Search

Search only in certain items:

A Gift of Ghosts
A Gift of Ghosts
Sarah Wynde | 2012 | Fiction & Poetry, Paranormal, Romance
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Goodreads Rating: 4.01 out of 5 stars

Page Count: 190 pages

One little paragraph about spirit energy ruined Akira’s career as an academic professor. Now she has two options: get a job at General Directions, a mysterious company in Florida that wants to interview her for some reason, or teach high school physics.

She’d rather work in Hell than teach high school physics.

Luckily, General Directions offers her a job that includes a salary increase and also the freedom to research whatever she wants as long as she signs a two-year contract.

What she doesn’t know is they don’t want her for her scientific research. They want her because she sees ghosts. Her boss, Zane, and the company’s CEO (and Zane’s dad), Max, want her to contact Zane’s mother and nephew, who passed, but may still be in the ghost world.

Now Akira is living in a town full of psychics where she has a haunted car and a haunted house– luckily, only friendly spirits. Her boss, Zane, is more of a friend than a manager. Which is all right with her, because she can’t help but be incredibly attracted to him.

But when Akira finds out that Zane’s mother has turned into an evil spirit, tensions rise. How can she make Zane understand that she can’t talk to his mother because the mother might kill Akira in the process?

This book was incredibly good. Way better than I was expecting, especially after I realized that Zane was going to be Akira’s boss. Normally I don’t like boss-employee romances because it feels icky. But Zane really didn’t manage Akira at all, and was a boss in name only. Not only that, but Akira seduced Zane, which was a refreshing change of pace.

Zane and Akira were both incredibly sexy and complemented each other so well. I loved the two of them together and the way Zane desired to protect her while also respecting her ability to protect herself was amazing.

The entire town, which is an homage to Eureka, was adorable and pulled me right into the world. I also really liked all the ghosts Akira encountered. They were complex enough to feel like real people even though they were for the most part side characters.

The ghostlore was intriguing as well and I enjoyed watching the discoveries Akira made about the afterlife as the story unfolded. Despite being able to see ghosts her entire life, her knowledge about ghosts was limited because of her overprotective father who forbade her to talk to ghosts or think of them as anything other than leftover energy.

The climax was satisfying for the most part. However, for a few minutes, Zane doubted that Akira could see ghosts, which was really weird. For most of the book, he didn’t doubt her ability at all, especially after testing her ability to see ghosts many times. But suddenly he doubts it? His reasoning for it didn’t fly for me and it was pretty annoying. But once he shook off his out-of-character skepticism, I was enjoying the story again.

The only other problem I had in the book was towards the beginning where there were a few random formatting marks visible. Not enough to really mess with the story, but it was a little distracting nevertheless.

But overall, this was an awesome, slightly spooky romance that’s perfect for October.
  
I Will Find You
I Will Find You
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I Will Find You by John M. Taylor is a painfully beautiful story of one boy’s love for his mother and his journey to be reunited with her. He travels from England to Australia and spends some time in the outback as well as aboard ships before returning home.

Nick Thorne, once Robbie Spalding lived in England where his father was part of the Airforce during the war. When his father’s plane is shot down his mother joins the Land Army but she falls and suffers a major injurer. Nick is taken to an orphanage temporarily and only learns of his mother’s death when he is told he is being sent to a family in Australia. When he gets to Australia he finds no family is waiting, instead, he is taken to Clontarf where the “Brothers” beat, neglect, and abuse the boys. When Nick turned thirteen he was sent to a Church Farm to work but it was just like Clontarf, it was here that he managed to escape.

With the help of an Aboriginal boy, Gidga, Nick survives the Australian outback and makes his way to the Aboriginal’s village. Even though Nick likes the Aboriginal people he still believes his mother is alive and leaves to go find her. His journey is not an easy one as he signs on with fishing ships, understanding that he won’t be able to do anything without money. Most of the time it appears that he will never find anything out about his parents or his past because it seems that none of the departments he is directed to can help him. To make matters worse no one wants to take responsibility for his old records. In a final attempt to find anything out Nick goes back to his old hometown in England.

