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Forced into deception by the Earl of Plimmwald, will Avelina be able to keep up the facade of being his daughter Lady Dorothea?

The king has ordered Reinhart, the new Margrave of Thornbeck to marry. Knowing he can not deny the king, Lord Thornbeck summons the ten women the king has chosen as suitable matches. For two weeks he plans to test these women to find the most noble lady among them, and choose her as his bride. Little does he know that not all of the ladies presented to him are truly born of nobility. When Avelina arrives at Thornbeck castle, masquerading as Lady Dorothea, she is convinced she will be found out. However as the days pass, she finds it easier to pretend to be a lady, instead of the maidservant she truly is. She has two goals: To make sure no one discovers that she is a servant, and to keep Lord Thornbeck from choosing her as his bride. For if her secret is revealed, destruction and ruin will be brought upon Avelina and her family.

The Beautiful Pretender is "Happily Ever After" at its finest! Melanie Dickerson has a beautiful gift for bringing classic fairy tales to life in an incredibly new and different way. Every page is filled with beautiful descriptions of the castle, clothes, grounds and lifestyle of the medieval times. These fairy tales (and especially Avelina's story) are much more realistic than the Disney adaptations (however I am addicted to fairy tales in general), and makes me feel like these stories could have actually happened. The Beautiful Pretender will have you biting your nails from the first page and there are plenty of suspenseful moments that will keep you turning those pages until you can not keep your eyes open any longer! (Yes, I say this from experience...) This story is such a lovely romance. Seeing in our characters something that I believe we can all identify with, the desire to be wanted and loved for who we are. And we must never forget the One who loves us more than anyone ever could. He who loves us exactly as we are, regardless of our heritage and in spite of our imperfections. Never forget that as a son or daughter of our Lord, you are royalty.

I received a free copy of The Beautiful Pretender from Thomas Nelson Publishers through Book Look Bloggers in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.
  
There's plenty of letters and journals preserved regarding royalty, aristocrats and other rich and famous people but less about more ordinary people. OK, so most of ancestors would have been peasants/yeomen who would have been unlikely to be able to read, but every so often something does turn up which throws some light on our understanding of what we might consider to be more ordinary people. The Paston letters are one famous example and the story presented in the book is another discovery along the same sort of lines.

Our story begins in India, with William Jackson, who will be the father of our 'profligate son'. It is while in India that he meets his future wife and several other influential connections. A major incident here also has an impact on this William's future. The Profligate Son of the title is the son of this William Jackson, also called William Jackson, just to confuse the issue! Jackson senior had returned to England and was a reasonably wealthy man of the new middle classes. He had, however, made his fortune in trade and was keen for his only son to receive a good education and go into the law - one of the gentlemanly occupations at this time.

Unfortunately, William was not particularly interested in a good education, but far more interested in pursuing what he considered 'gentlemanly' pursuits - being idle and frivolous, drinking conspicuous amounts and consorting with women of easy virtue! In spite of the admonitions of his father and the pleadings of his affectionate mother, William continued into a downward spiral - resorting to forgery and deception to gain what it really seems he believes he was entitled to. The Georgian world, in some ways not dissimilar to modern days, was largely built upon trades-persons extending credit, which allowed William to get away with so much. We follow our anti-hero through various prisons and courts until he is finally transported to Australia. I find it most amazing that he never seems to repent of what he has done and really seems to believe that there has been a miscarriage of justice against him!

This story has been preserved through the writings of Mr Jackson, the father, and the letters between various family members which have been preserved for all this time. an interesting insight into the seamier side of Georgian life - and perhaps a lesson for people in these times who are too apt to live upon credit!
  
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Sarah (7798 KP) rated Cats (2019) in Movies

Jan 15, 2020  
Cats (2019)
Cats (2019)
2019 | Musical
Stuff of nightmares
From the moment I saw the trailer, I knew I wasn't going to like this film. Having never seen the stage show, I went into this completely blind and to be honest, after 100 minutes of this nonsense I wish I was blind.

