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Becs (244 KP) rated Warm Transfer in Books

Aug 27, 2018

Warm Transfer

Laura Holtz | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry, Romance, Thriller

7.5

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

The cover. (2 more)

Laura Holtz's writing.

Well-developed backgrounds and characters.

Victor = arse. (0 more)

A story of courage, potential, finding joy, and one woman's journey to rediscovering herself.

I received a copy from Smith Publicity for read and review. The following review is my honest opinion of Warm Transfer by Laura Holtz.

Okay, this cover is just awesome. Yes, I judge a book by its cover all the time and when I got this, I was like "Yea, this is an awesome cover!" Then I read the synopsis and was a little put off by it. But as I read it, and continued to read it, I was just blown away by the story, the plot, the characters, the emotions that you could feel through Laura Holtz's writing, how her writing also brought memories back from my mother's most recent marriage to my step-father. It was defiantly a roller-coaster of a ride, and I sure as heck enjoyed it.

Victor is an arse and I just want him to die. (I promise I'm not a psycho - I just absolutely hate this character with a burning rage that can only be put out with the blood oozing out of his skull. - Wow, okay Becca. Calm down.) Tamsen is a very relatable MC and her journey brought many different emotions out of me as I read this breathtakingly great novel! I loved how the main and semi-main characters were developed tremendously well. I mean, I could just relate to each and every one of them. Laura, you're the bomb diggity! What a well-versed writer.

Kudos

BookwormMama14 (18 KP) rated The Butterfly and the Violin (Hidden Masterpiece, #1) in Books

Jan 2, 2019

Set during one of the most horrific times in human history, be prepared for an emotional and heart wrenching journey to Auschwitz.

Kristy Cambron has long been a favorite of mine. However, I have only now had the opportunity to read her debut novel. And I was blown away! The depth of emotion, the spiritual journey that all of the characters undergo, the style of writing is all so beautiful. Kristy's voice is unique and stands out among the masses of WWII novels. She brings to life the love, hope, despair, and passion of history on every page.

It is always hard for me to read stories set in WWII. Especially inside the concentration camps. But while the characters in thus book may not have "actuall" lived, they are birthed from true events. I believe these stories are important for us to read. So that we never forget those who lost their lives and so we can see the HOPE and the LOVE that carried the world through one of its darkest times.

The split timeline is an aspect of this book that gives it a unique and completed feel. We get to see the story come full circle and that is incredible. This is very well done and very easy to follow.

If you read WWII fiction, you will fall in love with this book. I highly recommend and am off to start A Sparrow in Terezin now.

I have purchased this book, won a print copy, and for this specific review, I borrowed the audio book from my library. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.

Kudos

David McK (3663 KP) rated The Eagle of the Ninth in Books

Jan 28, 2019

So, this is history (and told in the foreword of this novel): Sometime about the year AD 117, the Roman Ninth Legion marched north to deal with an uprising among the Caledonian tribes (in what is now Scotland), and were never heard of again. Also, nearly eighteen hundred years later during excavations at Silchester, a wingless Roman Eagle was dug up, buried under the fields.

But how did it come to be there?

While no-one knows for certain, those 2 facts together form the starting point for this story, which sees the son of the last commander of said Legion traveling North 'beyond the [Hadrians] wall' to search for and return said Eagle after his partial recovery from his laming during an attack on his outpost, and after he hears rumours of an Imperial Eagle in the Celts hands.

He is accompanied on this journey by his freed slave, whom he had previously (before the journey, during his recovery) rescued from the Arena.

While I had previously seen the 2011 film of the same name, I'd actually never read the source material before, so was unable to say how truly it stuck to the same.

Now I have, and I have to say: said movie does stick remarkably close, even if not entirely faithfully. the book, I found, could be a bit slow at times, and also tended to gloss over the less pleasant (shall we say) aspects of Roman society, with the Romans largely portrayed as civilized as compared to the uncouth Barbarians.

But then again, this is -supposedly - a children's book, and also a product of its time (first published, remember, in the 1950s).