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Secrets of a Serial Killer
Secrets of a Serial Killer
Rosie Walker | 2020 | Crime, Thriller
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is the chilling, creepy and unnerving story of a serial killer, his victim, her mother and 2 young children out for a bit of an adventure amongst the ruins of an old mental hospital in the north west UK city of Lancaster.

Told from multiple points of view, this is a pretty fast moving book, once the usual introductions to the various characters has been completed, and what a great cast of characters the author has created here. The author is also clearly adept at describing the eerie setting and at creating atmosphere ... I was transported to the old hospital, the derelict caravan and the woods surrounding them. The tension and fear in each of the characters is really well told and builds and builds throughout until the gripping and nail-biting conclusion.

Although I enjoyed this book, I do have a few issues that prevent this from being a 5 star read - there was next to nothing regarding the Police input or investigation and they came across as being inept and pretty useless, particularly at the end but I won't go into it here as it would be a spoiler but you will see what I mean when you read it. Also, the blog posts inserted at various points didn't really do anything for me or add to the story that much and I wonder if they were put there as a red-herring?

Despite the niggling issues, this is a creditable and decent debut and even though there are a few unanswered questions, in addition to the cliff-hanger, they are either left to the imagination of the reader or are going to be resolved in another instalment? If so, I would definitely read it.

My thanks go to HarperCollinsUK and One More Chapter via NetGalley for my advance copy in return for an unbiased and unedited review.
  
Swamp Thing
Swamp Thing
2019 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
One of DC's Current Bests
Swamp Thing is a 2019 superhero horror/drama tv series developed by Gary Dauberman and Mark Verheiden with Executive Producers James Wan, Len Wiseman and Michael Clear. It was produced by Big Shoe Productions, Inc., Atomic Monster Productions, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television and distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The show stars Crystal Reed, Virginia Madsen, Andy Bean, Derek Mears, Jessica Beals, and Will Patton.


Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed) returns to her hometown of Marais, Louisiana investigating a deadly swamp-borne virus for the CDC . She develops a bond with Alec Holland (Andy Bean), a disgraced scientist who dies tragically soon after, but Holland may not be dead after all, as Abby discovers the mysteries of the swamp transform him into Swamp Thing.


This show is really cool. It makes me want to go back and watch the old movies to compare how they hold up. I was amazed with how dark they kept the story with the rating being TV-MA and there being so much blood and gore. The actors are great and there are some amazing performances but I also feel that some characters are not introduced well and just kind of come out of nowhere. They feel kind of unnecessary or just extra but I love the tone and horror vibe the show has going and what feels like a bigger story arc they are trying to setup with "the Green" and "the darkness" in the swamp of Marais. The visual effects are really top notch and Swamp Thing himself looks impressive. I give this show a 9/10 and it also gets my "Must See Seal of Approval".


I just really hope it doesn't stay cancelled and that they get another season, it really deserves it.
  
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Kate (493 KP) rated French Kiss in Books

Jul 13, 2020  
French Kiss
French Kiss
Stacy Travis | 2020 | Romance, Travel
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Feel good, love story (0 more)
Timing on one section is incorrect and doesn't tie in well (0 more)
This book is a real feel good book. It's a book that wouldn't be out of place being read on a sun lounger somewhere hot on holiday. I would definitely recommend it to people. Even though it did have some low moments for the character, the highs outweighed these.
The description of the places made me feel like I was there and it made me want to revisit to Paris again.
This was a strong love story and I feel the descriptions and the setting helped bring this to life.
It was a love story between characters and the place.
The only downside was the timing of one part of the book.
The main character was due to meet the guy at 5pm and she arrived at 4.45pm. The character then sat down on the grass with the person she did meet and went onto a restaurant. They then discussed going to a museum which closed at 5pm (and I'm sure they had spent more than 15 minutes chatting and being in a restaurant ordering food). After ordering food they agreed to go to the museum and the main character said they still had 2 hours before it closed. This just didn't add up. The way it sounded was that the time was 3pm. This was very confusing and it did affect how I read that part of the book as it confused me. I even had to go back and re read it to make sure I wasn't incorrect and had read it incorrectly the first time.
Apart from that it was a good story line and as I said the descriptions of the places were perfect.
I received a complimentary copy of the book from the author via Voracious Readers Only.
  
Music of My Mind by Stevie Wonder
Music of My Mind by Stevie Wonder
1972 | Rock
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"It's the first record produced by Stevie Wonder, and one where he plays everything himself. The contract he signed with Motown meant that he would be in complete control. There may be other albums by him where he's more consistent. Or maybe they're more classic. But it's the approach to that record, and the sound that I love. 'Love Having You Around' is one of my favourite Stevie Wonder songs. The whole record has this funkiness to it, and his drumming is unlike any other drummer I've heard. He speeds up and slows down on the track. On 'Love Having You… he's just really grooving, because he's playing music with himself. It's not done to a click track. That kind of movement and the grooves are the things I like most in the music - that's something I think about a lot when making music as well, I'm always trying to get away from using a click track. It can be much more exciting to have things constantly speeding up and slowing down. There's just something about people doing records on their own that I really like. I remember when I heard this for the first time, and it was so distorted, and maybe there was a vocoder being used. The first time I put it in, I was thinking that maybe they'd put the wrong CD in the box - maybe a Jeff Beck one, something more bluesy! I really liked that in itself. Stevie's experimenting! There's a real playfulness about this, that I try to have in the music-making that I do! It's having the confidence to play around and being aware that you might stumble on to something."

