Tag Archives: 4star

vagabond

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Vagabond (Grail Quest #2) by Bernard Cornwell

From Goodreads:

In 1347, a year of conflict and unrest, Thomas of Hookton returns to England to pursue the Holy Grail. Among the flames of the Hundred Years War, a sinister enemy awaits the fabled archer and mercenary soldier: a bloodthirsty Dominican Inquisitor who also seeks Christendom’s most holy relic. But neither the horrors of the battlefield nor sadistic torture at the Inquisitor’s hands can turn Thomas from his sworn mission. And his thirst for vengeance will never be quenched while the villainous black rider who destroyed everything he loved still lives.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I don’t really understand why I’m enjoying this series so much but I really am. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever read but maybe that is the reason why?

Overall I’d struggle to explain what happens in this book and how the story progresses. It’s jam packed full of characters, individual small stories and great characters and while there is plenty of action the overall story doesn’t really move forward much. At the end of the book not a lot has changed compared to the start. Maybe that’s it, maybe that’s the reason why?

One definite reason are the battle scenes. I’ve read series’ by the same author set in Viking and Celtic times where the battles revolve around individual swordsmen and their experiences. With the main character being an archer it’s a different perspective. You get his viewpoint but also that of others and the overall battle scene. This combination is fantastic to read. In many battle scenes I skim through as the detail can be repetitive and boring but not in this case, here I devoured every word.

I do like Thomas, the main character. He is flawed and imperfect, very much reluctant to take up the quest and therefore much more realistic and believable. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens next with his story.

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bare bones

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Bare Bones (Temperance Brennan #6) by Kathy Reichs

From Goodreads:

It’s a summer of sizzling heat in Charlotte where Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for the North Carolina medical examiner, looks forward to her first vacation in years. A romantic vacation. She’s almost out the door when the bones start appearing.
A newborn’s charred remains turn up in a woodstove. A small plane crashes in a North Carolina cornfield on a sunny afternoon. Both pilot and passenger are burned beyond recognition. And what is the mysterious black substance covering the bodies? Most puzzling of all are the bones discovered at a remote farm outside Charlotte. The remains seem to be of animal origin, but Tempe is shocked when she gets them to her lab.
With help from a special detective friend, Tempe must investigate a poignant and terrifying case that comes at the worst possible moment. Daughter Katy has a new boyfriend who Tempe fears may have something to hide. And important personal decisions face Tempe. Is it time for emotional commitment? Will she have the chance to find out?
Everything must wait on the bones. Why are the X rays and DNA so perplexing? Who is trying to keep Tempe from the answers? Someone is following her and Katy. That someone must be stopped before it’s too late.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cracking good story. Another change of scenery with Tempe now in her home base of North Carolina and trying to find out how Ryan and herself fit together. The story mixes a reasonably complex, but not too complicated investigation, with Tempe’s personal relations with Ryan and her daughter.

There was a nice mixture of old and new characters in this also but “Skinny” Slidell is beginning to sound an awful lot like Marino from the Kay Scarpetta stories.

The plot nips along at a steady pace, introducing twists and turns until there is a sudden rush near the end and a revelation of the details in the final chapter. It’s a fairly common plot design and one I think the author has used before, but it made for an enjoyable and engaging read.

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messenger’s legacy

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Messenger’s Legacy (Demon Cycle #3.5) by Peter V Brett

From Goodreads:

Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night, the world is overrun by demons—bloodthirsty creatures of nightmare that have been hunting the surface for over 300 years. A scant few hamlets and half-starved city-states are all that remain of a once proud civilization, and it is only by hiding behind wards, ancient symbols with the power to repel the demons, that they survive. A handful of Messengers brave the night to keep the lines of communication open between the increasingly isolated populace.

Briar Damaj is a boy of six in the small village of Bogton. Half Krasian, the village children call him Mudboy for his dark skin. When tragedy strikes, Briar decides the town is better off without him, fleeing into the bog with nothing but his wits and a bit of herb lore to protect him.

