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Rachel King (13 KP) rated On the Prowl (Alpha & Omega, #0.5) in Books
Feb 11, 2019
The first story, Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs, is an off-shoot of her Mercy Thompson series. This story focuses on a much-abused female werewolf in Chicago, Anna. The Merrick's son, Charles, comes to end the abuse and inadvertedly rescues her when he discovers that she is a rare Omega werewolf. Despite the short length of the story, Briggs still writes an exceptional story with unique characters and an intriguing plot. I look forward to reading the next full-length book in this new series, Cry Wolf (Alpha and Omega, Book 1).
The second story, Inhuman by Eileen Wilks, takes place in the middle of her Lupi series, but focuses on a woman, Kai, who can see thoughts. She has a secret relationship with her neighbor Nathan, who is not human, and this developments into some interesting events when he strives to protect her from a killer. Though this story ended with a "to be continued," I am intrigued enough that I want the next book, Night Season (The World of the Lupi, Book 4).
The third story, Buying Trouble by Karen Chance, features a minor character in the Dorina Basarab series, Claire. Claire believes she is a "null," a person that nullifies magic within a certain radius. When she discovers that she is to be sold like a slave, a very sexy Lord of the Fey decides to rescue her. The chemistry between Claire and him is far beyond magnetic and has some very interesting consequences for Claire. I was a bit disappointed that Claire does not get any full-length novels, as her story has great potential.
The final story, Mona Lisa Betwining by Sunny, is heavy in erotic material and light on plot. The story takes someplace in the middle of the Monere series and resembles Anne Bishop's Black Jewels series in many ways. Though Bishop's writing is superior, there is some uniqueness to this series, such as the use of moon imagery. I may check out the first novel, Mona Lisa Awakening (Monere: Children of the Moon, Book 1).
I like reading anthologies not only to get some extra morsels from my favorite authors, but also to be introduced to new authors without having to commit to an entire full-length novel. While Briggs story was certainly the best of the bunch, the other stories were good reads, and I was glad to be introduced to their styles and stories.
The second story, Inhuman by Eileen Wilks, takes place in the middle of her Lupi series, but focuses on a woman, Kai, who can see thoughts. She has a secret relationship with her neighbor Nathan, who is not human, and this developments into some interesting events when he strives to protect her from a killer. Though this story ended with a "to be continued," I am intrigued enough that I want the next book, Night Season (The World of the Lupi, Book 4).
The third story, Buying Trouble by Karen Chance, features a minor character in the Dorina Basarab series, Claire. Claire believes she is a "null," a person that nullifies magic within a certain radius. When she discovers that she is to be sold like a slave, a very sexy Lord of the Fey decides to rescue her. The chemistry between Claire and him is far beyond magnetic and has some very interesting consequences for Claire. I was a bit disappointed that Claire does not get any full-length novels, as her story has great potential.
The final story, Mona Lisa Betwining by Sunny, is heavy in erotic material and light on plot. The story takes someplace in the middle of the Monere series and resembles Anne Bishop's Black Jewels series in many ways. Though Bishop's writing is superior, there is some uniqueness to this series, such as the use of moon imagery. I may check out the first novel, Mona Lisa Awakening (Monere: Children of the Moon, Book 1).
I like reading anthologies not only to get some extra morsels from my favorite authors, but also to be introduced to new authors without having to commit to an entire full-length novel. While Briggs story was certainly the best of the bunch, the other stories were good reads, and I was glad to be introduced to their styles and stories.
Debbie (52 KP) rated The Immigrant Brides Romance Collection in Books
Mar 20, 2019
The Immigrant Brides Romance Collection Review
The Immigrant Brides Romance Collection
9 Stories Celebrate Settling in America
By: Irene B. Brand; Kristy Dykes; Nancy J. Farrier; Pamela Griffin; Joann A Grote; Sally Laity; Judith McCoy Miller; and Janet Spaeth
Barbour Publishing, Inc
Barbour Books
Christian, Romance
Publish Dater 1 March 2019
444 Pages
#TheImmigrantBridesRomanceCollection #NetGalley
<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/23cda8f5b390052c84bafb486921760c8733c9f5"; width="80" height="80" alt="10 Book Reviews" title="10 Book Reviews"/>
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I read this book a little while ago so my review will be very short. It is also hard for me to review a short story collection. I did enjoy this book because it is historical fiction. The stories draw you in and you can feel what each character is going through. There are two stories that deals with Chinese immigrants and what they go through and how they are treated.
My favorite story is about an Irish immigrant who becomes a teacher. I love that her family was very supportive and how the young man who is interested in her helps her out also even though she doesn't give him the light of day.
I would recommend this book for you read.
