Laura
I suspect the writers of Father Ted were fans of O'Brien : the name-guessing sequences definitely rang a bell. There's a good reason for the illogical craziness, which was probably a very unusual plot device at the time of writing. I didn't think I was in the mood for a surreal story, but this has stuck with me and will definitely bear re-reading. A note for those students obliged to read this novel and not enjoying the surrealness : just let it wash over you like it's a weird dream, without making any attempt to make sense of it.
M.A.S.H meets James Herriot meets the evil empire (bureaucrats and politicians). Hilarious, awful, unbelievable ( although I believe every word of it), terribly sad, brilliant.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Lizbeth Rose travels to the Holy Russian Empire to free Eli from jail. Whilst there Felix arranges for her to ”save” the tsarina from an assassin, which gets her into the palace to visit the tsarina and get permission to visit Eli . She poses as a cleaner in the palace, and then kills the tsar's uncle, inadvertently sparking off a coup attempt by the dead uncle's family
The novel itself would have scraped a *** review, but the narrator dragged it down to 2 stars. A good narrator can lift a book, but this one is clumsily read, so that I kept being taken out of the story. It's a contemporary cosy mystery, set in an English seaside town, with a bit of a love interest starting up, presumably to be continued in the rest of the series. The characters are a bit two dimensional, which is a bad thing in a cosy mystery, where you don't have drama, passion or violence to pep it up. It passes the time.
I found the characters boring and the dialogue simplistic. Although it is marketed as YA, I think it is more suited to a younger age group.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Really cute pictures. More happy teen romance.
The day after the first kiss, the story continues. Nick & Charlie realise that they both have feelings for each other, and they meet each other's friends. Nicks gets on well with Charlie's friends, when they go bowling together, although Tao Xu is suspicious of Nick's motives Nick overhears Charlie defending him. When Charlie meets Nick's friends, Harry is repeatedly offensive and the others aren't much better. Afterwards Nick exchanges punches with Harry . Nick comes out to Tara and Darcy . After a lovely day at the beach Nick comes out to his mum
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Ex dark ops sniper offered release from prison in return for risky assassination job for ultra top secret spooks. Looks like there's going to be a love interest with his spotter . Characters stereotypical, dialogue wooden. Very boring, made worse by robotic narration.
Too tense for me.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
17 yr old Pip investigates the 5 yr old murder of a student at her school, assisted by the brother of the supposed killer. Cleverly constructed. Didn't warm to the characters much. The murderee was A drug dealer, bully, and heartless to her sister, due to miserable upbringing. Sal, presumed to have killed her, and to have committed suicide, was murdered himself
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Enjoyable, enemies to lovers story. Has some fantasy elements. Iris is left alone with her alcoholic motherwhen her brother leaves to fight for the goddess Enva in a war against the God Dacre Iris had to leave school early and work at a newspaper where she is vying with Roman for the position of correspondent . Roman gets the position and Iris' mother dies so she gets a job as war correspondent with a rival newspaper All along she has been unknowingly Communicating with Roman by magical typewriter . Both Iris and Roman end up at the battle front because he has followed her there to keep her safe. In the end Roman is gassed and almost dead and Iris is dragged away by her brother . Left as a cliffhanger, so one star removed as this is irritating.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Man with many failings is collected by a reaper after his death, and taken to a café in some woods, where souls go to pass on when they are ready. The living humans visiting the café are not aware of the souls or of the café's real purpose. He meets the owner His eventual love interest and the owner's dad who it turns out has not passed on because his son is not ready to cope without him. Souls are not allowed to leave the café except by the trap door in the roof, which is the door to the afterlife . One previous soul has run away and is deteriorating. The hero helps to bring him back into the fold . At the end the hero is restored to life and will remain to love and assist the café manager (I think forever)
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Linus, a Repressed, but decent man working for a grim magical supervisory department is sent to a mysterious far away island. Here he finds 6 especially different magical children Lucy (Lucifer), son of the devil; Talia, a gnome; Chauncey, a jelly-fish-like creature who wants to be a bellhop; Sal, a frightened and damaged shape-shifter; Theodore, a wyvern; and Phee, a forest sprite. Two adults care for the children Arthur, who eventually turns out to also be magical, a phoenix; and Zoe, and island sprite. Linus is afraid of them all at first, but gradually loosens up, and helps them to branch out as well. Tension introduced by way of hostility from bigots in the nearby village.
The story focuses on the 2 main characters, and I found them flat and unconvincing. I could tell that it was going to get really angsty eventually, which is not my thing.
Sam is quite far along the spectrum. Alex, his dad, has not coped well with this. His mother, Jodie, initiates a separation from his Alex in the hope that this will spark a change in his behaviour and relationship with Sam. They bond over the Minecraft game
The characters were one dimensional and interchangeable. Too many introduced too fast. I didn't care in the slightest what might happen to any of them. I was bored from the start until I gave up. I'm going to leave this book on my phone for when I next have insomnia.
Poem/play about a small Welsh village. Beginning at night, describing the scene, and then the villager's surprising dreams. The action continues until the following evening. Dark thoughts behind the respectability. All sorts of bad behaviour going on. Beautiful imagery in the introduction. Got a bit bored by the end, but impressed.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Story switches backwards and forwards in time over a period of about 3 years. Secrets and traumas are gradually revealed. The ending is happy all around, and feels rather artificial and forced after all the drama and suffering.
Twin brother and sister sometimes close, sometimes jealous and estranged, both want to get into art school. Jude does, Noah doesn't . Their parents, married from when their mother was very young separate. Their mother is having an affair with the sculptor that Jude will eventually unknowingly work with. Her mother is killed in a car accident.
