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The Last Thing To Burn
The Last Thing To Burn
Will Dean | 2021 | Crime, Thriller
9
9.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Wow ... that was one heck of a powerful read and one where the characters will stay with me for some time.

Jane - named so by her "husband" Lennie - was trafficked from her native Vietnam with her younger sister, she is kept captive on an isolated farm in what can only be described as squalid and run down conditions. She is watched every minute of every day, she is not allowed to speak to anyone, she is not allowed to go anywhere - her day is regimented from start to finish and for each perceived transgression, the treasured possessions she has are slowly burned in front of her eyes.

This is a harrowing story of a desperate life of servitude and abuse; the scary thing is that it is happening to thousands of men, women and children the world over which makes it even more upsetting. However, it is also a story of hope and the desperate will and strength to survive and fight back when things appear to be hopeless.

The whole book is written from "Jane's" perspective and she is an enthralling narrator. The setting is just perfect and described scarily accurately - my job takes me into isolated farmhouses that are pretty bleak and dilapidated and this made the story even more real for me.

This is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination but despite that, I found it very hard to put down. I was drawn into the story hook, line and sinker; it grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go until the very last page ... it lingers still in the back of my mind and there are very few books that do this.

Highly recommended.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for my advance copy in return for an unbiased and unedited review.
  
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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2310 KP) rated Bones to Pick in Books

Apr 18, 2021 (Updated Apr 18, 2021)  
Bones to Pick
Bones to Pick
Linda Lovely | 2017 | Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I’m Glad I Picked This Debut
Vegan chef Brie Hooker hadn’t planned to start working on her aunt Eva’s goat farm and dairy, but when Eva needs help, Brie is happy to step in. That’s before a pot-bellied pig turns up bones – human bones. The skeleton turns out to be Eva’s husband, who disappeared four decades ago. There was no love lost between Eva and her husband, but Eva didn’t kill him. However, he has too many relatives in the area who are willing to blame Eva, so Brie starts investigating, hoping to clear her aunt. When another dead body turns up, Brie finds herself in trouble with the law as well. Are the two dead bodies related? Can she figure out what happened?
 
The characters drew me into this book right away; they are fully developed and fun. Their teasing and Brie’s creative meat and cheese curses added a level of humor that I enjoyed. The book was hard to put down with plenty of events to keep me engaged. Unfortunately, I did feel that the events took the place of the investigation moving forward, which frustrated me. However, the climax resolved things and upped the stakes in a major way. This book is a bit edgy for my normal reads, on the border between PG and PG-13, thanks in part of the teasing Brie gets about her love life. Yes, this book does introduce a love triangle. While I am getting tired of them, I do like both of the guys here, so I hope it doesn’t get dragged out for very long. Overall, I enjoyed this book. If you enjoy humor in your mysteries, you’ll be glad you picked up this book.
  
Funky Kingston/In the Dark by Toots & The Maytals
Funky Kingston/In the Dark by Toots & The Maytals
2003 | World
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I remember the exact moment I learned to play this song. It was at my great aunt’s house in Dunstable, Massachusetts. She lived in this old house on a farm and there was this old mouldy, mildewy, acoustic guitar there. “There wasn’t much else to do and I learned to play “Wild Thing” on the guitar. My cousin showed me how to play it and I was hooked, I could sing and play it at the same time and it was like ‘This is amazing.’ I rode a 300cc motorcycle around the backyard and played that guitar. “But the one that really changed the game for me was “Louie Louie”, which was E, A, B Minor. It’s got this sinister, evil vibe to it but it’s very subtle, and the artist in me responded to the drama of the B Minor. Also, it was the fact that the lyrics are incoherent. Apparently, nobody really knows the true lyrics to that song and with “Louie Louie” you can mumble the words, so that was great. “I’m always thinking back to the moment where I realised that was what I wanted to do, ‘When was it and what happened?’ I think it was much later, when I had a cassette deck that had this mic mix feature, where you could plug a microphone in and overdub onto your song. When I started screwing with that, that’s when I think I got the bug. I became obsessed with it and it felt like there was endless potential there. “Louie Louie” is a very historical song, so I chose that as my first. I like to think it’s the first song I really liked to play, because “Wild Thing” was too easy maybe. ‘Mythical’ is a great word for “Louie Louie”, it’s got that folklore to it"

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Nick McCabe recommended Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division in Music (curated)

 
Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division
Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division
1979 | Rock
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"My eldest brother had Closer. I was listening to that from about ten-years-old onwards. Once I started to save money – working on a farm with my other brother, doing the milk round with him – that was the first time I had my own cash floating around and that money used to go on records. Unknown Pleasures was one of my first purchases. That was a key moment for me. It was my record. It hadn't been passed down. It was a completely new record in the household. That was me getting that experience first-hand, and it was such a brilliant record to have that with. The sleeve is another Peter Saville classic. The production on it is incredible. I know the band weren't happy with it, but to me it's a complete masterpiece. The use of space is evocative of Lancashire I think. The whole thing has this dank… I'm going to wheel out all the clichés now about empty warehouses and all that, but it is familiar territory for me where I'm from. Those smashed glasses at the end of 'I Remember Nothing', and the synth drones. I think that was around the time I got my first Roland synthesiser and it was another polarising moment. Something very powerful crystallised about what I wanted to do at that point. All I was capable of doing with that synth was making this huge powerful drone sound. It pointed the way. Having that induction – sat with the headphones on late at night... Music in the seventies was full of opposites. The stuff we heard on the radio was the friendly aspects of music. I wasn't looking for that. I was looking to be disturbed by it and that's something that I haven't really lost throughout my life."

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