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40x40

CKD (37 KP) rated Heads You Win in Books

Dec 7, 2018  
HY
Heads You Win
Jeffrey Archer | 2018
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
WOW! If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I totally would.

First, thanks to St. Martins Press for sending me an Advanced Readers Copy of this book.

Second, I loved, loved, loved this book! I first started reading Jeffrey Archer's book in the early 90s when my husband introduced me to the Kane and Abel series. After reading that series, I was hooked on his writing style and the stories. I've read pretty much every single one of them. This one was one of his best. If you read the Clifton Chronicles, you may remember that Harry Clifton is a writer and he "wrote" "Heads You Win". This book, like all of his others, get you hooked almost immediately and don't stop until the last word. This tells the story of Alex and his mother, Elena. They escape Leningrad by flipping a coin to determine whether they head to London or New York. Upon their arrival (I'm not divulging where they end up), the story continues playing out their lives in their new home.

Fabulous book....down to the last sentence.
  
40x40

Ross (3282 KP) rated Across the Broken Stars in Books

Feb 14, 2020  
Across the Broken Stars
Across the Broken Stars
Jed Herne | 2020 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Unusual space fantasy ... with wings!
I received an advance copy of this book from BookSirens and provide this honest review.
This book has a very unusual setting with plenty left to the imagination. The story takes place in a world of "discs" (I presume man-made but not wholly clear), large surfaces with a metal base and a force field keeping oxygen in and gravity working, where single multi-purpose crops ("omnicrops") provide perfect sustenance, various fungi/mosses providing building materials, luminescence and underwater/outer space breathing apparatus.
Despite this apparent sci-fi setting, the technology is at a very early stage - weapons are limited to swords/arrows and vehicles are drawn by pegasi or wind power. Space travel is accomplished by launching oneself towards your destination and hoping to reach the other, orbiting, disc. Unless you're an angel/Pegasus where your wings can apparently help propel you through space (you know, air-less space, where wings wouldn't be of any use) - but hey this is fantasy lets not get bogged down with this.
The angels have been wiped out by the ruling race during a long and nasty war. Leon, a cowardly traitorous "former" angel, is in hiding living a simple life drinking and gambling his days away after back-breaking work unloading airships. He is approached by someone he starts to believe is an angel who has tracked him down. Unfortunately she is also being tracked by an Inquisitor, and the two are forced to run.
Elena, the last angel with wings, is determined to outrun the Inquisition and find Waverrym, the mythical hidden home of the remaining angels. The two (Leon reluctantly) embark on a journey to unravel puzzles and riddles to determine the location of their only haven.
Leon is quite an annoying protagonist, being a whiney, cowardly husk of a man. His role in the story is using his angel training and knowledge to solve the riddles they uncover, while training Elena along the way.
The story is well planned out with a decent plot and well-crafted dungeon-type areas (at times it felt a little D&D/LitRPG). While there was a definite lull to my mind around the halfway mark this didn't impact my enjoyment too much.
If you can accept the fact that angel wings / Pegasus wings can allow someone to fly through space, the world is well thought out and very original, and the story very enjoyable. Some of the dialogue was a little clunky but not overly annoying.