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Gaz Coombes recommended Life by Inspiral Carpets in Music (curated)
Merissa (12911 KP) rated Petrus (Fueled By Lust #12) in Books
Oct 30, 2019
Petrus is the twelfth book in the Fueled by Lust series, and I would certainly recommend you read them in order. Not only will that give you a better understanding of the overall story arc, but you will get to meet the characters in greater detail, helping you to know them more.
Petrus was one of the unfortunate Insedi who had a faulty necklace. This meant that when he kissed Ireland for the first time, nothing happened, much to his distress. Ireland, of course, knows nothing about the Insedi or necklaces, so she wondered what the hell was going on. To try and protect her, Petrus was cruel to be kind, which then backfired when he found out about the faulty necklaces. So now he has to try and coax her back to him.
I love this series, I really do. I have loved each and every one of the Insedi warriors, and this book is no different in that regard. What I didn't love as much were the other men in this. I can sort of understand Ludo, especially once you learn of the near-miss between him and Ireland, although I much preferred Makar and Baruch because they were already a 'couple' (so to speak). It was Damon who didn't do it for me though. I loved how it was written with a human being included into a triad but I would have loved more from him during the book. He was there at the beginning, bam, I love you's to Ireland, but then he disappears until near the end. One evening (or so it seemed) and he's into the triad, now quadrat! And then throw in the BDSM elements that Petrus and Ludo are happy for him to take the lead on... I don't know. It just didn't feel right to me, and I pains me to write that!
There were no errors in this book that disrupted my reading, and I found myself to be just as lost within the Insedi world as ever. It just didn't move in the same way as the previous books have. And Cato is still hands-down my favourite!!!
Would I recommend this book? Absolutely! Because it is part of an amazing world full of interesting and intriguing characters. It isn't just the warriors who will delight you, but their partners too. Trust me, the women are just as badass in their own ways, and Makenna and Ireland's quips and witticisms to each other were fantastic to read. So yes, I recommend it. Just start from the beginning and you will love the Insedi just as much as I do!
* 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!
Petrus was one of the unfortunate Insedi who had a faulty necklace. This meant that when he kissed Ireland for the first time, nothing happened, much to his distress. Ireland, of course, knows nothing about the Insedi or necklaces, so she wondered what the hell was going on. To try and protect her, Petrus was cruel to be kind, which then backfired when he found out about the faulty necklaces. So now he has to try and coax her back to him.
I love this series, I really do. I have loved each and every one of the Insedi warriors, and this book is no different in that regard. What I didn't love as much were the other men in this. I can sort of understand Ludo, especially once you learn of the near-miss between him and Ireland, although I much preferred Makar and Baruch because they were already a 'couple' (so to speak). It was Damon who didn't do it for me though. I loved how it was written with a human being included into a triad but I would have loved more from him during the book. He was there at the beginning, bam, I love you's to Ireland, but then he disappears until near the end. One evening (or so it seemed) and he's into the triad, now quadrat! And then throw in the BDSM elements that Petrus and Ludo are happy for him to take the lead on... I don't know. It just didn't feel right to me, and I pains me to write that!
There were no errors in this book that disrupted my reading, and I found myself to be just as lost within the Insedi world as ever. It just didn't move in the same way as the previous books have. And Cato is still hands-down my favourite!!!
Would I recommend this book? Absolutely! Because it is part of an amazing world full of interesting and intriguing characters. It isn't just the warriors who will delight you, but their partners too. Trust me, the women are just as badass in their own ways, and Makenna and Ireland's quips and witticisms to each other were fantastic to read. So yes, I recommend it. Just start from the beginning and you will love the Insedi just as much as I do!
* 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!
Micky Barnard (542 KP) rated The Book of Life in Books
Mar 2, 2019
The best of the trilogy
Wow, this was literally absorbing from start to finish and it is my favourite of the trilogy; it is not often that the final book achieves the highest rating. This truly is a story and a bunch of characters that have built and built.
So much change came to Diana and Matthew's lives in this book, more than in book two in the past. I found the plot to be fantastically planned, intricate and well-researched. There were details for days but not so that I got lost.
Family was more central to THE BOOK OF LIFE than any other book and it was the side characters that enriched the read so fully. I have the biggest soft spot for Gallowglass and I want a book just about him. What was subtly fascinating was the meeting of the human and creature world in this book the crossing of threads, meeting of similarities and shared-being.
The narration was excellent, Ikeda can even sing beautifully in French and German as part of the story. Again, sadness that she doesn't narrate any more.
If you are like me and you found book two a bit of a hard trudge, please don't let that put you off the final instalment, it was the best of the three.
