through the trials of trying to write their own work, as well as the trials of being thrust together with people they didn’t particularly like, and to also see that they either didn’t understand or didn’t want to see some of the sarcastic comments that were pointed towards them.
Reading this book was so easy, and such a different type of book with it all being written in email form. Although it sounds like it won’t work, in this case it absolutely does. I loved every minute of this, and could have read so many more pages of it!
Thank you to Dan Brotzel, Martin Jenkins, Alex Woolf and Pigeonhole for allowing me to read this beautifully written and extremely mad book, I thoroughly enjoyed it!