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ClareR (5836 KP) rated The Illusions in Books

Aug 21, 2023  
The Illusions
The Illusions
Liz Hyder | 2023 | Fiction & Poetry
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Illusions was completely and utterly riveting - I couldn’t put it down!
It’s the late 1890’s and The Greatest Magician is ready to hand over his mantle (wand?) to George Perris. George meets Eadie Carlton, a photographer and pioneering film-maker, and decides that he wants to try and incorporate her work into his show.

Cecily Marsden finds herself alone again when her con artist master dies suddenly, and she gets a job in the house of his nephew. But the nephew has some secrets of his own. Luckily, Cec meets a kind gentleman who only wants to help her and take her away from her employer.

Cec, George and Eadie soon find themselves working together on the greatest magic show, and Cec has to try and save the performance from sabotage.

I loved this: there’s stage magic, a bit of ‘real’ magic and the excitement of the modern age and film. It’s exciting (will the show go on?), romantic (will they EVER get together?) and frankly magical (of course!).

I’m so glad I read this, it really did start my summer holidays on a high!
  
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The Only Story
The Only Story
Julian Barnes | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry
10
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
A beautifully sad love story
"Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only really question."
This is a book to be savoured and to have time taken over it. It just seems so personal and private, and frankly, I felt nosey reading it. It illustrates a 19 year old boys great love - a 48 year old woman who he meets at a tennis club during his holidays from University. This love endures through disapproval of both families and many hardships before the end.
It was interesting that the book moved through the use of first person when the love was new and exciting, second person when the relationship began to encounter problems and third person at the end when he is more detached from his lover, Joan. Watching the slide of someone in to addiction and eventually, dementia, was a particularly sad part of the novel, with his personal guilt and inaction increasing the melancholy and sadness of the whole situation. At the end of this book, I finished the last page and found myself sitting and thinking about it for a while. It really is a very affecting book.
  
The Hunting Party
The Hunting Party
Lucy Foley | 2019 | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
9
7.3 (16 Ratings)
Book Rating
I. Absolutely. Loved. This. Book.
I thoroughly appreciate a book that keeps me guessing at who both the victim and the murderer are right up to the end! And to be honest, it couldn’t have happened more deservingly to a group of such thoroughly unlikeable people. They’re all entitled, self absorbed, spoilt, oversized children. Can you tell I don’t like them? I’ve come to realise that really horrible characters are my crack. The more deviant they are, the more I enjoy the book. This delivered in spades. I LOVED to hate them. The staff at the remote Scottish lodge that they spent New Years at, had my complete sympathy.

Everyone in this novel has a secret, and some of them are huge. They were all so cleverly revealed, and the suspense was immense! This is one of my top books of 2019(the list is hovering around the 20 mark) - it just snuck in as I read it over Christmas!

Oh, and I’m not saying that this book was necessarily responsible, but we’re going to stay in a (much smaller) lodge in Scotland for our summer holidays. Just no snow and/ or murders please!

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and Lucy Foley for reading along!
  
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Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated The Lodge (2019) in Movies

May 1, 2020 (Updated May 1, 2020)  
The Lodge (2019)
The Lodge (2019)
2019 | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Didn't see it in theaters (2 more)
Boring
Didnt get excited until half of the movie. Actually 2/3rds.
Winter Wonderland
The Lodge- is a good psychologocal thriller. The only downfall is that, its very very slow. Not until the half way point, things start to pick up, then the third act, things really start to pick up. But by then your already bored, falling alseep or cant wait till the movie ends. Its a slow burning movie, and for a 2 hour movie, when half of the movie is boring or when 2/3rds of is slow and the last half is good, well you probley be alseep or bored. Either way this movie is boring for 50%-70% of the movie. The rest is good. I love the psycholoical espect and the twist and turns are really good.

The plot: During a family retreat to a remote winter cabin over the holidays, the father is forced to abruptly depart for work, leaving his two children in the care of his new girlfriend, Grace. Isolated and alone, a blizzard traps them inside the lodge as terrifying events summon specters from Grace's dark past.

Its a really good psychological thriller with great twist and turns, just its boring for most of the movie.
  
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