So much change came to Diana and Matthew's lives in this book, more than in book two in the past. I found the plot to be fantastically planned, intricate and well-researched. There were details for days but not so that I got lost.
Family was more central to THE BOOK OF LIFE than any other book and it was the side characters that enriched the read so fully. I have the biggest soft spot for Gallowglass and I want a book just about him. What was subtly fascinating was the meeting of the human and creature world in this book the crossing of threads, meeting of similarities and shared-being.
The narration was excellent, Ikeda can even sing beautifully in French and German as part of the story. Again, sadness that she doesn't narrate any more.
If you are like me and you found book two a bit of a hard trudge, please don't let that put you off the final instalment, it was the best of the three.
Billie Wichkan (118 KP) rated The Housewife in Books
Mar 15, 2019
Book Insight: Diane is a wife and doting mother that has been through a lot, and after a recent breakdown her memory seems to have blocked quite a bit out. So much so that it starts interfering with her day to day life. She starts forgetting simple tasks and finds sleep doesn't come easily anymore. Is something dark going on right under her nose? Or is she losing her mind and headed for another breakdown?
WOW!!!! An EXCELLENT story with a great plot and well developed characters!
I found this to be an absolute gem of a novel. The plot gives a slow-building, creeping sense that something isn't quite right.
The author has taken a situation, a day in the life of a housewife and turned it inside-out and upside-down. I found myself reminded of the old 1944 Ingrid Bergman film Gaslight. The difference in the two though is the constant twists and turns of the plot with the characters. You think you have it all figured out but you really don't.
I honestly did not know which way things were going to swing for Diane until the very end and the ending was just a real cliffhanger for me.
I will definitely be following this author as her books are just amazing!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this wonderful ARC.
WOW!!!! An EXCELLENT story with a great plot and well developed characters!
I found this to be an absolute gem of a novel. The plot gives a slow-building, creeping sense that something isn't quite right.
The author has taken a situation, a day in the life of a housewife and turned it inside-out and upside-down. I found myself reminded of the old 1944 Ingrid Bergman film Gaslight. The difference in the two though is the constant twists and turns of the plot with the characters. You think you have it all figured out but you really don't.
I honestly did not know which way things were going to swing for Diane until the very end and the ending was just a real cliffhanger for me.
I will definitely be following this author as her books are just amazing!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this wonderful ARC.
Merissa (12911 KP) rated Immersion Play (Leather and Lattes #1) in Books
May 30, 2024
IMMERSION PLAY is the first book in the Leather and Lattes series, a spin-off from Dungeons and Dating, but you don't need to have read those to enjoy this one.
Micah, vanilla as they come, broke off his so-called relationship and disappeared to San Francisco in the middle of the night. Parker is the Daddy Dom who is determined to never fall in love, due to the heartbreak that follows when one of them inevitably dies. The connection between these two is electric from the beginning, as Parker realises he may have found the boy perfect for him, and Micah realises he isn't as vanilla as he always thought.
Not only do you get a great story between Micah and Parker, but you also get a Found Family, with snippets of their backstories. It looks like this series is going to be another winner for this author, and I can't wait to read them!
Full of connections, love, s3x, and steam aplenty, this was a great read that I thoroughly enjoyed and definitely recommend.
** 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!
May 23, 2024
Micah, vanilla as they come, broke off his so-called relationship and disappeared to San Francisco in the middle of the night. Parker is the Daddy Dom who is determined to never fall in love, due to the heartbreak that follows when one of them inevitably dies. The connection between these two is electric from the beginning, as Parker realises he may have found the boy perfect for him, and Micah realises he isn't as vanilla as he always thought.
Not only do you get a great story between Micah and Parker, but you also get a Found Family, with snippets of their backstories. It looks like this series is going to be another winner for this author, and I can't wait to read them!
Full of connections, love, s3x, and steam aplenty, this was a great read that I thoroughly enjoyed and definitely recommend.
** 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!
May 23, 2024
Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Normal People in Books
Mar 19, 2020
Marianne and Connell form a relationship in school, starting to talk to one another when Connell comes to pick up his mother at her job cleaning for Marianne's family. But at school itself, they pretend not to know each other, fiercely aware of where they stand in the social structure: Connell is a popular soccer star, while Marianne is smart but a social outcast. Things change a year later, when they are both studying at Trinity College. Marianne has found her social circle and is popular among her group of friends. Connell is known as smart, but feels awkward. The two's relationship ebbs and flows--at times, they are deeply in love; at other moments, they date other people and rarely speak.