Source
  
I read the first book in this series a few months ago and really quite enjoyed it so when I got my KU subscription and saw this was in the catalogue I decided to grab this one, too.

This one picks up not long after the events of the first with Raine now being persona non grata in Dark River apart from her four guys. It's going to take some time for the townspeople to come to terms with Raine being the victim of their well-loved, long-term resident (who I won't name.) It seems that what went down in their little town has drawn the attention of the Vampire Nation and they are on their way to investigate.

I did enjoy the first one, this one wasn't quite as engaging. I felt this one was getting a little too complicated with all the new lovers she was acquiring. Four men I can cope with - and have read several books with four males in reverse harems - but I think that at the end of this Raine was quickly verging on about 7 or 8 men that she would happily share her bed with and the others not be bothered about. It was getting a little ridiculous for me.

I can't say the storyline of this one pulled me into it, either. It was rather reminiscent of the first. Someone wants her dead, various attempts on her life and then saved by her guys - only the number of them has multiplied a little. There was quite a lot of sex in this, with various partners and combinations of men. It felt rather heavy on the erotica side of romance and I wasn't entirely convinced by the feelings floating around.

As much as I liked the first book I don't think I'll be continuing the series.
  
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Brian Eno recommended Glider by My Bloody Valentine in Music (curated)

 
Glider by My Bloody Valentine
Glider by My Bloody Valentine
1990 | Rock
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I was doing a lecture tour mostly in California and I was being driven from place to place by my friend David Snow. I bought this CD [Glider], I don't know why I brought it with me, I hadn't heard it, I'd just picked it up on the way over from England. I put this first song on ('Soon') and I never played anything else. I don't know if I ever have ever played the other songs on it. I just put that thing on and it's just such a sonic experience, and in a car it's amazing. We had a hired car with an amazing sound system, and just being inside that music actually has a lot to do with what I'm doing now with this three-dimensional thing. You get that feeling in a car where you're really inside the music, you don't really get it in a room very often. It's such a statement. I remember that experience in the car so strongly as we hadn't actually used the hi-fi before in the car and it was turned up really loud. Oh my god. It's so chaotic, and recording doesn't capture chaos very well, it usually tames it, it contains it in a way. Again, it's about voices. One of the things that I really love in that is the fact that there's singing in there but you have no idea what it's doing. You can hear that somewhere in that thicket of noise there's somebody doing something but you have no idea what it is. I thought that was great, that singing could be like that. It doesn't have to be this person at the front with all the articulation and every word clear. It can just be a person in that mess and that was a real liberation for me."

Source
  
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Nancy Whang recommended Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys in Music (curated)

 
Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys
Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys
1989 | Hip-hop, Rock
8.0 (4 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"It's a brilliant album. What's not to like? It's universally loved and accepted as an album, as a collection of music. When you're a kid you listen to Beastie Boys because you like to sing '(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)' because it's silly and fun but Paul's Boutique is sophisticated and mature, as well as being really musical, which I really like about it. And long before I had any awareness of what sampling was, all the different bits that they use I was always curious about what they were. I always knew they were from other songs, because some of them I recognised. But it was super fascinating to me. I was already in love with New York and the idea of moving to New York. And in my adolescent fantasy I thought: ""I'm going to graduate high school, I'm going to move out of the house, I'm going to move straight to New York, and then maybe, one day, I'll get to meet one of the Beastie Boys."" And now I've met all of them! James [Murphy] is really good friends with Ad-Rock and he'd be at the studio with us and I'd go there and be with Adam, and eat pizza with Adam. It was so bizarre because 15-year-old me was losing her mind but I had to be cool. But also it was totally normal because he's just a normal guy and he's hanging out with my friend who's just a normal guy and they're doing normal stuff. But no matter how many times I meet them or see them I've never stopped being star-struck. I have to stop myself falling apart."

Source
  
Escape Room (2019)
Escape Room (2019)
2019 | Action, Horror, Thriller
Contains spoilers, click to show
In short, Escape Room is actually a pretty tight thriller with a really disappointingly shitty ending.
It's disappointing because I found myself unexpectedly enjoying the bulk of the movie, even if it doesn't carry a lot of substance.

It's a more recent entry into the currently popular and seemingly unending PG-13 corner of horror. This of course means little in the way of gore or scares, something that I would usually take issue with, but managed to get on board with in this instance.
The set up is resemblant of Saw, but the later films in that franchise are evidence that more gore certainly doesn't make for a better film. With the focus here not being on violence but the actual puzzles the characters have to work through, I found it to be fairly engaging.
The set pieces and room designs are imaginative, and a lot of these moments are suitably tense.
The cast are decent as well - Taylor Russell, Tyler Labine and Nik Dodani are likeable, and I always enjoy Deborah Ann Woll whenever she pops up in things.

My main gripe however is the plot. The premise is really straightforward, not much room for error in that respect, so the inclusion of a faceless Hostel-esque corporation who caters to rich people who profit from this whole thing is just dumb. It's feels lazy, unnecessary, and more than anything, really tacked on and rushed. The ending flies by in an attempt to hastily set up a sequel rather than focusing on ending this film in a satisfying manner. It's a real shame because the majority of the film is relatively entertaining, and the climax just de-rails it completely.

Escape Room is worth watching for the Saw meets Cube premise, but ultimately ends up being a bang average thriller.