Cry to Heaven
Book
Anne Rice brings to life the exquisite and otherworldly society of the eighteenth-century castrati,...
The Marinated Meeple (1848 KP) rated Peppermint (2018) in Movies
Sep 12, 2018
La Bible Catholique Audio Catholic Bible in French
Book and Education
App
La Bible Catholique. La Bible Augustin Crampon 1923 Traduction catholique du Chanoine Augustin...
The Book of Mormon
Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Joseph Smith
Book
"The Book of Mormon" is one of the most influential - as well as controversial - religious documents...
D-Tox (Eye See You) (2002)
Movie
A brutal serial killer is targeting cops, and detective Jake Malloy (Sylvester Stallone) is on the...
Slasher remote location Thriller
My Life as A Redhead: A Journal by Jacky Colliss Harvey
Jacky Colliss Harvey and Alexis Seabrook
Book
Life as a redhead is different. Throughout the ages, redheads have been celebrated and vilified,...
Fanya in the Underworld
Book
In an Alaska owned by Tsarist Russia, steamtech is melded with spirit magic to create a mighty...
Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) rated Passionaries (The Blessed, #2) in Books
Jun 7, 2018
I loved the first book in this series! Precious Blood was a fantastic read. However, Passionaries was a bit mediocre in my opinion.
I like the title, and I believe it is quite fitting for the book. A minor character in the book defines what passionaries are. They are some kind of books related to the Catholic religion. I don't know if that's fictitious or not (I did try searching for it and found nothing).
The cover is very gorgeous as are all of the covers of Tonya Hurley's books. The cover fits the book especially with the guitars and the sword.
The world building was a bit hit and miss. There were times when it seemed like something like this could happen. I mean, who says we can't have modern day saints? However, there were also times when it seemed a bit too unreal such as when people were getting murdered. For example, in one scene, the girls get attacked so they end up killing their attackers. They don't get arrested because there's no evidence. Surely they would've caught them on CCTV or someone would've seen the girls with blood all over them. Plus, there'd be so much forensic evidence. I also felt that sometimes there was sometimes some fight scenes just for the sake of having a fight scene.
The pacing started off slow but eventually find a decent pace. The pacing isn't as good as the first book in the series, but it still held my attention.
As for the plot, I don't really know what's going on. At least in the first book, it was the girls finding out they were saints. However, after reading this book, I don't know what's going on! I realize the girls are saints and there are some people that don't want the world to know that, but what I don't know is the why. Why do these people not want the world to know these girls are saints? I felt that the answer is just not very clear. Passionaries did have a plot twist that I never saw coming. There's also a big cliff hanger at the end of the story as to make way for the third book in the series.
The characters were all fabulously written. The girls are stronger in this book, and their saintly personalities show through. Saying that, Cecelia is more hardcore in this book then in the first one. At least I thought so. Dr. Frey is still very cunning as ever in Passionaries. One thing that did irk me was that Hurley brought in the character of Finn. To me, Finn is a totally pointless character. I really didn't see the relevance in bringing him into the story.
There were times when the dialogue did seem a bit awkward although this was mostly in the beginning of the book. I felt that the meeting between Dr. Frey and some of his associates at the beginning of the book had painful dialogue. It just didn't seem to flow naturally. Luckily, the problem is quickly solved. There is some swearing in Passionaries as well as graphic violence.
All in all, Passionaries fell short of my expectations. It was a little bit too confusing, and the world building just didn't seem all that realistic. I do want to read the next book in the series because I've invested so much time in this series. However, the expected publication is some time in 2015, so I may give it a miss since I tend to forget things that happened in books after so long.
I'd recommend this book to those aged 17+ who want to know more about Lucy, Cecelia, and Agnes.
Teresa of Avila: Doctor of the Soul
Book
Following the success of John of the Cross (Continuum 2010) and Return to the Mystical (Continuum...
The Fathers of the Church: Catecheses - St. Clement of Rome to St. Augustine of Hippo
Benedict and Joseph T. Lienhard
Book
At his Wednesday audiences during 2007 and 2008 Pope Benedict XVI gave a series of short talks on...