Smashbomb

Merissa (12616 KP) created a post

Aug 2, 2021

"I twigged something was a little different in Quinn early on, how that all played out was not how I thought it would."

AUDIO - The Half Wolf by Jay Northcote - @Archaeolibrary, @SignalBoostPR, @Jay_Northcote, #Paranormal, #MM, #Romance, #Shifters, #Audio, 5 out of 5 (exceptional)

https://archaeolibrarian.wixsite.com/website/post/thehalfwolfbyjaynorthcote

Kudos (1) Comment

Debbiereadsbook (1392 KP) rated Deadly Sins (Irish Mafia Kings, #1) in Books

Mar 21, 2024

Aria pushes ALL Quinn's buttons and then some!

Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this book.

I think this is the tamest Mafia book I've ever read and I really enjoyed it!

Quinn goes to kill Aria's father, in revenge for him killing Quinn's youngest brother, but taking Aria becomes an impromptu change of plan. While Aria is saved from one Mafia arranged marriage, she finds it's a case of, out of the frying pan, into the fire with Quinn. Will he let her go, when he gets what he wants from Aria's father? Or will he be her new jailor?

I liked this, I liked this a LOT.

Aria is headstrong and has her own mind, but she knows her place in her father's life. When he says jump, she asks, how high? Because anything else will get someone else hurt. Quinn is the head on the Lyons Irish Mafia Kings, the eldest Lyons. Getting revenge for his brother's death becomes his only plan, and then he has Aria to contend with. The woman pushes ALL his buttons and then some. Letting her go becomes the least pleasurable thing he has to do, but he does. He just has to hope she will come back to him.

My only niggle with this, I found the romance between Aria and Quinn sort of sprang out of nowhere. Quinn knew she was his, very early, but the romance, the love? That kinda walloped me upside the head, almost 3/4 of the way in. They were fighting, then she was gone.

BUT

A very enjoyable 4 star read.

*same worded review will appear elsewhere

Kudos

Debbiereadsbook (1392 KP) rated The Half Wolf in Books

Aug 9, 2021

The Half Wolf

Jay Northcote | 2017 | LGBTQ+, Paranormal, Romance

10

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

a different take on shifters!

Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted the audio file of this book.

Quinn has lived in Wales his whole life. He knows of shifters and their nomadic lifestyle. He also knows that they suffer a lot of prejudice. Meeting Kellan, a wolf shifter who’s camped out in the valley, throws Quinn out of sorts: MORE out of sorts that he usually feels. Their attraction is obvious, but Kellan knows he can’t have Quinn. Quinn is human and wolves and humans do not mate, do they?

I usually write a bit about the book first, then the narration, but sometimes I can’t do that because my reviews often take a life of their own and this is one such time.

Hamish Long narrates. It's so nice to NOT have an American accent in your ear, you know? Long’s talent is only just coming to my attention, and I LOVED the narration of this book. His reading voice is deep and clear, and I had no trouble keeping up with the tale. His voices for the different characters were, I thought, spot on. With a mix of Welsh, non-descript English accents fitting for nomads and even an American accent thrown in, they were varied but accurate. The voice for the rogue wolf was major creepy, but very apt. Long gets across all of Quinn’s continuing changes and feelings, and all of Kellan’s need for Quinn, but knowing he can’t have him, and how much it breaks Kellan to realise that he might have to walk away.

My only niggle, and it’s a personal one, rather than a technical one, was that at first, I thought it was Quinn and Calum, not Kellan. But at some point, there was a marked difference in the name’s delivery, and I noticed Kellan more. Might just be me and my rubbish hearing though.

The story itself is well written and well delivered. Different enough to be interesting and to totally hold my attention from start to finish. And trust me on this, that’s a tricky thing right now! (major book funk!) While I twigged something was a little different in Quinn early on, how that all played out was not how I thought it would.

The rogue wolf was called an omega here, and that’s different to other wolf shifter books and I did like that some things were tipped on their head, I really did.

Not especially heavy on the smexy stuff, but plenty of steam! It’s not really needed here, I don’t think. Quinn and Kellan have passion and attraction and that comes across well enough. It is violent though, when dealing with the rogue and I think that was needed.

Long seems to have narrated a fair few of Northcote’s books, I might have a few more hours listening on my audio list now!