I'm not exactly sure what to say about this one. I listened to this book over a couple of months as I traveled off and on for work. It felt very slow, and while I know part of it was the stops and starts when I was traveling, but some of it was the book itself. I can definitely recognize the brilliance others found in this novel. Rooney is a wonderful writer, and there were passages that I wish I could capture and save to savor later. At other moments, I wanted to hurry things along quite badly... she turned the water on in the shower, the water came out, the water fell to the floor, etc. Things are described in great detail, and often, I found myself frustrated at that.
This not a plot-driven novel, but a character-driven one. Told from the alternating perspectives of Marianne and Connell over time, it examines various points in their life. At times, they may even go back in time in their various point-of-view segment, forcing you to keep up with exactly what is happening and when. There is much explaining and much examining. A lot of talk of feelings and such. It's a very complex novel. I definitely did grow to be interested in Marianne and Connell, but it did take some time.
As I said, I can see why this book earned such rave reviews, but it wasn't entirely for me. I was frustrated that Marianne and Connell couldn't just talk to each other. The ending of the book left me annoyed--all this for that--and I often wanted things to happen more quickly than they did. Still, I appreciated Rooney's lovely writing. If you want a complicated look at how one relationship can affect two so-called normal people over time, this one is definitely for you. 3 stars.
I'm not exactly sure what to say about this one. I listened to this book over a couple of months as I traveled off and on for work. It felt very slow, and while I know part of it was the stops and starts when I was traveling, but some of it was the book itself. I can definitely recognize the brilliance others found in this novel. Rooney is a wonderful writer, and there were passages that I wish I could capture and save to savor later. At other moments, I wanted to hurry things along quite badly... she turned the water on in the shower, the water came out, the water fell to the floor, etc. Things are described in great detail, and often, I found myself frustrated at that.
This not a plot-driven novel, but a character-driven one. Told from the alternating perspectives of Marianne and Connell over time, it examines various points in their life. At times, they may even go back in time in their various point-of-view segment, forcing you to keep up with exactly what is happening and when. There is much explaining and much examining. A lot of talk of feelings and such. It's a very complex novel. I definitely did grow to be interested in Marianne and Connell, but it did take some time.
As I said, I can see why this book earned such rave reviews, but it wasn't entirely for me. I was frustrated that Marianne and Connell couldn't just talk to each other. The ending of the book left me annoyed--all this for that--and I often wanted things to happen more quickly than they did. Still, I appreciated Rooney's lovely writing. If you want a complicated look at how one relationship can affect two so-called normal people over time, this one is definitely for you. 3 stars.
Deborah (162 KP) rated The Madwoman Upstairs in Books
Dec 21, 2018
I thought this sounded a really interesting idea, modern day woman, descended from the Bronte family uncovers secrets from the history of her family. While I didn't dislike it, I didn't really love it either. For about the first half of the book I found it a bit of a struggle as I found the protagonist, Samantha Whipple, rather hard to like. I'm not even sure I liked her that much by the end of the book to be honest.
Samantha has had rather an odd upbringing, which would account for some of her strangeness. We see her early on arriving at a fictional Oxford college to study English Literature although she seems to hate practically all writers and seems incapable of constructing a reasonable critical argument! She is rather like a spoilt child, and as such I found her hard to like. I'm also pretty good at suspending my disbelief but it takes some stretch of the imagination to accept that someone like Samantha would have been able to gain a place on an English Literature course at an Oxford college! Or that she would be housed on the fifth floor of a tower with no windows in her room and apparently there is only a bathroom on the ground floor. Must have been a bit of an issue when she sprained her ankle, but this is glossed over.
Samantha's tutor is a young, handsome (naturally!) Englishman with the unlikely name of Dr James Timothy Orville III. For most of the book he is referred to simply as 'Orville'. If you are of my generation you might understand why this seemed a bit off-putting and why I've had 'I Wish I Could Fly....' in my head for the past few days!
In conclusion, it wasn't a bad book, the writing was OK (a few Americanisms slipping into the mouths of supposedly British characters....) but it just didn't work for me - there were too many things that were rather improbable and the protagonist was, at times, idiotic.
Samantha has had rather an odd upbringing, which would account for some of her strangeness. We see her early on arriving at a fictional Oxford college to study English Literature although she seems to hate practically all writers and seems incapable of constructing a reasonable critical argument! She is rather like a spoilt child, and as such I found her hard to like. I'm also pretty good at suspending my disbelief but it takes some stretch of the imagination to accept that someone like Samantha would have been able to gain a place on an English Literature course at an Oxford college! Or that she would be housed on the fifth floor of a tower with no windows in her room and apparently there is only a bathroom on the ground floor. Must have been a bit of an issue when she sprained her ankle, but this is glossed over.
