The Front Runner (2018)
Movie Watch
Oscar® nominee Hugh Jackman stars as the charismatic politician Gary Hart for Academy...
Gunshots & Goalposts: The Story of Northern Irish Football
Book
Protestant v Catholic, unionist v nationalist, east versus west, their team against my team. This is...
Why the Beach Boys Matter
Book
via Edelweiss "The musical, historical, and cultural argument for the centrality of the Beach...
Music criticism music history surf rock surf music pop music
The Demon Next Door
Book
Best-selling author Bryan Burrough (Barbarians at the Gate, Public Enemies, Big Rich) recently made...
A Little Hatred
Book
War. Politics. Revolution. The Age of Madness has arrived . . . The chimneys of industry rise...
Lessons
Book
While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has...
WW2 Post war Germany Post War UK Relationships Literary Fiction Historical Fiction
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Smoke and Iron (The Great Library, #4) in Books
Jan 30, 2023
Book
Smoke and Iron ( The Great Library #4 )
By Rachel Caine
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The opening moves of a deadly game have begun. Jess Brightwell has put himself in direct peril, with only his wits and skill to aid him in a game of cat and mouse with the Archivist Magister of the Great Library. With the world catching fire, and words printed on paper the spark that lights rebellion, it falls to smugglers, thieves, and scholars to save a library thousands of years in the making...if they can stay alive long enough to outwit their enemies.
So it’s all coming to an end! I’m so sad to see the series end but also so grateful I found it. Book one took two attempts to get through but once I had I didn’t look back.
I can’t imagine living in a world where The Library rules what we are exposed to where it is so corrupt it causes a world war. We all expect it from religion or politics but not from books and librarians. This is such a brilliant series to sink into.
Just a shame we are at its end!!
Wayfarers of the South Tigris
Tabletop Game
Wayfarers of the South Tigris is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 820 AD. As...
Frozen Flowers Fallen (Gen-Heirs World: Bella and the Beast Master)
Book
In a country obsessed with genetically inherited gifts, Bella Fenwick is no one special. At least...
Paranormal Romance
David McK (3773 KP) rated Scoundrel (the sailing thrillers, #5) in Books
Nov 29, 2023
Maybe because I'm *from* Belfast, Northern Ireland and have relatives who lived through the period of history colloquially known as The Troubles (I was a teenager in the 90s, when they 'ended', and when this is set), so know exactly what the IRA and their loyalist counterparts were/are like.
It made my blood boil to read passages in this where they were treated as heroes by some in Boston (and, yes, I know it's a fiction book): surely to goodness nobody could be that naive??
Anyway, I normally like Bernard Cornwell (Author) novels.
I know he spent a bit of time here (the BBC, I believe?), before moving to the States.
His knowledge of landmarks does show.
I would have thought he would have known better, though, in how he portrays the tangled mess that is politics and history that went on in this fair isle.
Sorry, Mr Paul Shanahan: you're unlikeable as a lead character; no match to a Richard Sharpe or an Uhtred of Bebbanburg.
(his other stand-alone sailing thrillers - those I have read, at least - are all much better)