4 stars for the book

5 stars for the narration

4.5 overall but rounded UP for the blog.
**same worded review will appear elsewhere**

Kudos (1)

Leanne Crabtree (480 KP) rated Playing with Fire (Magical Romantic Comedies #1) in Books

Jan 11, 2021

This review and more can be found at my blog
https://aromancereadersreviews.blogspot.com
A Romance Reader's Reviews

This one starts with Bailey working at the coffee shop where she makes drinks for its regular but unusual breed of customers from humans to pixies to werewolves, adding a pinch of dust to each drink to give them a high. Her nemesis, Chief Quinn, comes in and she makes him a drink before he heads out, taking her boss with him, leaving Bailey to work an 18 hour shift alone. Jealously flares within Bailey as she's had a thing for Quinn since he asked her to find proof of his wife's cheating. When Bailey is asked by Quinn's former brother-in-law to help her find someone, she's reluctant but agrees, and is handed a phone. Only the phone isn't all that it seems setting in motion a series of events that throws her into Quinn's life more than either bargained for.

I enjoyed the first 40% of this more than the latter 60%. The beginning was fun and quirky. I loved the sort of love/hate thing she had going on with Quinn. I enjoyed the banter between her and some of the other cops and it was just up my street. It just seemed their will they/won't they get together thing was concluded too early in the book and I was wondering what the rest of the book would be about. It lost some of its appeal for me after the weird Gorgon vomit scene. And then I just struggled to connect with it again. I soldiered on, determined to finish it.

I also found Quinn's family very complicated. He has almost every type of creature in his family tree from angels to incubus to gorgon but he is very much human and I couldn't keep track of who was who half of the time.

I liked it enough that I'd buy more of this series.

Kudos

graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated Tombs of Endearment (Pepper Martin, #3) in Books

Feb 15, 2019

Another fun Pepper Martin mystery that's as good as the first and better than the second in the series. Again, the ghost is the best character, this time a 60s rocker who possibly died of an overdose forty years ago. I couldn't help but think he was a Jim Morrison prototype, especially with some of the lyrics.

Pepper was thankfully brighter in this book and figured things out at a good pace. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to figure out whodunnit early on in this series, for lack of suspects, but I liked how the author had Pepper go about it anyway.

I could do without the constant who-wears-what, how Pepper's hair or nails are done, everything she wears at every given moment, and most of all, I get annoyed at her overactive libido every time a hot guy - dead or alive - comes into contact with her. Get it together girl! What's your problem. Luckily, it looks as if she might (finally) get her act together for the fourth book. Hopefully it is not Quinn, because he is a boring, cut-out character that adds nothing to this series. However, I still look forward to the next book and hope it continues to get better.

Kudos

Gaz Coombes recommended Here Come the Warm Jets by Brian Eno in Music (curated)

"When I was about 15, Danny and Mick [Quinn, Supergrass bassist] lived in this row of cottages that was literally 10 metres from my family house. That was our base; we’d get together in Mick’s living room. I feel very lucky to have been in a band at that time because we were still approaching music – playing live, writing and recording – the way they had since the beginning; it was the last little window where there was only two-inch tape recording, just a few A&R men around who would come to gigs and stuff, no internet, mobile phones. It seems weird now! We were in the house getting stoned and playing loads of records, everything from Pink Floyd to Gong, Muppets albums, Zappa and Patti Smith. A big one for us was Brian Eno’s Here Come The Warm Jets – it was one we were really hooked on. For somebody so experimental he had killer melodies and the way he double-tracked his voice is just really cool. The production and instrumentation are kind of understated and hint at lo-fi, but in an honest way. We had a meeting with him in New York in the early 00s about producing us. I don’t think it was anything creative that was the issue, it was a boring calendar thing from what I remember, but it was great to meet him and have a chat."

Source

Kudos

Deborah (162 KP) rated Mistress of Rome (The Empress of Rome, #1) in Books

Dec 21, 2018

For a debut novel, Quinn's 500 page Roman epic impresses. The blub describes it as 'aimed squarely at the female market' but I'm sure men would find something to enjoy in here too; on reflection I think I'd be more likely to lend it to be brother than my mother!

The narrative in the book is a bit odd and it took a little while for me to get used to it. Large chunks are in the first person, mainly from one of the two main female characters. This sometimes would get confussing when switching between the two, especially when these two characters are together, early in the novel. The text will then switch back into a third person narrative. Overall I think Quinn has made this narrative device work quite well, it just takes a bit of getting used to.

