Cradle of Thorns: A Spell-Binding Saga of Escape, Love and Family
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Cradle of Thorns by Josephine Cox, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Lonely Girl and...
A Thousand Moons
9.5
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From the Costa Book of the Year-winning author of Days Without End Even when you come out of...
Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Post American Civil War Trigger warning: rape Native American Indians
Death in Breslau
8.0
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Breslau was a German city on the border of Czechoslovakia. It is now, since World War II, Wroclaw,...
Daughter of the Sea
Elisabeth J. Hobbes and Elisabeth Hobbes
8.0
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On a windswept British coastline, the tide deposits an unexpected gift... It was the cry that she...
Historical Fantasy Shifters Romance
Wicked Grace (The Wicked #3)
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He’s a grumpy demon prince. She’s a sunshine magical orphan who’s his fated mate and...
Paranormal Romance
Pyromancist (7 Forbidden Arts #1)
8.0
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When you play with fire, you get burned. At the same time as mysterious fires commence to rage...
Adult Paranormal Romance
Ivana A. | Diary of Difference (1171 KP) rated Beautiful Demons (The Shadow Demons Saga #1) in Books
Jul 20, 2018
I used to read a lot of Young Adult, Fiction and Fantasy books before. My little sister mentioned to me a few weeks ago that she started reading this genre. I decided that it would be a good thing to join her in this adventure, and to read some of the books she's reading.
I have also asked for recommendations on the bookshelf that I made especially for this, and received so many responses. Thank you to all of you who contributed, and this is the list that we have now - Tea's Wishlist
Beautiful Demons is the first book of the Shadow Demons series.
It is a story about Harper Madison, an orphan, that went from one family to another, causing troubles all her life and on one occasion, unintentionally made fire and burned people to death. With no family willing to take her now, she has to go to Shadowford, a place for troubled orphan girls.
But what if everything happens for a reason? And why is this whole town so mysterious? Why, for the first time, she actually belongs somewhere?
Everyone in this town seems to be hiding something? And that is just the beginning…
Even though this book is quite short, I was actually amused as to how much it was able to cover. I was pulled in from the first chapter, and this kept me going until the last.
We have all seen the new girl, new town, new school, being bullied type of scenario, and the cheerleaders owning the school and dating the jocks. This is the same, except it isn’t. It is spiced up with mystery and magic, and cheerleaders are just a metaphor of all that lies behind it. I will only reveal this much - the moment you get accepted to become a cheerleader, your life changes. But that is also the moment you realise it's only the beginning.
I liked Harper's character, and how she was presented. Sometimes she was too naïve and vulnerable for her own good, sometimes a bit too reckless when she didn't have enough information and clues. She was though, a nice young girl example of making brave decisions, but also a bad example of making stupid decisions…
The plot twist in the end was amazing, and I could never see that coming.
I think the purpose of this book was to make a nice scene building for the next books in the series, and to raise our curiosity. A lot of questions were raised, and not many were answered, which proves my point.
I really enjoyed the beginning of this series, and will definitely be reading the next books.
Sam (74 KP) rated The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events #5) in Books
Mar 27, 2019
The Austere Academy doesn’t even start off happy. The school the Baudelaire’s arrive at looks depressing at best. The individual buildings look like tombstones, and the vice principal is a self-obsessed, violin playing dictator.
The Baudelaire’s go straight off to a rough start, being told that since they didn’t have a guardian’s permission to live with the rest of the students, they must live in the Orphan Shack – a mouldy shack infested with crabs.
It’s probably one of the most depressing books in the series so far because even though Count Olaf reappears (shocker), they’ve begun to give up telling adults who he is because they are never believed. The Baudelaires seem on the verge of completely giving up and letting Count Olaf and his associates win.
There is a small beam of hope where they meet the Quagmires, and I’ll leave it at that to avoid spoiling the entire book.
The series is just starting to pick up with this book as it begins to reveal some of the mysteries and secrets which have been looming since the first book. It really seems that this book marks a turning point in the series and really starts off the uncovering of all of the mysteries surrounding the Baudelaire’s circumstances.
Awix (3310 KP) rated Hands of the Ripper (1971) in Movies
May 27, 2018 (Updated May 27, 2018)
Not-bad production values and decent performances go a long way to make up for some fairly preposterous plotting; you get the classic Hammer sense of a traditional costume drama coupling energetically with a disreputable exploitation movie, with a good time had by all. On the one hand this is another tale of an improbably arrogant man whose specific area of brilliance doesn't stop him making a whole series of insanely bad decisions; on the other it is about the power of men to seriously screw up the lives of women in patriarchal societies (so perhaps still somewhat relevant). Film does an interesting little dance, too: are Anna's problems purely psychological or is she genuinely possessed by the spirit of the Ripper? Well put together, some interesting ideas, doesn't outstay its welcome - definitely worth a look if old British horror movies are your thing.