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ClareR (6225 KP) rated The Briar Club in Books

Oct 14, 2025  
The Briar Club
The Briar Club
Kate Quinn | 2024 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Kate Quinn books I’ve read so far have been set during WW2, so I was intrigued to see how the Briar Club would go. It’s set in 1950, a time of gangsters, women knowing their place (but wanting more), and McCarthyism.

The house, Briarwood House, is at the centre of this book, and even has its own voice. It helps to tell the story of its inhabitants and enjoys the weekly dinner parties that one of the women, Grace, sets up.

All of the women have secrets that they’d rather other people didn’t know about, and as the book goes on we find out just what those secrets are.

I don’t read many books set I the 1950’s, and it was fascinating to see how single women lived at this time. What also surprised me, was how Washington D. C. was considered to be almost a small town! I didn’t get the impression of a buzzing metropolis at all.

This is a puzzling mystery with strong female leads (I’m a fan) and gave me the opportunity to read about a time I was unfamiliar with. I liked that some of the politicians had actually existed - which was a really nice touch.
  
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Rodney Barnes (472 KP) rated Kong: Skull Island (2017) in Movies

Mar 17, 2019  
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
2017 | Action, Sci-Fi
9
7.3 (121 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
The story and how Kong looks. (0 more)
Finally Kong is Alive
Contains spoilers, click to show
Let me begin by saying that I love Kong, Godzilla and the like...so for me to hate this movie it would have to be really bad. As it stands I love this movie. It's not only a break from the traditional tragic Kong ending but it's part of the monsterverse with Kong and Godzilla heading for a battle. This movie had great character support. Everyone played their parts well. You would eventually hate Jackson's character and Hiddleston and Larson's characters. As well as the other supporting cast. Kong looked amazing and it showed his level of devastation on an intelligent level. When he wiped out all of the choppers that invaded the island, it left the group in a hopeless situation. Kong was The least of their worries as The island had many more monstrous threats that killed more of the explorerers. The group would come across a WW2 vet named Marlow (John C Riley). With a lot of smarts and ingenuity, the survivors along with Kong battling the dangerous Skull Crawlers, they make it off the island. The ending however would Conrad (Hiddleston) and Weaver (Larson) "prisoners" in a room only to learn their are more creatures like Kong in the world.....I recommend watching this movie
  
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ClareR (6225 KP) rated Those Who Are Loved in Books

May 30, 2019  
Those Who Are Loved
Those Who Are Loved
Victoria Hislop | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
An emotional look at modern Greek history.
This book is about the lives of the Koralis family, and particularly Themis, from 1930 to 2016. We follow them through some of the most disruptive times in Greek history - I hadn’t actually realised how deeply traumatic recent Greek history was.

Themis is a partisan fighter during WW2, trying to get the Germans out of Greece, and then fighting the right-wing government who had supported the invading Germans. She ends up a prisoner and endures terrible living conditions and violence at the hands of her prison guards. She returns home, marries and has a family, but her past is always with her. Greece doesn’t allow her to forget, as it continues to be led by a military government under martial law.

I loved following Themis and her siblings lives in the earlier chapters of the book, the history I’d never known about before (that Victoria Hislop describes so well), and her children and their lives in the latter half of the book.
Themis is a quietly formidable woman, who always stands by her beliefs and her family, and there are some really very emotional parts to this book.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this wonderful book - I’ll definitely be buying some copies as birthday presents this year, that’s for sure.
  
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David McK (3798 KP) rated Hearts of Stone in Books

Feb 9, 2022  
Hearts of Stone
Hearts of Stone
Simon Scarrow | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry
6
5.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Not quite what the blurb makes out
Whilst I do associate Simon Scarrow with the genre of historical fiction, these tend to be set further back in history: mainly around the time of the Roman Empire; there or thereabouts.

Until recently, I've tended to avoid his few works that are more contemporary in nature, only recently (towards the end of last year) reading Blackout as I felt they were 'too close' (if that makes sense) for comfort for me in that there are still people alive who lived through the setting.

I must admit, I did quite enjoy Blackout so thought I would also give this a go, due to the roughly the same (WW2) setting.

This novel flits back and forth between then and 'now' (of 2013), as the descendants of the main 1940s settings character start to discover more about their ancestors - in particular, as history teacher Anna uncovers the story of her maternal grandmother Eleni, who participated in the Greek resistance on the island of Lefkas during 1943.

The whole had-a-German-friend in 1939 thing almost seems incidental to the story (he's not), until roughly about the final third.

And yes, I did pick up on the arguments in favour of teaching history (a subject I did, mostly, enjoy in school) passages.