The Immigrant Brides Romance Collection
9 Stories Celebrate Settling in America
By: Irene B. Brand; Kristy Dykes; Nancy J. Farrier; Pamela Griffin; Joann A Grote; Sally Laity; Judith McCoy Miller; and Janet Spaeth
Barbour Publishing, Inc
Barbour Books
Christian, Romance
Publish Dater 1 March 2019
444 Pages
#TheImmigrantBridesRomanceCollection #NetGalley
<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/23cda8f5b390052c84bafb486921760c8733c9f5"; width="80" height="80" alt="10 Book Reviews" title="10 Book Reviews"/>
<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/9a41056d7201c045d3f9e5c161f9569494687ae1"; width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>
I read this book a little while ago so my review will be very short. It is also hard for me to review a short story collection. I did enjoy this book because it is historical fiction. The stories draw you in and you can feel what each character is going through. There are two stories that deals with Chinese immigrants and what they go through and how they are treated.
My favorite story is about an Irish immigrant who becomes a teacher. I love that her family was very supportive and how the young man who is interested in her helps her out also even though she doesn't give him the light of day.
I would recommend this book for you read.
The Marinated Meeple (1848 KP) rated Above and Below in Tabletop Games
Mar 20, 2018
The Art is exceptional (3 more)
the gameplay itself
the characters you use to build your village
The story aspect for exploring
I Love this game.... Ryan Laukat does amazing work.
This game is a great mix of a lot of ingenious aspects. You are leader of a village, and you have people in your village that not only have different skills and also look different. You want to utilize them to do the things they are good at, but just like in life sometimes you have to send a suboptimal person to accomplish something the village needs. And the exploration aspect is so much fun. each time to go exploring is a different short story predicated on the drawing of a card. then then you have to make a choice about what to do on that journey, and it might have dire consequences or or it might be light and fluffy. So it's sometimes hard to make a decision based on how many resources to send down to make sure everything works out, but then you can't do as much on the surface. The game is relatively short and makes us want to keep playing. which is the sign of a great game. Also check out near and far which is the sequel to this game.
Kevin Wilson (179 KP) rated Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice in Video Games
Jul 9, 2018
Incredible story (3 more)
Fun combat
Amazing audio
Great environment design
Puzzles repetitive and sometimes too confusing (2 more)
Short game
I needed to constantly have breaks
Incredible game worth a play
This is an incredible game. It is graphically beautiful and the story is fantastic. The acting is by far some of the best you will find and you can see the developers took their time to make sure that mental illness was portrayed correctly. Because of this and the audio I felt I had to take breaks from time to time as I felt emotionally drained and exhausted after a while. Because of this even for a short game it took me a few days.
The collectibles were interesting and the lore was interesting to me. The combat was fun but I found the puzzles to be very hit and miss. They felt like a chore sometimes and too challenging at times.
The audio is where this game excels greatly and it is strongly recommended to play the game with headphones to get the full effect. The environments were gorgeous to look at.
Overall I'd recommend this to anyone and this did make me think a lot about it and what it symbolises days after finishing.
The collectibles were interesting and the lore was interesting to me. The combat was fun but I found the puzzles to be very hit and miss. They felt like a chore sometimes and too challenging at times.
The audio is where this game excels greatly and it is strongly recommended to play the game with headphones to get the full effect. The environments were gorgeous to look at.
Overall I'd recommend this to anyone and this did make me think a lot about it and what it symbolises days after finishing.
Jordan Binkerd (567 KP) rated The Mummy Returns (2001) in Movies
Aug 13, 2019
Brendan Fraser (6 more)
Rachel Weiss
John Hannah
Oded Fehr
Arnold Vosloo
Continuity of cast
Not as good as the first one, but still better than the next....
Introduction of concepts and elements that weren't present in the first - reincarnation, Rick's tattoo and it's significance, etc (1 more)
The Scorpion King's introduction looks like a PS2 cutscene.
A solid sequel
This is a solid sequel, even if it falls short of the mark set by it's predecessor. The entire (surviving) cast returns, which I appreciate in a franchise, and the story mostly delivers. There are a few frustrating elements, such as all of a sudden adding concepts such as reincarnation (especially given that the concurring reveal would have been relevant to the story of the first film) or Rick's tattoo that he's had since his childhood, except that he didn't have it in the first movie. Where this film really falls short, though, is a couple bad animation moments. Mostly the film is a lot like the first in terms of effects - decent animation for 2002, if occasionally dated, but a couple of sequences are jarringly bad, especially the Rock's entrance as the Scorpion King. Is it enough to keep me from watching? No. But I still cringe at that point every time.