After twenty years, Ragen Messenger has agreed to retire and pass on his route to his protégé, Arlen Bales. But for all that he’s earned the rest, he has no idea what to do with the rest of his life. When he learns Briar, the son of an old friend, is missing, Ragen is willing to risk any danger to bring him safely home.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the second novella that adds additional information to the characters involved in the main series and I’m really enjoying them. They give a chance to return to the series as well as giving interesting background and detail that would make the main books much too long and overly detailed. I wish more authors would consider doing something similar.

wolf

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Wolf (Jack Caffrey #7) by Mo Hayder

From Goodreads:

When a vagrant—the Walking Man—finds a dog wandering alone with the words “HELP US” written on its collar, he’s sure it’s a desperate plea from someone in trouble and calls on Detective Inspector Jack Caffery to investigate. Caffery is reluctant to get involved—until the Walking Man promises new information regarding the childhood abduction of Caffery’s brother in exchange for the detective’s help tracking down the dog’s owners. Caffery has no idea who or what he is searching for, but one thing he is sure of: it’s a race against time.

Meanwhile, the Anchor-Ferrers, a wealthy local family, are fighting for their lives in their remote home ten miles away. Two men have tricked their way into the house and are holding the family for ransom. Yet as the captors’ demands become increasingly bizarre and humiliating, it becomes clear that this is more than a random crime—it’s a personal vendetta.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The series takes a bit of a side road with this book. The storyline that has been building between Jack and Flea is entirely sidelined to focus on Jack, his relationship with The Walking Man and his search for an answer to what happened to his brother. We already know the answer and it’s difficult to see Jack battling both with not knowing what happened and the eventual revelation of his own unwitting involvement.

Jack’s “crusade” is intertwined with the abduction and torture of a family. The connection is the family dog that escapes and ends up in Jack’s company courtesy of The Walking Man. This is an interesting concept and works well. The characters of Molina and Honey don’t fully work for me but are definitely integral to the story.

There is an overall feeling of sadness for Jack but never more so than in this book which also seems to be the end of his story. It’s good to bring his brother’s story to a conclusion but I would like to see him come back once again. His story has been one of the best I’ve read and I will miss it. The author has written other books that I will move on to but Jack will be hard to beat.

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fool moon

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Fool Moon (The Dresden Files #2) by Jim Butcher

From Goodreads:

Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

Business has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn’t been able to dredge up any kind of work–magical or mundane.

But just when it looks like he can’t afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise.

A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses–and the first two don’t count…

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

It’s hard to see how these books work but they really do. A wizard consultant for the Chicago PD assisting the Special Investigations Department and investigating murders committed by a werewolf! Weird enough for you?

For whatever reason I really enjoyed this. The characters are great (Bob the possessed skull is a particularly inspired one!) and the writing flies along bringing the reader on a real rollercoaster of a journey. Switch off the pragmatic section of your brain and enjoy the ride 😊

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everest

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From IMDb:

Everest (2015)

On the morning of May 10, 1996, climbers from two commercial expeditions start their final ascent toward the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. With little warning, a violent storm strikes the mountain, engulfing the adventurers in one of the fiercest blizzards ever encountered by man. Challenged by the harshest conditions imaginable, the teams must endure blistering winds and freezing temperatures in an epic battle to survive against nearly impossible odds.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

An incredibly intense and powerful depiction of a disastrous expedition to climb Everest in 1996. More than worthwhile watching but as well as an overwhelming sense of sadness it also made me angry that anyone with family could put themselves in such a dangerous situation for what amounts to vanity. Even those that survived have been horribly physically and mentally scarred.

grave secrets

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Grave Secrets (Temperance Brennan #5) by Kathy Reichs.

From Goodreads:

In the searing heat of Guatemala, Dr Temperance Brennan must harden herself against the horrors she excavates.

And then four young girls go missing from Guatemala City.

When a skeleton is found at the back of a rundown hotel, only someone with Tempe’s expertise can deduce the identity and cause of death.

But as she searches for answers, her path is blocked at every turn. It is clear that some people will stop at nothing to keep Guatemala’s secrets buried.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I really like the way the author changed the setting here. She managed to take Tempe to a very foreign country (don’t think I’ve read anything set in Central America before), introduce a probably unknown period of atrocity and genocide while still keeping the story familiar enough not to lose the reader.

I liked the new character of Galiano (basically a Guatemalan Ryan) and the depiction of the villagers at the site of the massacre. I would liked to have seen this side of the story further developed to investigate the historical murders rather more than the modern ones but I guess this also reflects the reluctance of the authorities to do anything more than brush over history and ignore what has happened.

A few plot holes and places where the story wanders a little bit but it definitely doesn’t spoil the overall book. It’s good to see momentum and originality staying strong at 5 books into the series.

