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Polaris Rising (Consortium Rebellion #1)
Book
A space princess on the run and a notorious outlaw soldier become unlikely allies in this...
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Forever Marked ( The Marked book 4) in Books
Nov 8, 2022
204 of 230
Kindle
Forever marked ( The Marked book 4)
By Rinna Ford
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶🌶
harmony and peace can be found when three destinies are one.
Emelia thought claiming her caster mate, Ronan, would bring her one step closer to the peaceful life she craves. She couldn't have been more wrong. Her mates are at each other's throats, and she hasn't been able to communicate with her father for weeks, not to mention that they are once again in hiding after the latest Council attack. No, her life is far from peaceful.
The prophecy states that Emelia will be the one to free them all; to bring harmony to the chaotic and divided supernatural community, but she knows she can't do it alone. She will need to trust her allies, old and new, as well as herself and her mates. But when the dust settles, will it be enough? Can she defeat the ruling Council and save the ones she loves?
The end of the prophecy is here, but is Emelia strong enough to be the savior she's meant to be?
This was a decent ending to what’s been a brilliant series. Xan for most of this book and others has drove me crazy so to see him finally get his act together was a sigh of relief. The only thing that kind of bugged me was the ending, it’s been so built up and long coming and it just seemed a little rushed. I think it deserved a bit more time than what it had. The Epilogue was just so cute though.
Kindle
Forever marked ( The Marked book 4)
By Rinna Ford
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶🌶
harmony and peace can be found when three destinies are one.
Emelia thought claiming her caster mate, Ronan, would bring her one step closer to the peaceful life she craves. She couldn't have been more wrong. Her mates are at each other's throats, and she hasn't been able to communicate with her father for weeks, not to mention that they are once again in hiding after the latest Council attack. No, her life is far from peaceful.
The prophecy states that Emelia will be the one to free them all; to bring harmony to the chaotic and divided supernatural community, but she knows she can't do it alone. She will need to trust her allies, old and new, as well as herself and her mates. But when the dust settles, will it be enough? Can she defeat the ruling Council and save the ones she loves?
The end of the prophecy is here, but is Emelia strong enough to be the savior she's meant to be?
This was a decent ending to what’s been a brilliant series. Xan for most of this book and others has drove me crazy so to see him finally get his act together was a sigh of relief. The only thing that kind of bugged me was the ending, it’s been so built up and long coming and it just seemed a little rushed. I think it deserved a bit more time than what it had. The Epilogue was just so cute though.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Abyss in Tabletop Games
Aug 5, 2021
I am not a great swimmer. For several years of my life I would avoid water at all costs. I have since grown to love it, but would still freak out a bit if a crab came towards me. I’m kind of a baby like that. I do so love underwater scenes and the wildlife, so I was bound to enjoy Abyss. Throw in some of the most amazing artwork in all of gaming and you have a hit, right?
Abyss is a push your luck, set collection, hand management, fantasy card drafting game for two to four players. In it players are attempting to gain the most Influence Points to rule the underwater kingdom by recruiting allies and Lords, and controlling locations. The game ends once a player recruits their seventh Lord or if the Lords cards run out before the Court can be refilled.
To setup, lay out the board, shuffle the Exploration cards (starfish backs) and place in the upper left corner. Shuffle the Lord cards (trident backs) and place the deck in the lower left corner. Reveal Lords to each of the spaces drawn to the right of the deck. This is the Court. Shuffle the Monster tokens and place in a messy pile near the board. Next to these place all the Key tokens. Display the Threat Tracker board with the Threat token on the first space. Shuffle the Location tiles into a stack and reveal the first one. Give each player a pearl in a shell cup and the game is ready to begin!
On a player’s turn they will follow the basic structure of Plotting at Court (by spending pearls to reveal more Lords), Taking One Action (by Exploring the Depths, Requesting Support from the Council, or Recruiting a Lord), and Controlling a Location.
Plotting at Court is simply paying pearls to reveal more Lords at Court.
The action choices begin with Exploring the Depths. This is the push your luck portion of the game where players will reveal cards from the top of the Exploration deck one by one, offer the card to their opponents for purchase (payable to the active player in pearls), and then deciding to continue or take into hand. These cards include members of five allied races of underwater species numbered in strength from one to five and monsters. Fighting monsters is an auto-win and the spoils are what is reflected on the Threat Tracker. If players decide to pass, they will move the Threat token down by one level and improve the treasure won when destroying a monster. Any allies that are undrafted will be sorted by family and placed on the appropriate space on the board.
