Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-handed
Book
Les Powles only had 8 hours of sailing experience when he decided to sail solo around the world....
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Alpha Contender Boxed Set in Books
May 20, 2020
Kindle
Alpha contenders boxed set 1-4
By Terry Bolryder
Misty has few expectations from life. Work, read, sleep. But when she hears from a complete stranger that she's actually a powerful, shape-shifting werewolf, her life changes forever.
Lindon believes he already had his shot at love long ago. And lost it. The tall, blond, sexy shifter is now only trying to keep his promise to his father by protecting Misty as she learns about her new place in the world and seeks to find a future mate.
The only problem: she'll be meeting all of her prospective suitors at one time, and in one place. All TEN of them. All hot, single, alpha males competing for her heart.
Author's note! Alpha Contender was originally released as a four-part serial about one BBW finding out she’s a shifter and trying to choose from the ten hot alpha males trying to win her. All parts are bound here together for the first time in a full set at a special price as a thank you to my fans.
I wasn’t expecting much from this box set to be honest but I actually really enjoyed it! I felt Misty was a bit to gullible at annoying at first but I soon warmed up to her. The books were split up but it would have been better together either way still an enjoyable read!
Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth
Book
One hundred years on...On 18 July 1917, a heavy artillery barrage was unleashed by the Allied forces...
Amends (Diana Hawthorne Supernatural Mystery #2)
Book
For as psychic as she is, shit goes sideways far too often around Diana Hawthorne. Diana now has...
Adult Mystery Urban Fantasy
Kayleigh (12 KP) rated Dead Letter Office in Books
Jan 2, 2019
This is the first 'Active Fiction' e-book I've read. It gives the reader an option of the direction they want the plot to take. The last time I read a book (let alone an e-book!) in any way similar to that was when I was about 10, reading an Enid Blyton <i>Famous Five</i> 'red herring' book. I was therefore really intrigued as to what to expect. Would there be red herrings? Would it make the book worse? Well, no and no, as it turns out. I'll get to that in a bit.
This is a brilliantly written story that centres around Celia, who has just lost her father and moved to New Orleans with her mum so she can get to know her father's side of the family. Celia soon has 3 friends (2 of which are potential love interests) and bounces well off the other characters. Snyder has included the obligatory 'popular crowd', but added unusual details to a few of the group's members that makes it interesting, and slightly more dangerous than your average 'death-by-gossip' group.
Starting from the beginning, this was one of those books I knew would capture my interest as soon as I read the first line:
<blockquote>"The dead man smiles at me."</blockquote>
The rest of this page draws me in further, and I went from there. An odd thing I liked (and noticed fairly early on) is that Celia doesn't ruin the first person narrative she's got going on by telling us what she looks like. It's good enough for me to know she's pretty enough to have a surfer dude boyfriend before she moves away, haha!
Coming back to the reader choices, I was a little startled when the first one came up, but that's just me not being used to it! I liked the sense of power I got from helping Celia make the 'right' choice. They were also placed really well within the story, at pivotal plot moments, so there wasn't too much or too little of them. There was only one (right at the end) that I thought was pointless, although having re-read the description on Goodreads, I now know that it's a vote the author wanted so as to establish reader preference on Celia's love interests. Lucky Cee!
I must admit, I did read all the alternative versions, so I can say that there are no 'red herrings'. Some choices lead you to the answer faster than others, and sometimes there'll be a quirky scene that comes with one choice, but is barely mentioned in the other. Without wanting to spoil anything, something key to the background knowledge of Donovan and Peyton's relationship is only mentioned in one of the choices. I haven't quite decided if this is a good thing yet - that little piece of knowledge was good to know, I thought!
Overall, Kira Snyder has built a great sense of anticipation between the main characters, and has set the foundation for future crime/mystery-solving. It was a brilliant book and I'll definitely be reading the next in the series.
Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated One Scream Away (Sheridan, #1) in Books
Apr 27, 2018
One Scream Away was one of those books that you stay up late reading and that you can’t put down, and that you yell at whoever interrupts you because it was so addicting good. It was exciting, suspenseful, romantic, mysterious… everything a book should be.
Without giving away anything, there were many parts in this book that I felt my heart rip when I read what happened. The characters were tangible, like I could pluck them out of the book and set them on my table and watch the rest of the story play out. But they were also relatable, so most of the time I felt like the characters themselves.
Pacing and plot were fantastic in this one. It was impossible to see what would happen next, and Kate Brady keeps you guessing until the very last page, and surprises you at the end.
The writing was not the strongest point. It wasn’t bad per se, it just wasn’t very good either. Acceptably mediocre is the best phrase I can think of, because it wasn’t Dante, but it wasn’t hard to read.
My only other complaint was that a lot of the times, Brady describes what things look like, but not what things feel like. Although the characters were very relatable, I found my own imagination supplying the feelings of the characters while I read this.
Content: There was no elicit sex in this book, although scenes are mentioned and skipped over. There was a lot of language (hey, we’re talking about FBI agents and Police officers and Serial Killers here.) and some rather vulgar details. Murder is not exactly pleasant. Although it wasn’t mapped out in extreme detail, the images left in the reader’s mind are ones that are not for the faint of heart. Or stomach.
Recommendation: Ages 18+
Guy Garvey recommended Catalpa by Jolie Holland in Music (curated)
The Perfect Punter: A Year of Losing Everything and Trying to Win it All Back
Book
Like millions of other sports-mad gamblers around the world, Dave Farrar loved taking on the...
Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin
Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton
Book
On February 26th 2012 seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was walking home with a bag of Skittles and...
graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated Vampire Close in Books
Feb 15, 2019
When I started this book, I felt like I missed the first fifteen minutes of a movie and I'm right in the middle of a scene, a bit lost; it was quite discombobulating. The main love interests, Fiona and Rory, are both Scottish and that's how it's written, so there's dinna, och, cannae, ken, etc., which really distracted from the story. Maybe if only one character spoke like that, it might have been bearable, but with two of them, it was just too much. Fiona herself was unlikeable, prejudiced, oblivious to her "sexpot" looks, and way to innocent to be believable for her age, while Rory's forceful, generally undesirable, and doesn't even seem like a vampire other than his fangs. What's really missing from the book is emotion. I felt nothing, other than mild dislike, for anyone or anything -- I just didn't care about these people. Joan, an American demon hunter and Euan, a Highland-born Brit (or "Sassenach" as Fiona disdainfully calls him) deacon, were slightly better at first, but there still was not enough shown for me to have a personal interest in them. The plot was vaguely described, and frankly, not very interesting. Nothing was shown, it was just told, mainly through an abundance of gabbing, so I never got the sense of urgency and the book just meandered into its finale.
I had a few other problems, but nothing that wouldn't give certain events away. Maybe die-hard paranormal romance fans will like this, but it became a chore to complete and I ended up disliking it the more I read, so it just wasn't for me.
Received for review through the Goodreads First Reads program.


