Cinco de Murder
Book
Tex-Mex waitress and part-time reporter Josie Callahan serves up more Lone Star justice in this...
Darkness
Book
“Any man who takes control of a woman’s rights at any stage of her life is a terrorist.” ...
Hold Back the Night
Book
March 2020. Annie is alone in her house as the world shuts down, only the ghosts of her memories for...
Podcasts – Wild Ride Radio
Podcast
Wild Ride Radio is a motorcycle show designed specifically for Bikers, and those with a love of two...
End of Ever After: A Cinderella Retelling
Book
"I had never wondered about Snow White once her prince kissed and whisked her away. I had imagined a...
Young_Adult Fairy_Tales
My Last: Riley & Chelle
Book
After twelve years in the Marines Special Forces Riley Sloan is more than ready to start his new...
ClareR (5686 KP) rated No Place to Hide in Books
May 20, 2023
This is a slow burn of a novel, and the main character, Adam, has a good reason for always feeling watched. Twenty-four years ago whilst studying Medicine at Cambridge, Adam makes a pact with a student filmmaker that he probably believes will come to nothing. Or at least he hopes it never will.
When he “bumps into” an old flame from university (or he wishes she had been), the memories of the circumstances surrounding the pact come flooding back. From then on we go between two timelines, university and the present day, as Adams life starts to go down the pan.
His perfect family life, his perfect career, are both very much on the line. His past is going to have far-reaching consequences on his present.
This is dark, rather disturbing and terribly tense! You won’t be able to look at CCTV cameras, your phone or ANY modern technology in quite the same way again! I was gripped until the final page.
A fabulous read on my online book club, The Pigeonhole - and thanks to J. S. Monroe for reading along with us.
Sarah (7798 KP) rated The ‘86 Fix in Books
Aug 22, 2020
To start, this is not a massively sci-fi centric novel despite featuring time travel. The time travel element is almost secondary to the drama and humour that form the main plot of Craig Pelling’s life. In a book where the main plot device (the time travel) doesn’t feature until half way through, you’d be forgiven for expecting to be bored senseless by then but this really isn’t the case. This is mainly because Craig and his life is fascinating. Craig isn’t your usual protagonist - he’s flawed, living a dead end existence and feels just like your average Joe and you can’t help but root for him. It’s intriguing to read about him, his life and his relationships and by the time the time travel element happens, you’re very much invested in Craig and are cheering for him to make amends to his life via his past experiences. It’s all rather heartwarming and quite funny at times too, and it’s so well written.
And then the ending happens. I can’t lie, I was torn between crying and screaming in frustration by the time I reached the end of the book. Not because it was bad, but because I just didn’t see the ending coming and without spoilers, it’s not quite the ending you’d expect or want for a character you’ve been rooting for over the entire book. Despite my frustrations though, it was a surprising ending and enjoyable - I’m so glad the sequel is readily available as I can’t not jump right into it now as I really need to find out what happens to Craig.
This book reminds me a lot of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August as that’s another of my favourites too and has a similar drama/sci-if vibe, and I’d definitely recommend The ‘86 Fix if you’ve ever read Harry August (or even if you haven’t).
The Comfort Food Diaries: My Quest for the Perfect Dish to Mend a Broken Heart
Book
In the tradition of Elizabeth Gilbert and Ruth Reichl, former New Yorker editor Emily Nunn...
Biography food
Lee (2222 KP) rated Bad Boys for Life (2020) in Movies
Jan 20, 2020
OK, full disclaimer - I haven't seen Bad Boys and I haven't seen Bad Boys II. I probably wouldn't have been concerned about seeing this third installment either if I'm honest, but I found myself with a couple of hours to kill in London over the weekend, with Bad Boys for Life being literally the only movie that I hadn't seen which was showing at a convenient time. General opinion online so far seems to be that this is a fairly decent entry into the franchise though, and not necessarily something where you needed to have seen the previous movies in order to enjoy, so I decided to give it a shot. Consequently, there may be things about this movie that fans of the series will be happy to see or that they will be disappointed to see, but which I can't really comment on. I was heading into this like it was a standalone movie.
So, with Burnett trying to adjust to a life of relaxation at home, getting under his wife's feet in the process, it's up to Lowrey to tackle the assassin threat. However, due to him being one of their targets, he's forced to join the AMMO squad as a consultant. AMMO are Miami PD's elite team, utilising technology to track and monitor high-profile criminals, and the majority of the team are all considerably younger than Lowrey too. To them, Lowrey is just the old man that would rather shoot first and ask questions later, and it's not long before a frustrated Lowrey is disobeying orders, taking charge and introducing the team to some of his Bad Boy ways.
As far as buddy cop action movies go, Bad Boys for Life was an absolute blast. I've seen reviewers negatively describe the impact that Michael Bay had on the last Bad Boys movie with his over the top action mayhem style of film making. However, this time around, new co-directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi are in charge (although Bay does have a small cameo in the movie!) and while the action is still frenetic at times, it's also a lot more coherent too. The pacing in Bad Boys for Life felt spot on and with a good mix of humour, some decent villains and some fast paced inventive action that you can actually follow, it all makes for an enjoyable ride.