Usually I'll try to find something good to say about a film, but I'm really struggling with this. I feel like giving it a 2 is rather generous. Other than appreciating the amount of effort on the CGI and the song Memory, I really cannot identify any other good points whatsoever.

Now where do I start on the bad? The cats themselves are beyond disturbing. People dressed as cats in the stage show I can understand. Human features on cat bodies is just crazy and looks ridiculous. The fact that they alternate between 2 and 4 legged with human features, it beggars belief. I hoped I might get used to it, but i really didnt especially when they start hissing, preening and acting like real cats - it's terrifying and laughable all at once. The scaling of the cats against the scenery also looks a little misjudged, especially when they stand up.

The story and rest of the film doesn't fare much better. The songs (except for Memory) are surprisingly poor for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and no others are particularly memorable. The plot itself is also very thin and has barely any substance, the fact that they've managed to drag this out to 100 minutes is impressive. I also couldn't stand the words "Jellicle" and "Heaviside" - they sound like something from a kids cartoon and they began to grate on me very quickly. And the cast: James Corden, Rebel Wilson and Ray Winstone - just no. They are all so cringingly bad I could barely watch. And even acting royalty like Ian McKellen and Judi Dench don't survive this car crash intact. The final song and scenes with the direct address to camera is possibly the most embarrassingly cringeworthy thing I've seen in a long time.

It may only be January, but I doubt anything else I see in 2020 will be worse than this. I would have happily walked out of this 15 minutes in and never thought twice. The fact that I've sat through the entire thing made me want to claw my eyes out. I cannot unsee this.

If you want to watch a film musical about cats, watch The Aristocats. Do not waste your time on this!
  
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Nick Beaty (70 KP) Jan 15, 2020

"After 100 minutes I wish I was blind" 😂 Brilliant quote

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LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Suicide Squad (2016) in Movies

Sep 1, 2019 (Updated Sep 2, 2019)  
Suicide Squad (2016)
Suicide Squad (2016)
2016 | Action
Yikes
I, like many of you, really like comic books. So in this day and age, where films like Elektra, The Spirit, Catwoman, Daredevil etc, are just a horrible joyless memory, it takes something truly special to make you nearly hate comic book movies forevermore.

Suicide Squad is that something truly special.

After being saddened by the underwhelming Batman vs Superman, I had my hopes set high for SS. The trailers looked fantastic. I couldn't wait to see characters such as Katana, Enchantress, Harley Quinn, Deadshot etc, finally have their moment in the spotlight. I couldn't wait to see what Jared Leto brought to the table as The Joker. I was ready to be shown that BvS was a one off misstep, and that the DCEU properties were ready to take their place amongst comic book film royalty.
I'm almost cross at myself for being so very silly.

Where to begin - I guess characters.
I have no problem with Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. I thought she was fine. The script is terrible in places but that's not her fault.
Another character that suffers from the script is Deadshot. Again, I have no problem with Will Smith (except that the movie threatens to become the Will Smith show on occasion), but the script turns him into a tool to spout one liners and name check the movies title.
Enchantress is just a weird gyrating CGI embarrassment that is given little room to do anything else.
Everyone else is a waste - Katana, Killer Croc, Diablo - all so boring.
Same goes for Boomerang (although I get the feeling that Jai Courtney genuinely tried his best with what he was given)

And then there's The Joker. I can't honestly tell whether I liked him or not - he was hardly in it! Although his brief appearance was more interesting than the rest of the film for sure.

The whole film is set to a soundtrack of 'cool' rock songs that I would have put on a mixtape when I was 12, and they're relentless. It feels like every two minutes another song is obnoxiously blasted into my poor eyes and ears.

The film feels like one huge trailer. It's edited and chopped up jarringly, and it's a film that evidently has suffered from re shoots and studio meddling.
I refuse to believe that the same man who directed the damn good 'Fury' is solely responsible for this car crash.

Hopefully, James Gunn can keep the suits at bay and deliver a home run with the next attempt...
  
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