Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (1699)

Content

Breaking Glass Barefoot

Hazel O'Connor

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Hazel O'Connor has loved and been loved, but her generosity and spirit of adventure have often come...

MapAlerter

News and Utilities

(0 Ratings) Rate It

App

MapAlerter is a local authority alert service for people living in Ireland who want to receive...

NFL Game Pass Europe

Sports and Entertainment

(0 Ratings) Rate It

App

With an NFL Game Pass Europe subscription you can watch all NFL games live* on all your iOS devices...

Chelsea (449 KP) rated The Call in Books

Sep 7, 2017

The Call

Peadar O'Guilin | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy

8.0

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

25 years ago all of Ireland was cut off from the rest of the world and were made to endure the revenge of the fairies or the Sídhe who were driven into a terrifying alternate dimension by Ireland's ancestors. Now, all children at some point are called, one by one, into this dark world of the Sídhe to be hunted, mutilated, and tortured before being sent back to their world dead. Sometime between the ages of 10 and 17, the call happens unannounced. You disappear from this world, leaving behind nothing but a pile of clothes for 3 minutes. However, you awaken in a dark, stinking, murderous, gray world alone and naked. Your time here will be much longer than 3 minutes. You have a whole day to run and fight for your life in a world where beasts made from human bodies will either turn you in to the Sídhe for torture, or eat you themselves. The odds of survival are now 1 in 10 instead of 1 in 100 thanks to survival schools that take in and train all youth, but is it ever enough?

Kudos

David McK (3557 KP) rated Blood's Revolution in Books

Feb 8, 2020

Blood's Revolution

Angus Donald | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Second entry in Angus Donald's Holcroft Blood series (that started with Blood's Game) and, in many respects, you could be forgiven for thinking that this had a different central character.

Since the events covered in that novel, the young Holcroft Blood has grown up, and is no longer quite as naïve, perhaps, as he was before. The 'Merry Monarch' (Charles II) has also passed on, with his crown passing to his Catholic brother James II, as his Holcroft's father Colonel Thomas Blood (who attempted to steal the Crown Jewels in the previous novel).

The majority of this novel thus concerns itself with Holcroft being caught up in the events surrounding James II increasing alienation of Britain's Protestant political elite, while being hunted by a brutal French spy for his time doing the similar for Charles II in France.

I'm interested in seeing where this goes, and how Holcroft gets caught up in the later events, especially since The Battle of the Boyne (in which William, the Prince of Orange, defeats King James II) is still remembered every July 12th here in my homeland of Northern Ireland!