I enjoyed all the twists and surprises in Nick’s life. I wanted to keep reading to find out where Nick would find himself and who he would meet there. Nick is also the type of character where the reader is emotionally connected to his story right away. What I did not care for was the fact that there was a joke on page two hundred and eighty that I did not understand at all. While that does not affect my overall opinion of the book I feel I am not the only one confused. Also when Nick starts trying to track down his records things get very repetitive. I can only imagine the frustration he felt as I was frustrated by just reading it over again multiple times.

The book is designed with adult readers in mind. There were numerous events in the book such as boys having to “share” a bed with one of their caretakers or being beaten to the point of passing out that was hard to read. With that in mind, this book is more suited for mature readers. Overall I give this book a rating of 4 out of 4. This book offers tragedy and hope at the same time. The back of the book even offers some factual information about what happened to other children like Nick who were sent to Australia.

https://nightreaderreviews.blogspot.com
  
Ava (2020)
Ava (2020)
2020 | Action, Crime, Drama
7
6.2 (13 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Great mother/daughter scene in the middle of a generic assassin flick
To give you everything you need to know about the Jessica Chastain assassin flick AVA is to read the IMDB description of the film:

"Ava is a deadly assassin who works for a black ops organization, traveling the globe specializing in high profile hits. When a job goes dangerously wrong she is forced to fight for her own survival."

Pretty generic, right? There are only about a dozen films that I can think of off the top of my head that would fit this description. So...what separates this one to make it worth watching?

Not much.

Chastain stars as Ava, a deadly assassin who...oh, you get it. When the "job goes dangerously wrong", she heads back to Boston and into the arms of her loving family - who want nothing to do with her.

Chastain is good, but nothing special as Ava...she seems to be able to pull off the physicality of this role quite well (like Jennifer Lawrence in RED SPARROW or Charlize Theron in ATOMIC BLONDE). The head of the shadowy organization that Ava works, played by Collin Farrell, is generically shadowy and Farrell plays it professionally with a touch of "over the top" acting (but not too much). The great John Malkovich is a spark of energy in this film as Ava's mentor. Mr. Malkovich, as is his want to do, eats the scenery in every scene that he is in. Under normal circumstances, this would annoying, but in this film, it is welcome. Ioan Gruffudd and Joan Chen show up (briefly) as adversaries of Ava and all of these components makes the "assassin side" of this film work well enough.

The "family side' of this film just doesn't work - except for one scene.

Common is just plain bad in the underwritten role of Ava's former lover who is now married to her sister. Jess Wexler is forgettable as Ava's sister (I even had to look her up on IMDB to remind me of who played this role) and Geena Davis - as Ava's estranged mother - looks like she is just there because she owed someone a favor.

Except for one scene.

And that's the interesting thing about this film. Right in the middle of this very generic, very ordinary film is a "come to Jesus" meeting between Ava (Chastain) and her mother (Davis). This scene was "Oscar worthy" with 2 very good actresses going back and forth with each other (with Davis dominating the scene). I gotta think that this scene was the only one Davis read when she agreed to do this film and was pouting during her other, generic scenes.

Director Tate Taylor (who took over when the original Director was bounced when past sexual indiscretions were unearthed) and writer Matthew Newton bring nothing new to the genre. It is all very...generic. The action scenes are professionally done, but generic. The situations are contrived and...generic. The acting is...scenery chewing generic. The ending is predictably generic.

All-in-all an "entertaining enough" generic action flick - except for that one scene (and maybe Malkovich's performance), they make it worthwhile.