Samantha's tutor is a young, handsome (naturally!) Englishman with the unlikely name of Dr James Timothy Orville III. For most of the book he is referred to simply as 'Orville'. If you are of my generation you might understand why this seemed a bit off-putting and why I've had 'I Wish I Could Fly....' in my head for the past few days!
In conclusion, it wasn't a bad book, the writing was OK (a few Americanisms slipping into the mouths of supposedly British characters....) but it just didn't work for me - there were too many things that were rather improbable and the protagonist was, at times, idiotic.
ClareR (5879 KP) rated The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion in Books
Jun 22, 2021
The Devil You Know is a series of case studies of some of the patients that Dr Gwen Adshead has worked with in her role as a forensic psychiatrist. I don’t know quite what I expected from this: perhaps a dry, academic-type book. It was nothing at all like that. It’s a book full of compassion for the terrible mistakes, acts and choices that these people have made. And this is what’s made clear in this book: we (or rather, I) have always been led to believe that people who murder, stalk or destroy others lives are sub-human, have no empathy, no guilt or reasons for their actions. But there are those who have made terrible, unforgivable, life-changing decisions and must now live with those choices. Some are wracked with guilt, others aren’t.
It’s really interesting to read about this diverse group of people - they were in Broadmoor, secure prisons or units, and some had been released back into society and were experiencing the world again after serving their sentences.
If you’ve always wondered what motivates people to commit violent crimes, then this is, in part, the book for you. I found it quite reassuring to know that there are people like Dr Adshead out there who listen to perpetrators of crime, who want to learn what it is that causes them to make that fatal decision. I found the part about early childhood neglect and abuse and its impact on brain development particularly interesting (I work in Early Years), and the fact that it is potentially within society’s power to prevent crime before it has even been thought about was sobering.
I could go on, but I won’t. Just to say that I found this whole book fascinating - it’s such a well-written, accessible and interesting read.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and to Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne for reading along with the Pigeons!
It’s really interesting to read about this diverse group of people - they were in Broadmoor, secure prisons or units, and some had been released back into society and were experiencing the world again after serving their sentences.
If you’ve always wondered what motivates people to commit violent crimes, then this is, in part, the book for you. I found it quite reassuring to know that there are people like Dr Adshead out there who listen to perpetrators of crime, who want to learn what it is that causes them to make that fatal decision. I found the part about early childhood neglect and abuse and its impact on brain development particularly interesting (I work in Early Years), and the fact that it is potentially within society’s power to prevent crime before it has even been thought about was sobering.
I could go on, but I won’t. Just to say that I found this whole book fascinating - it’s such a well-written, accessible and interesting read.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and to Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne for reading along with the Pigeons!
Christine A. (965 KP) rated The Art of Spiral Drawing: Learn to create spiral art and geometric drawings using pencil, pen, and more in Books
May 25, 2020 (Updated May 26, 2020)
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.
Many people love to doodle. If you look at any of my lists or scrap paper, you'll know I do.
When I found The Art of Spiral Drawing: Learn to create spiral art and geometric drawings using pencil, pen, and more by Jonathan Stephen Harris I just had to try it especially when I read it "offers a modern take on the Spirogragh". As a kid, I spent hours playing with Spirograph.
The Art of Spiral Drawing is written so a beginner could follow the directions but without insulting more advanced drawers. I learned right away I can not draw a straight line. My lines are not anywhere close to being straight. That being said, I had a lot of fun drawing the art and added the art to my doodle repertoire.
I used a ruler to help with my lines. This helped immensely. However, I do not recommend using one at work. Many people will notice it and stop to ask what you are doing. Leave the ruler at home.
Harris also wrote The Art of Drawing Optical Illusions which appears to be similar to The Art of Spiral Drawing and was added to my "want to read" list.
Many people love to doodle. If you look at any of my lists or scrap paper, you'll know I do.
When I found The Art of Spiral Drawing: Learn to create spiral art and geometric drawings using pencil, pen, and more by Jonathan Stephen Harris I just had to try it especially when I read it "offers a modern take on the Spirogragh". As a kid, I spent hours playing with Spirograph.
The Art of Spiral Drawing is written so a beginner could follow the directions but without insulting more advanced drawers. I learned right away I can not draw a straight line. My lines are not anywhere close to being straight. That being said, I had a lot of fun drawing the art and added the art to my doodle repertoire.
I used a ruler to help with my lines. This helped immensely. However, I do not recommend using one at work. Many people will notice it and stop to ask what you are doing. Leave the ruler at home.
Harris also wrote The Art of Drawing Optical Illusions which appears to be similar to The Art of Spiral Drawing and was added to my "want to read" list.