To Request Support from the Council players will take the entire stack from one family on the board. Again, these are made up of the cards that were undrafted from previous Exploring the Depths actions.
Finally, Recruiting a Lord players will be spending their Exploration cards to combine strength values and family types to appease the Lords they wish to recruit. Players will analyze the strength needed on the bottom left of the Lord card along with the number and color of bubbles above the strength number to determine from which families cards will need to be paid. Lords will have special powers that can be used throughout the game until you use them to Control Locations.
Lords and monster tokens afford players keys, and once players accumulate three keys they MUST Control a Location. To Control a Location players will draft a face-up Location tile or draw one to four tiles and draft one of them. Also, players will sacrifice their Lords (and their special powers) to, well, lord over Locations as super powerful property managers. This is done by covering up the special Lord powers with the Location tiles.
Play continues in this fashion of quick turns until a player recruits their seventh Lord or if the Lords cards run out before the Court can be refilled during a Plot at Court action.
Components. As I mentioned in my open, Abyss boasts some of the most magnificent art ever to grace a board game. The aesthetic coupled with the theme makes for a gorgeous game on the table. The cardboard is all good quality and thick, the cards are good quality as well. The black plastic shells and pearls they hold are so nice to play with and I find myself rolling those pearls as fast as I can within the shells and inevitably spilling them everywhere.
The game play is also quite solid. I like drafting games quite a bit and this delivers a lot of drafting in different locations. You draft Exploration cards and Location tiles to beef up your mini empire. Using the Lords as special power cards but having to cover them up to help control a Location is a clever mechanic and helps with any sort of runaway leader issue. I did not touch on a couple rules because they can be a little confusing to new players (ie the affiliation of allies), but even new gamers can appreciate what Abyss does and how beautifully it accomplishes its task.
I cannot overstate how gorgeous this game is and how much I enjoy being able to pull it off the shelf and set it up to people who have never seen it. I mean, even just the box cover, which is a giant face and no text, is very impressive and helps set the tone for the dark but interesting experiences held within. Purple Phoenix Games gives Abyss a boding 14 / 18. Pick it up, post a picture of which box cover you received, and tag us in the post so we can compare.
Abyss is a push your luck, set collection, hand management, fantasy card drafting game for two to four players. In it players are attempting to gain the most Influence Points to rule the underwater kingdom by recruiting allies and Lords, and controlling locations. The game ends once a player recruits their seventh Lord or if the Lords cards run out before the Court can be refilled.
To setup, lay out the board, shuffle the Exploration cards (starfish backs) and place in the upper left corner. Shuffle the Lord cards (trident backs) and place the deck in the lower left corner. Reveal Lords to each of the spaces drawn to the right of the deck. This is the Court. Shuffle the Monster tokens and place in a messy pile near the board. Next to these place all the Key tokens. Display the Threat Tracker board with the Threat token on the first space. Shuffle the Location tiles into a stack and reveal the first one. Give each player a pearl in a shell cup and the game is ready to begin!
On a player’s turn they will follow the basic structure of Plotting at Court (by spending pearls to reveal more Lords), Taking One Action (by Exploring the Depths, Requesting Support from the Council, or Recruiting a Lord), and Controlling a Location.
Plotting at Court is simply paying pearls to reveal more Lords at Court.
The action choices begin with Exploring the Depths. This is the push your luck portion of the game where players will reveal cards from the top of the Exploration deck one by one, offer the card to their opponents for purchase (payable to the active player in pearls), and then deciding to continue or take into hand. These cards include members of five allied races of underwater species numbered in strength from one to five and monsters. Fighting monsters is an auto-win and the spoils are what is reflected on the Threat Tracker. If players decide to pass, they will move the Threat token down by one level and improve the treasure won when destroying a monster. Any allies that are undrafted will be sorted by family and placed on the appropriate space on the board.
To Request Support from the Council players will take the entire stack from one family on the board. Again, these are made up of the cards that were undrafted from previous Exploring the Depths actions.
Finally, Recruiting a Lord players will be spending their Exploration cards to combine strength values and family types to appease the Lords they wish to recruit. Players will analyze the strength needed on the bottom left of the Lord card along with the number and color of bubbles above the strength number to determine from which families cards will need to be paid. Lords will have special powers that can be used throughout the game until you use them to Control Locations.
Lords and monster tokens afford players keys, and once players accumulate three keys they MUST Control a Location. To Control a Location players will draft a face-up Location tile or draw one to four tiles and draft one of them. Also, players will sacrifice their Lords (and their special powers) to, well, lord over Locations as super powerful property managers. This is done by covering up the special Lord powers with the Location tiles.