The character of Lepida is through and through nasty, with not a single redeeming characteristic, so while one is happy to see her meet Nemesis (did the Roman's have an equivalent?!) she is really a bit of a one-dimentional character.

There is a note at the end of the book which explains a little more about what is historical fact and what is taking a bit of a liberty; that's the sort of thing that I do like in an historical novel - I think it's helpful.

I found this a gripping, hard-to-put-down read, although it's pretty violently, both in the fighting and the sexual stakes; not one for the squeamish!

Kudos

Nick Friesen (96 KP) rated Suicide Squad (2016) in Movies

Jul 18, 2017

Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn (2 more)

Will Smith is Actually a Great Deadshot

The Two Seconds Batman is Involved

Weak Story (3 more)

Terrible Villain

PG-13 was an Underwhelming Choice

Most of the Characters are Forgettable

A Half-Assed Suicide (Squad) Attempt

After the success of Deadpool six months prior, an R-Rated anti-hero action movie that pushed the envelope, Suicide Squad just felt weak. The movie about DC's most famous rogues should have took a chance on an R rating as well. There's just something not quite right with these characters participating in a (mostly) family friendly romp. They fight black, faceless zombies, sort-of curse, and sometimes make lame jokes along the way. Along with that, there's too many characters crammed into the movie without any previous introduction or characterization. At the very least, Harley and the Joker should have been in an entire Batman movie before the Suicide Squad movie happened, if not Deadshot as well. Instead we get a miniature helping of Batman versus these foes in the early minutes of the movie, and then this ragtag group of baddies is thrown together to fight an evil bigger than themselves without much in the way of good storytelling. It's sad, really, because these characters are compelling in their own right. If DC really wants to have a cohesive movie universe, they need to slow down and build the movie versions of these characters before slapping them all together and expecting people to care. That, or at least give these awesome anti-heroes an equally awesome antagonist to square off with; the Enchantress is just lame.

Kudos (1)

Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Suicide Squad (2016) in Movies

Sep 29, 2021

The length of time it’s taken me to catch this one at the cinema belies my lukewarm interest in the material: I’m not a ‘fan boy’ for either Marvel or DC properties. As it turns out, writer/director David “Fury” Ayer’s Suicide Squad is just plain frustrating in cinematic terms.
The story concerns the efforts of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to assemble – for reasons that make almost zero sense! – the ‘worse of the worst’ out of US prisons to form a fighting force to combat the perceived threat of an “anti-Superman” villain that *might* appear in the future.
SUICIDE SQUAD
Viola Davis wondering Why? Just Why?

Among these super-villains are Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). Harley is the girlfriend of The Joker (Jared Leto) and they would be a great match on Match.com since both are several sandwiches short of a picnic.
Waller assembles her motley crew. Unfortunately, another of the super-villains is June Moon aka “The Enchantress” (Cara Delevingne, her of the scary eyebrows) – an ancient God-like being that has possessed June and who has her/its own agenda that threatens the whole world.

So why is this movie so frustrating? Because for all its inane silliness the film does have its fair share of scenes that stick in the mind. I’ve seen comment that Jared Leto’s much-vaunted Joker is peripheral: a cameo only on screen for a few minutes. But I didn’t find that… or at least his scenes were sufficiently memorable to seem much more substantial. The madness portrayed here is truly quite disturbing and threatening. Many of Leto’s scenes – such as the one with The Joker lying on the floor surrounded by weapons – are artfully done.

Margot Robbie’s Quinn although extremely sexualized – which will not be to the liking of some, but appeal to many male viewers – adds enormous charisma to her role. Will Smith also does his best with the material he has to inject some emotional heft into the father/daughter sub-plot.