Letter Grade: B

7 stars (out of 10 - it really is a "5", but will add a point for Malkovich and another point for the mother daughter scene). - and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)
  
Finding Home
Finding Home
Meg Harding | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Finding Home by Meg Harding
Finding Home starts off with Jared. He has lost his job, is living back with his mother as his husband cheated with someone else, and now he finds out that his grandma has died. His mother wants him out of the house so she sends him off to hell (Florida in May) where he finds more than he bargained for, and learns about just who he is and what he wants.

This is a sweet and steamy, low angst, story full of feel-good factors. Jared's brothers are all brilliant, and Chase is... well, Chase is Chase and I wouldn't change a thing. Jared's neuroses were a tad annoying to start with, but as his story became clear, all was forgiven as I literally couldn't see him growing up any differently given the circumstances.

One thing I loved in particular (without giving away any spoilers) is when Jared does something that others might not agree with, but he does it for himself, for his own reasons, and to find things out about himself. I LOVED THAT!!! He is aware of what jumping into something might be like, but he is prepared to work with himself to ensure that everything goes the way it should.

With no editing or grammatical errors that disrupted my reading flow, this was a page-turner that had humour, family, hotness, and love. Definitely recommended by me.

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa

Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
  
Aquaman (2018)
Aquaman (2018)
2018 | Action, Sci-Fi
Cinematography (0 more)
Very few bits and pieces (0 more)
The Aquaman
Contains spoilers, click to show
Aquaman has never been my favorite hero among DC Comics. Nor have I ever liked him. Once I saw Justice League with Jason Mamoa cast as Arthur Curry/Aquaman, I fell in love with this representation of the character. The movie kept my attention the entire two and a half hours, the scenes were big and beautiful. Mamoa was the perfect choice for the role, everything just fits well with each other. The casting for the entire film was brilliant. There were bits and pieces in the film that my wife and I were sort of chuckling at, not as in humor but more so the designs of some things. (I tagged this review with spoilers because of this.) Arthur finds his mother in the center of the Earth and she explains he has to go fight a big monster to get the ancient trident he so desperately needs, pretty standard superhero stuff right? Arthur does all that stuff, he comes back up and in this beautiful, cinematic scene he's standing there looking at Mera and his Mother, it reveals the "Aquaman Suit." Now, the original Aquaman suit was an orange and green scaled onesie. Which this new suit definitely is, just more metal and pointy parts to it. It was hard to take the suit seriously, and maybe it was because the entire movie we were so used to seeing Jason Mamoa shirtless, that seeing his torso covered was just strange. Other than a few choice designs in the movie, it was amazing, it was great, it was entertaining. I highly recommend watching it if you haven't already.
  
I forgot how much I loved a good paranormal romance novel until I discovered Frost. A couple of my favorite authors recommended Jeaniene Frost, singing her praises. I was a bit hesitant after the slew of horrible vampire romances that I have forced myself to make it through as of late.

Boy, was I pleasantly surprised. Frost’s fiery Cat immediately captured my attention. She was one of the first female protagonists who actually enjoyed being schooled about her weaknesses. Instead of being obnoxiously stubborn, she actually threw herself into making herself stronger and learning from her faults. I know that sounds like so many other female leads, but to me she seemed different. I didn’t feel that everything was a struggle between Cat and Bones. Whenever they fell in love, I could see how they got to that point. They did have fire and chemistry, but it was far from them continuously butting heads and arguing like so many other novels do.

I also enjoyed the simple plot. It wasn’t about Cat and Bones being the only two being able to save the world from certain doom. Of course, they did have a goal they were working towards, and an antagonist they had to take down. However, there were no random surprises that only the author could see coming and no twist that broke our necks from confusion.

However, I will state that Cat’s ridiculous mother seriously made me want to slam her face into the pavement. While Frost can create the likable characters of Bones and Cat, she can also create some monsters like Cat’s mother.
  
The Other Woman
The Other Woman
Sandie Jones | 2018 | Thriller
10
8.3 (15 Ratings)
Book Rating
Ahhh this book is SOOOOOO good! I looooved The Other Woman - but I hated how it made me feel. I was having anxiety so bad reading this. I really felt like I was in certain situations and I totally felt ALL the emotions as I was reading it. I felt like my whole brain was inside this book - and omg did Pammie make me SO angry!!