I have hidden major spoilers to aid my memory. Read them at your peril.
Story of a woman, her brother and her school friend in 2 parts. First part, when they were children and kept a terrible secret from everyone else she was sexually abused by their neighbour whom she didn't want to reject because he was her then only friend. Also, the brother never got over being rejected by a boy who was the love of his life Second part as adults, dealing with the fallout. Also, the friend ended up in jail The first part is best. Small amount of magical realism around the rabbit.
All characters excellent, writing very good. Inventive. Loved it.
The latest in the Strike/Robin detective agency series. It has a main investigation of a cold case, and several smaller jobs, running concurrently. These, plus the interplay between Strike, Robin and several new employees of the agency held my interest, despite the length of the book, which I would normally find off-putting.
The title suggests the common format of “Youngish heroine, hit by crisis, starts cute small business, eventually triumphs.” Carole Matthews often writes stories with more interesting plots, and here is one of them. Early-forties Fay is already running the cute cake shop, and is overworked and stuck in a rut. The author is very good on character and plot, more so than many in this genre. However, the heroine does need to be shaken until her teeth rattle for being such a willing doormat, which is annoyingly true-to-type for many romances. That irritation aside, this is a cut above most chick lit.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Beautifully atmospheric Oxford. The story does move on elsewhere eventually, but is the poorer for it. Still very good though. Paranormal creatures who are much less fantastical than in other works, so it's more believable that they get away with living in plain sight. A slow but, for me, fascinating start. There is scary action, but it's not mostly about that. It's more about the developing relationship between Matthew and Diana, meeting the other characters (mercifully, not a cast of thousands), and slowly revealing what is going on. Not much spice, even behind closed doors. In fact, I'm awaiting an explanation in the next book for why Matthew STILL won't consummate, even though she's taking birth control
Set in Oxford, where Diana first meets Matthew. As a witch & vampire they should be antagonists. She is researching in the Bodleian and requests a strange old alchemical manuscript. Suddenly all kinds of magical creatures are interested, and Diana is in danger from The Congregation, a group of 9 : 3 each of witches, vampires & daemons, who rule. They visit His 16thC home in Oxford, his mother in their French chateau (from whence Diana is kidnapped & tortured, & rescued), and Diana's family in the USA. Here their answer to the Congregation is formed - . a Conventicle of good guys . At the end D & M have Traveled back to 16thC England to find the original manuscript and find witches to train Diana
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
This is a fun, easy read. It is about learning to trust, and finding love, both romantic and family love. It is a cosy read, with lots of happy family interaction, spells and naughtiness.
Mika, a witch, was lonely throughout her childhood, and not much has changed. Like all other witches she lives separately from her kind and rarely sees them. Also, she does not trust non witches because whenever she has told them what she is, they have either been horrified or have used her. She accepts an offer to tutor 3 child witches, whilst their guardian, a witch called Lilian, is away. The children live with 4 adult non-witches out in the countryside. At first one of the children, and their handsome guardian, don't trust her. But gradually this changes, and things are going well until Mika finds out that once again she has been lied to all along. Lilian is dead and buried in the garden, her death concealed in any attempt to keep the children in their loving home.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
I don't have a good explanation, I was just really bored from quite early on. These notes are for my own use.
Sadie, girl visiting her sick sister in hospital, meets badly injured boy, Sam, gaming on his own. She is the first person he has opened up to since His mother was killed in the car crash that almost destroyed his foot. They don't meet again until they are both students at MIT because she was claiming the hours with him as credits towards her bat mitzvah, and he feels betrayed. Eventually, they create a game together which is about a 3 year old who gets swept away to sea and takes 7 years to get home again. They use a gaming engine written by Dov ,the married ex professor and on/off lover of Sadie. They are also helped by Sam's kind college room mate Marx who will go on to father Sadie's child and die in tragic circumstances that I didn't get to, just flipped forward to see what happened
I just couldn't get into it. The first bit, when Locke was a child was promising. But it quickly moved onto adulthood and just dragged. I don't mind books taking their time if something is added to the experience by the extra pages, but this just felt like padding. Maybe things would improve eventually, as suggested by the positive reviews, but I've got to the point where I'm making excuses not to read it.
I lke Nora Roberts' writing style, and a little of that style is in this book, which meant that I actually finished it. The characters were all dull, and the plot, such as it was, was predictable. 2 things particularly irritated me:
1. There is one non-white good guy in the story (in fact I think in the whole book). Only one of the good guys doesn't make it to the end, and colour me not in the least bit surprised - it's King. - the depressingly familiar expendable black character, yet again. Casual racism is alive and well in too many fims and books.
2. This supposedly wily 2000 year old vampire baddy can only come up with one method of attack, namely send a vampire/s to pretend to be humans in need of help - 3 times!!! And guess what? The good guys don't fall for it the first 2 times, but the 3rd time they do!
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Risa is searching for the 2nd of 3 keys to hell. It is currently held by an evil sorceress. Risa is reunited with Azriel . Several unsavoury characters want the keys and threaten her friends if she fails. Crazy head vampire, Madeleine Hunter has journalist Jak, Risa's ex, killed as an incentive. Risa's evil father puts a magic cord around Mirri's neck, which will throttle her in 48 hours . The Raziq also issue dire threats. In the end Risa fails to get the 2nd key, Miri is saved by her partner Illiana and other witches, Risa kills her father.
It passed the time, but my attention was wandering. It's much the same as the last one.