Unfortunately this is all done against a fractured and frankly nonsensical story with inconsistencies and loose ends too numerous to list. (Oh, OK, I’ll do a few):
A super-being dispatches armies and nukes from hundred of miles away, yet can’t swat a couple of inconvenient humans at 10 paces?
A large early part of the film is filled with backstories (which I don’t necessarily object to for context) but here they are done in an extremely patchy manner: a number of the characters are sketched out so lightly that they might as well be wearing the red Star Trek shirts!
Waller’s motivations (and certainly her sociopathic actions at some points in the plot) are nebulous and don’t bear scrutiny. Why exactly does she thing a ‘bloke who can shoot well’ can do diddly-squat against a super-being spewing gravity defying electrical displays on the other side of the city?
Is this really a ‘Dirty Dozen’? Many of the super-villains seem to be not so bad after all… you know… with consciences and everything…. (I’m sure you could find ten times worse down behind Southampton docks on a Friday night).
And while some of the cinematography (Roman Vasyanov, “Fury”) and lighting is memorable, there are some cinema basics (like dark subtitles on a dark background) that seem just plain careless.

With a huge BvS quotient of 0.7 this should really have been much better. To put it another way, you could have made ten of last week’s 4-Fad film “The Shallows” for the cost of this (and stuck a better ending on it with the change).
Memorable visuals, but not a memorable film.

Kudos

Darren (1599 KP) rated The Hole in the Ground (2019) in Movies

Dec 1, 2019

Verdict: Suspenseful

Story: The Hole in the Ground starts as Sarah (Kerslake) and her son Chris (Markey) are getting used to their new home in the Irish countryside, they learn they have a disturbed neighbour Noreen Brady (Outinen) and a giant hole in the middle of a woodland area surrounding the house.
After losing her son in the woods one night, Sarah is trying to be more protective, but the disturbed neighbour Noreen, doesn’t believe that is her son anymore, similar to what she experienced herself, years before.

Thoughts on The Hole in the Ground

Characters – Sarah is the single mother who has moved away from her previous life, which does have hints of abuse, she has started a simpler life in a small village with her son and soon starts to learn about something strange that has happened to her son, with her needing to figure out the truth before it is too late. Chris is the son who isn’t happy trying to make new friends, he is terrified of spiders and after he goes missing one night, when he returns something has changed in him. Noreen Brady went through a similar experience to Sarah, which has seen her branded crazy by the locals, she can sense more being wrong, though it has haunted her whole life.
Performances – Seana Kerslake in the leading role adds so much to this film, her performance shows the pain her character has been through, despite showing the strength she is carrying on with. James Quinn Markey is great for a young actor, showing the innocent side to his character and the change he has been through. The supporting cast don’t get many scenes but do a good job when called up.
Story – The story here follows a single mother who starts to see a strange change in her son and must decide what has caused this and what she is going to do about it. The story does dive into one of the most famous horror myths, which is clear to see early on, though never directly uses the name, we won’t say just to stop any spoilers. We have the themes of an abuse victim trying to rebuild their own life, while remaining strong for her child. We only focus on the two characters, with any others only offer hints to what is happening. What the story offers, would be the slowly building moments that Sarah is going through, where she is torn about the truth, we focus on dread feeling over any shock value.
Horror – The horror in this film does give us a clear look at dread and gloom, instead of playing of the jump scares, it so easily could have turned too.
Settings – The film takes us to a small Irish countryside village, the house is outside the village surrounded by woodland, which only adds to the unknown coming from inside the woods.
Special Effects – The effects being used in the film are kept to a minimum, which does help when we need to see them happening.

Scene of the Movie – What is Chris up to.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We only get the hints of the former life they lived.
Final Thoughts – This is a dread filled horror that will keep us wondering what is happening, with strong performances from the lead actors.

Overall: Dread Filled Horror.

Kudos (1)

Join Smashbomb

Merissa (12616 KP) created a post

Aug 2, 2021

Debbiereadsbook (1392 KP) rated Deadly Sins (Irish Mafia Kings, #1) in Books

Mar 21, 2024

Debbiereadsbook (1392 KP) rated The Half Wolf in Books

Aug 9, 2021

Leanne Crabtree (480 KP) rated Playing with Fire (Magical Romantic Comedies #1) in Books

Jan 11, 2021

graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated Tombs of Endearment (Pepper Martin, #3) in Books

Feb 15, 2019

Gaz Coombes recommended Here Come the Warm Jets by Brian Eno in Music (curated)

Deborah (162 KP) rated Mistress of Rome (The Empress of Rome, #1) in Books

Dec 21, 2018

Nick Friesen (96 KP) rated Suicide Squad (2016) in Movies

Jul 18, 2017

Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Suicide Squad (2016) in Movies

Sep 29, 2021

Darren (1599 KP) rated The Hole in the Ground (2019) in Movies

Dec 1, 2019