Play continues in this fashion of quick turns until a player recruits their seventh Lord or if the Lords cards run out before the Court can be refilled during a Plot at Court action.
Components. As I mentioned in my open, Abyss boasts some of the most magnificent art ever to grace a board game. The aesthetic coupled with the theme makes for a gorgeous game on the table. The cardboard is all good quality and thick, the cards are good quality as well. The black plastic shells and pearls they hold are so nice to play with and I find myself rolling those pearls as fast as I can within the shells and inevitably spilling them everywhere.
The game play is also quite solid. I like drafting games quite a bit and this delivers a lot of drafting in different locations. You draft Exploration cards and Location tiles to beef up your mini empire. Using the Lords as special power cards but having to cover them up to help control a Location is a clever mechanic and helps with any sort of runaway leader issue. I did not touch on a couple rules because they can be a little confusing to new players (ie the affiliation of allies), but even new gamers can appreciate what Abyss does and how beautifully it accomplishes its task.
I cannot overstate how gorgeous this game is and how much I enjoy being able to pull it off the shelf and set it up to people who have never seen it. I mean, even just the box cover, which is a giant face and no text, is very impressive and helps set the tone for the dark but interesting experiences held within. Purple Phoenix Games gives Abyss a boding 14 / 18. Pick it up, post a picture of which box cover you received, and tag us in the post so we can compare.
The Collide
8.0
Rate It
Book
The much-anticipated final book in New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight’s Outliers...
series fiction ya social themes
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Entropy (Tessa Avery #3) in Books
Sep 3, 2021
142 of 250
Kindle
Entropy ( Tessa Avery book 3)
By Lucy Roy
Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments
Just how much pain can someone experience before they break? How much more loss can they suffer when there's no end in sight?
In the wake of unimaginable tragedy, chaos reigns. Not only have the stakes gone higher with Cronus and his allies attacking from all sides, but there's a new player in the game. Someone I trusted and cared about, someone I called a friend. Not only has he betrayed me, but he's also responsible for taking my best friend prisoner.
As we tirelessly search for answers, Earth has become a battleground. Each day, it seems the moment we get close to solving one problem, another crops up greater than the last, leading us to something not even the Olympians could see coming.
This was just absolutely brilliant! I even felt a tear run down my cheek at the memorial! This trilogy has been such a pleasure to read with amazing characters! I love the idea behind it and love reading what people to with the legendary Greek gods and titans! Would thoroughly recommend!
Kindle
Entropy ( Tessa Avery book 3)
By Lucy Roy
Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments
Just how much pain can someone experience before they break? How much more loss can they suffer when there's no end in sight?
In the wake of unimaginable tragedy, chaos reigns. Not only have the stakes gone higher with Cronus and his allies attacking from all sides, but there's a new player in the game. Someone I trusted and cared about, someone I called a friend. Not only has he betrayed me, but he's also responsible for taking my best friend prisoner.
As we tirelessly search for answers, Earth has become a battleground. Each day, it seems the moment we get close to solving one problem, another crops up greater than the last, leading us to something not even the Olympians could see coming.
This was just absolutely brilliant! I even felt a tear run down my cheek at the memorial! This trilogy has been such a pleasure to read with amazing characters! I love the idea behind it and love reading what people to with the legendary Greek gods and titans! Would thoroughly recommend!
Cosmic Encounter
6.0
Rate It
Tabletop Game
Build a galactic empire... In the depths of space, the alien races of the Cosmos vie with each other...
Boardgames GroupGames SpaceBattlegames
Last Day on Earth: Survival
Games
8.5
Rate It
App
Last Day on Earth is a zombie survival game, where all survivors are driven by one goal: stay alive...
Zombies
RD
Red Devils Over the Yalu: A Chronicle of Soviet Aerial Operations in the Korean War 1950-53
Stuart Britton and Igor Seidov
Book
The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first - and only - full-scale air war in the jet age. It was in...
FLAME VERSUS BLAZE
Games
App Watch
Square Enix’s fast-paced 3-on-3 action MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), “FLAME vs...
games
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Resilience ( Rise of Iliri book 6) in Books
Jan 5, 2023
Contains spoilers, click to show
4 of 235
Kindle
Resilience ( Rise of Iliri book 6)
By Auryn Hadley
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Auryn Hadley's sixth action-adventure in The Rise of the Iliri fantasy series asks how far mankind will go to protect their pride. Because it seems they'll guard it at the expense of all else. Reminiscent of a futuristic Lord of the Rings, this epic fantasy romance traces not only the personal journey of its heroine and her family - a reverse harem made up of nine indomitable warriors who comprise an elite military force called the Black Blades - but also the liberation of a people and a new way of thinking for the whole world. For the source of iliri power is not domination, but connection. They seek it, cultivate it, and use it to defeat their enemies.