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the cardinal of the kremlin

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The Cardinal of the Kremlin (Jack Ryan #4) by Tom Clancy.

From Goodreads:

In a rolling sea off the coast of South America, a target disappears in a puff of green light. In the Soviet hills of Dushanbe near the Afghanistan border, an otherworldly array of pillars and domes rises into the night. To the two greatest nations on earth, no contest is more urgent than the race to build the first Star Wars missile defense system, and no one knows that more than the two men charged with assessing the Soviets’ capabilities: Colonel Mikhail Filitov of the Soviet Union, an old-line warrior distrusted by the army’s new inner circle of technocrats, and CIA analyst Jack Ryan, hero of the Red October affair.

Each must use all his craft to arrive at the truth, but Filitov gets there first — and that’s when all hell breaks loose. Because Filitov, code-named Cardinal, is America’s highest agent in the Kremlin, and he is about to be betrayed to the KGB. His rescue could spell the difference between peace and war, and it is up to Jack Ryan to accomplish it — if he can — as, in a breathtaking sequence of hunter and hunted, Filitov’s life, and Ryan’s and that of the world itself literally hang in the balance.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’ve been disappointed by many of the previous books in the series but this was very good. There is much more of a storyline and much less mind numbing technical and military detail. Altogether there are three strands to the story with a CIA, Russian and Afghan element. I would have liked to have seen more development of the Afghan storyline but it’s there for a plot line purpose and just serves that.

Refreshingly in this story Clancy spends much less time degrading Soviet society and highlighting its faults. It still comes across as a corrupt and faulty society both socially and politically but more as part of the story and not rammed in the reader’s face. Additionally, the book is chock full of strong characters and a good number of these are on the Soviet side this time. The most notable is the old war hero Misha but the young soldier Bondarenko and the KGB investigator Vatutin are also excellent characters. In many ways the Soviets are the stars of this book while Ryan himself is in more of a supporting role.

I also particularly enjoyed the espionage of the first half of the book. There is a great sense of pace and tension as well as a good insight into the operations of both the CIA and KGB spy networks, how the agents operated and how they passed along information while staying undetected. Considering the disappointment of Red Rabbit this was a much better and more enjoyable book.

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the way home

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The Way Home by Mark Boyle, read by Gerard Doyle

From Audible:

It was 11:00 pm when I checked my email for the last time and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever.

No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio, or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. 

The Way Home is a modern-day Walden – an honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life lived in nature without modern technology. Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Man, explores the hard-won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging, and fishing. 

What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire – much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I find it hard to explain why I enjoyed this so much. It’s far from exciting and the story jumps around a lot, not just within the author’s own life, but also between his development of the smallholding and the islanders of the Blaskett Isles. I think my enjoyment stems from the openness of the author. He is very aware of his faults but also proud of his achievements. He doesn’t try to glorify his struggle without modern technologies but neither does he romanticise his new life.

He also openly acknowledges his struggle to live his new life without technology but also exist in the modern world. At times he must make compromises in order to see his parents and to help his neighbours. He’s also starting from scratch so in order to become established he needs to use the proceeds or results of modern technology.

The reader in this case brings a lot to the experience. I believe I enjoyed this more as an audiobook than I would have as a regular book. Once I became used to his pronunciation and tone, his voice added to the story making it a richer and more enjoyable experience.

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the shepherd’s crown

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The Shepherd’s Crown (Discworld #41, Tiffany Aching #5, Witches #11) by Terry Pratchett

From Goodreads:

A shivering of worlds.

Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength.

This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.

As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land.

There will be a reckoning…

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is not the usual Terry Pratchett story. While there are a number of asides of the usual humour there are very few laugh out loud moments. The overall atmosphere is sombre and one of impending bad news. The loss of one of the key Discworld figures as well as the understanding that this is the absolutely final TP book leaves the book and the reader with an overall feeling of sadness. As a character Tiffany finally becomes her own person, taking control of her own destiny but even her success is tinged with a level of sadness.

The quality of writing is not up to the usual standard, nor is the construction of the storyline. However, the afterword makes it clear that this was an unfinished manuscript and that TP would undoubtedly have made further changes and additions. For all of that it is a worthy read and a fitting epitaph. As the afterword states:

The Shepherd’s Crown has a beginning, a middle and an end, and all the bits in between.

I’ll leave the last word to Death….

WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE […] WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT –A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT . . .

Terry Pratchett 1948-2015. Rest in Peace