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    Nonstop Knight

    Nonstop Knight

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    "With Nonstop Knight's fantastic production values and focus on a streamlined action RPG experience,...

    Junkyard Tycoon

    Junkyard Tycoon

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    Want to start your own vehicle business? If you love vehicles and automobiles, you will love this...


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What Beauty There Is
What Beauty There Is
Cory Anderson | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller, Young Adult (YA)
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
What Beauty There Is has to be my most surprising read of the year so far. What I wasn’t expecting was the beautiful, lyrical, desolate story of two brothers struggling to survive together against the odds. Everything is so well expressed in this novel: two boys left alone with nothing.

The older brother, 17 year old Jack, is determined not to lose his younger brother to the foster care system. When they find themselves alone with no chance of help, Jack decides that he needs to find the drug money that his father hid before his arrest. The thing is, he’s not the only one looking for the money. The man who is also looking for it, Bardem, will do anything to get what he believes is his. Jack and Matty’s lives are in danger. And not just from Bardem. The local drug dealers also want payback for what Jack and Matty’s father did, and they’re happy for the boys to pay for it - with their lives.
I spent most of this book with my heart in my mouth. These boys, even with the help of Ava, are in so much danger. The fact that Ava is Bardem’s daughter (an I’m giving nothing away here)did nothing to calm my fears for them.
I won’t sugar coat this - it’s not a happy book, and another clear example of the term “Young Adult” being completely arbitrary. The fact that it is under the YA heading really shouldn’t put anyone off reading it. It is so well written, stunningly so, and I’d highly recommend it.
  
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Ian Anderson recommended Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf in Music (curated)

 
Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf
Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf
1977 | Rock

"Ever since I’d been aware of Mr Meat I’d not been a fan at all. I thought he was bombastic, loud, churlish, arrogant – there was nothing about him that appealed to me, including his overtly showbizzy operatic voice. I’d never been a fan, until I was desperate for a track for some radio show I was doing where I needed to find an example of storytelling. I was looking for examples of people who told authentic observational tales, and I was stuck. Then my wife called to me from the other side of the office saying, ""life is a lemon and I want my money back”. I said I was terribly sorry to hear this, and she said, “no, the Meat Loaf song, ‘Life Is A Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)’,” although Jim Steinman actually wrote the song. So I found the song and became, if not a Meat Loaf addict, at least someone who had established a degree of reverence for both Meat Loaf at his best and the lyrical and musical writing of Jim Steinman. I think it’s a great song, and it just happens to be on this album. I’m not saying I enjoy the whole album or most of Meat Loaf’s work, but that is a very good track. As soon as I heard it I told my wife, “damn, I wish I’d written that,” which is probably the biggest compliment anyone in my position can pay to somebody else. In fact, I think that should be the epitaph on my gravestone."

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David McK (3425 KP) rated Fugitive in Books

May 31, 2021  
Fugitive
Fugitive
Paul Fraser Collard | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Entry number 9 in Paul Fraser Collard's Jack Lark series, this is an entry which - speaking personally - I very much found could be split into two main parts: the first part of the novel primarily concerns itself with the Victorian pursuit of 'slumming' (where rich toffs paid good money to see how their poorer counterparts lived in the slums and tenements of London), and the second with the Abyssinian campaign against the mad 'Gorilla King' (in modern day Ethiopia, I believe)

I'd heard, and even knew a bit, about the former. The latter? Sad to say, not so much.

So, for my part, a little new knowledge is a good thing!

As the novel begins, Jack Lark is back in England after his exploits in America (during the Civil War) and Mexico of the previous entries; back where - I feel - he belongs (ummm, speaking internationally, that is, rather than his precise circumstances!) and running Victorian slumming 'tours' (for want of a better word) for the rich who have more money than sense!

I don't *think* I'm giving anything away when I say that one such tour inevitably goes wrong, leading Jack - and a few companions - to flee the country, travelling to Ethiopia to join the expedition against the Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, more concerned with what they can purloin along the way than the rights and wrongs of the situation that led to the campaign in the first place!

All in all, another solid entry in the series: I'm looking forward to where Jack ends up next!
  
    NBD MoBanking

    NBD MoBanking

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    With the Mobile Banking app from National Bank of Dominica, you can easily take your bank with you.*...

    Safari Hunting 4x4

    Safari Hunting 4x4

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    Safari Hunting 3D simulator is an unforgettable adventure for real guys on the African continent,...