It's the iliri - now a rising, formidable race of underdogs - who must decide whether to risk their lives for the ungracious human race. Unbeknownst to humans, their fate lies in the capable hands of the iliri leader, the powerful Salryc Luxx. And she's no longer willing to be yanked around at any price.
Sal and the Black Blades have been summoned to a meeting with Parliament representatives of the Conglomerate of Free Citizens. But this time, she's not serving as their slave. Nor is she about to be captured and brought to trial again. Now the ruler of all iliri in her adopted country of Anglia - and de facto queen - she knows she has the upper hand.
The enemy Terrans have besieged Eastward, engaging in brutal guerrilla tactics throughout the country - hitting without mercy and killing all in their path. The world of humans is desperate.
"Tell me why I should send my brothers and sisters to die for humans that care so little for us?" Sal asks. The answer she's searching for comes from a frail iliri servant, whose telltale snow-colored skin is almost as light as Sal's: If she leaves the humans to die by the Terrans, war and enslavement will continue. History will repeat itself. But if it's the iliri and their allies who manage to defeat evil, perhaps humans can learn to respect them.
She knows she isn't finished fighting. Iliri warriors haven't yet "done enough." Not while so many of their brothers are still enslaved.
Alongside her faithful friends and leaders--and the tireless Black Blades - Sal must choose whether to surrender to her role as their leader and contend with The Emperor's murderous army - as well as the treacherous pride of the human race.
!!! Has a spoiler for book 5!!!
Every time I pick one of these books up I say it’s the best one yet and yes I’m saying it again! After the tears at the end of Book 5 we catch up with Sal and the blades dealing with the aftermath of losing Blaec and finding her feet with her new role and new male. This is non stop from the first word to the last. Brilliantly written it has to be one of my favourite series. Highly recommended for the fantasy readers!
Kindle
Resilience ( Rise of Iliri book 6)
By Auryn Hadley
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Auryn Hadley's sixth action-adventure in The Rise of the Iliri fantasy series asks how far mankind will go to protect their pride. Because it seems they'll guard it at the expense of all else. Reminiscent of a futuristic Lord of the Rings, this epic fantasy romance traces not only the personal journey of its heroine and her family - a reverse harem made up of nine indomitable warriors who comprise an elite military force called the Black Blades - but also the liberation of a people and a new way of thinking for the whole world. For the source of iliri power is not domination, but connection. They seek it, cultivate it, and use it to defeat their enemies.
It's the iliri - now a rising, formidable race of underdogs - who must decide whether to risk their lives for the ungracious human race. Unbeknownst to humans, their fate lies in the capable hands of the iliri leader, the powerful Salryc Luxx. And she's no longer willing to be yanked around at any price.
Sal and the Black Blades have been summoned to a meeting with Parliament representatives of the Conglomerate of Free Citizens. But this time, she's not serving as their slave. Nor is she about to be captured and brought to trial again. Now the ruler of all iliri in her adopted country of Anglia - and de facto queen - she knows she has the upper hand.
The enemy Terrans have besieged Eastward, engaging in brutal guerrilla tactics throughout the country - hitting without mercy and killing all in their path. The world of humans is desperate.
"Tell me why I should send my brothers and sisters to die for humans that care so little for us?" Sal asks. The answer she's searching for comes from a frail iliri servant, whose telltale snow-colored skin is almost as light as Sal's: If she leaves the humans to die by the Terrans, war and enslavement will continue. History will repeat itself. But if it's the iliri and their allies who manage to defeat evil, perhaps humans can learn to respect them.
She knows she isn't finished fighting. Iliri warriors haven't yet "done enough." Not while so many of their brothers are still enslaved.
Alongside her faithful friends and leaders--and the tireless Black Blades - Sal must choose whether to surrender to her role as their leader and contend with The Emperor's murderous army - as well as the treacherous pride of the human race.
!!! Has a spoiler for book 5!!!
Every time I pick one of these books up I say it’s the best one yet and yes I’m saying it again! After the tears at the end of Book 5 we catch up with Sal and the blades dealing with the aftermath of losing Blaec and finding her feet with her new role and new male. This is non stop from the first word to the last. Brilliantly written it has to be one of my favourite series. Highly recommended for the fantasy readers!