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2163 KP) rated Crime Travel in Books
Dec 9, 2019
Great Short Story Collection to Read Any Time
This short story collection features 15 stories from various authors that combine time travel and crime fiction. The stories are very creative, involving a variety of methods of time travel from people who build machines to those who stumble upon strange ways to get back in time. The periods range from people traveling to the present, to those traveling to Shakespeare’s England, a New Jersey beach town in the 1970’s, and a couple trips to the 1960’s to name a few. Meanwhile, we get a couple capers, a locked room mystery, and a hard-boiled PI among other great stories.
This is a very strong collection of stories. While a couple weren’t quite to my taste, I can see how others would love them and it was a very minor point. I laughed at a few of the stories, another couple made me cry, in a good way. Most importantly, I had fun. There are so many great stories in this collection, you’ll be glad you picked it up. And if you don’t get it now, you just might have to come back in time and yell at yourself for putting it off and depriving yourself of the joys of reading these stories right away.
This is a very strong collection of stories. While a couple weren’t quite to my taste, I can see how others would love them and it was a very minor point. I laughed at a few of the stories, another couple made me cry, in a good way. Most importantly, I had fun. There are so many great stories in this collection, you’ll be glad you picked it up. And if you don’t get it now, you just might have to come back in time and yell at yourself for putting it off and depriving yourself of the joys of reading these stories right away.
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
8.3
Rate It
Book
The short story OBITS won the 2016 Edgar for best short story.The No.1 bestselling author delivers...
Leanne Crabtree (480 KP) rated Bare-Knuckle Love (Rabid Mongrels MC #1) in Books
Jan 8, 2021
I've been having a hard time getting into books lately--both paperback and e-book--so I decided to go and download some free short stories of Amazon, and this was one of them.
Admittedly, I'm a little wary of what they might be like. I've read some good freebies and I've read some pretty bad freebies. Luckily this falls into the first category for me.
First off, it made me cry twice. That very rarely happens in most M/M stories I read and the fact that it's rather dark in places--more like patches--makes it extra unusual. But I really liked their story and how their romance came about. Anyway, the first time was the dog thing. The second, it was Jason's thought in the last fight.
Secondly. There was a darkness to it but I really liked Hyde. The way he sort of tried to stop too bad a thing happening to Jason after he lost them the money made me melt a little. It was sweet. He might have been President of the MC but he wasn't an altogether bad guy.
Thirdly. Just how despite it being a short story I was a sucker for the romance between these two guys.
I look forward to more instalments with these two.
Admittedly, I'm a little wary of what they might be like. I've read some good freebies and I've read some pretty bad freebies. Luckily this falls into the first category for me.
First off, it made me cry twice. That very rarely happens in most M/M stories I read and the fact that it's rather dark in places--more like patches--makes it extra unusual. But I really liked their story and how their romance came about. Anyway, the first time was the dog thing. The second, it was Jason's thought in the last fight.
Secondly. There was a darkness to it but I really liked Hyde. The way he sort of tried to stop too bad a thing happening to Jason after he lost them the money made me melt a little. It was sweet. He might have been President of the MC but he wasn't an altogether bad guy.
Thirdly. Just how despite it being a short story I was a sucker for the romance between these two guys.
I look forward to more instalments with these two.
Hazel (1853 KP) rated Nine Ways to Die in Books
Jan 24, 2021
Fifteen-year-old January "Jan" hates the new town she has moved to but loves her new boyfriend, Jean. Her parents are never home, and her sister is in hospital, so she spends the summer days with her new friends. The only people she meets are around her age, and she never comes across any adults. The buildings are decrepit and old, almost like a ghost town. The more time Jan spends with her friends, the more peculiar the town, Memoir Falls feels.
Nine Ways to Die is a short story by versatile writer, Jordan Elizabeth. The details about Jan's past gradually emerge until Jan, along with the reader, discovers the truth about the strange town and its inhabitants. There are clues everywhere, but like Jan, readers fail to notice them until they come together in a sudden climax.
Through Jan's eyes, readers experience the town as though they are also new inhabitants. Although it is a short story, there is so much on offer: suspense, romance, thrills, and the supernatural. For those familiar with Jordan Elizabeth's work, this is a welcome addition to her vast collection of books. For newbie readers, this is a tempting taste of the author's full potential.
Nine Ways to Die is a short story by versatile writer, Jordan Elizabeth. The details about Jan's past gradually emerge until Jan, along with the reader, discovers the truth about the strange town and its inhabitants. There are clues everywhere, but like Jan, readers fail to notice them until they come together in a sudden climax.
Through Jan's eyes, readers experience the town as though they are also new inhabitants. Although it is a short story, there is so much on offer: suspense, romance, thrills, and the supernatural. For those familiar with Jordan Elizabeth's work, this is a welcome addition to her vast collection of books. For newbie readers, this is a tempting taste of the author's full potential.