The Other Woman is a figure so many of us have in our lives... the dreaded mother-in-law. While mine is pretty amazing in real life, I know of so many friends who are not so lucky. The strain of having a bad relationship with a MIL has got to be so hard on a realtionship. But when it's borderline evil... I cannot even imagine. I literally was having chest pains reading this and felt like I was also going through all of the horribly awful things that Emily had to endure from her love Adam's psychotic mother, Pammie.

I sped through this. I needed to know what happened. If I put it down, I couldn't get it out of my head. But I had to put it down for fear of a panic attack! Its been a long time since I actually felt such strong emotions from a thriller. I got totally addicted and loved every minute of it. And when I got to the last page, about Sandie Jones, and read it was her debut?!? What the what!? New favorite author here. Must find out when her next book comes out.

Bravo. 5 Stars all around. One of my favorites this year so far.
  
40x40

Louise (64 KP) rated Beside Myself in Books

Jul 2, 2018  
Beside Myself
Beside Myself
Ann Morgan | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
6
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
I love a family drama mystery and the synopsis instantly pulled me in. Identical twins that swap places! surely the mother would realise or friends and family? Apart from the twins being identical in appearance their personalities are very different. Helen is the devious one, she has loads of friends and is confident, whereas Ellie is perhaps a bit behind for her age and has some social problems. One day Helen thinks it will be fun to play tricks on people by swapping identities and seeing whether they can tell. Only for Helen this is the biggest mistake of her life as Ellie doesn’t want to return to her former self and starts to reinvent herself and be Helen permanently. This lead Helen’s mental health to spiral out of control and becomes instantly labelled as a troublemaker by family and friends as she constantly tries to tell them that they have swapped. Years later when Helen has been cast out by her family, it’s only when a tragedy occurs that she is swept back into the drama by meeting her sister’s husband and daughter.

This book got a little confusing for me, I was having a little of a hard time of trying to keep up with who was who. At times I was skeptical towards the plot as it felt unrealistic in parts.The Mother was just an awful human being and treated her children badly.. This was difficult to read as Helen had such a tragic life and everything and one seemed to be against her. I would recommend reading if you enjoy family psychological drama.

Overall I rated this book 3/5 stars.
  
40x40

Tara (6 KP) rated Ink Iron and Glass in Books

Jul 3, 2018  
II
Ink Iron and Glass
Gwendolyn Clare | 2018 | Young Adult (YA)
8
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Has some twists you don't see coming! Keeps you guessing. Keeps building to the end. Makes you wish you had the next book ready so you can find out what happens next. (1 more)
Wasn't a complete cliffhanger, but it did leave you with questions. General curiosity to how the story will continue.
Starts off slow. A lot of characters appear at once. A few times I got a character mixed up with another. (0 more)
Keep with it!
Book Sleeve Description -
Can she write a world gone wrong?
A certain pen, a certain book, and a certain person can craft entirely new worlds through a branch of science called scriptology. Elsa comes from one such world that was written into creation, where her mother - a noted scriptologist - constantly alters and expands their reality.
But when her home is attacked and her mother kidnapped, Elsa is forced to cross into the real world and use her own scriptology gifts to find her. In an alternative Victorian Italy, Elsa finds a secret society of young scientists with a gift for mechanics, alchemy, or scriptology - and meets Leo, a gorgeous mechanist with a smart mouth and tragic past. She recruits the help of these fellow geniuses just as an assassin arrives on their doorstep.
In this thrilling debut, worlds collide as Elsa unveils a deep political conspiracy seeking to unlock the most dangerous weapon ever created - and only she can stop it.

Wish I had the second book so I can find out what happens!
New type of YA story.
Refreshing.
Can start off slow...trust me...stick with it!