I was suggested The Riley Brothers series by E. Davies by someone who knows I’m a sucker for hockey stories. Surprisingly, the entire 40-hour series was on sale on Audible for just 1 credit! It sounded like a steal and the series had some good reviews, so I went ahead and spent the credit.
Kind of wish I hadn’t.
There isn’t anything particularly wrong with the story or even the narration of it… it just didn’t work for me.
Up and coming hockey player, Cam Riley (one of the brothers), has to give up his dream of joining the big leagues when a medical condition causes him to pass out whenever his heart rate is too high for extended periods of time. He heads home where he meets art director, Noah Clark, and sparks fly.
Even as their relationship grows, Cam chooses not to tell Noah the entire truth about his condition and that he’d been a professional hockey player. But his condition doesn’t let him keep those secrets for long and the truth comes out.
There isn’t much conflict between the two, even with all of the lying, and they resolve things easily. Cam gets his surgery, recovers, and they live happily-ever-after.
Oh, and Noah’s uncle is a beekeeper. Cam ends up working for him, which is where the title Buzz comes from… I thought that was cute.
Like I said earlier, it’s not a bad story, just not for me.
Series: The Riley Brothers, book 1 Format: Audible audio book Publisher: Audible Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ Links: Amazon || Goodreads
This is one of those songs that is both inspiring and contemplative at the same time. Every time that I hear it, it makes me think back on the bad times in my life and it makes me wonder where I would be if I hadn’t gone through them.
Now, I’m not saying that they were fun or that I was able to keep my faith through each and every dark moment, but all of those good and bad days have brought me to where I am today…
Stepping back on the path towards God. Rebuilding my relationship with Him piece by piece. And trying each day to be a reflection of His love to an ever-darkening world.
Altered Heart by Kate Steele was the first book I read for my O.W.L.’s back in April and it was a good one to kick off the book challenge with.
Mick Matranga is basically a supernatural enforcer who hunts down bad guys and gives them their due, whether it be jail time or death. It’s his job and he likes it.
But when the victim of his latest case, one Rio Hardin, turns out to be his mate, Mick isn’t sure what to do.
Widowed for four years after being happily married to the woman of his dreams, Mick doesn’t need the hassle of falling in love and then losing another person he cares about. He chooses to keep Rio at a distance, even while the human-turned-werewolf comes closer and closer to his first shift.
Rio hates that he’s been turned and is terrified of his first real shift. After the psycho-alpha who bit him forced him from shifting into his wolf during his first full moon, all he can think of is the absolute pain he experienced. When Mick tells him that sex can help distract a were from the pain of the shift, he begins to have hope that things won’t be so bad with Mick around.
But Mick is too bull-headed to accept what Rio wants and ends up torturing the both of them when he refuses to open up and accept Rio as his mate.
My favorite thing about Altered Heart was how believable Rio and Mick were as characters. Their decisions made sense; from Rio’s running away from home to Mick’s refusal to start anything serious with Rio, there is a reason for every choice they make. (even if they are stupid decisions, lol)
Altered Heart is a solid 3/5 stars for me. The writing and world building is solid, but it didn’t blow me out of the water. It was good enough that I think I’ll read the sequel Amended Soul if I can get my hands on it.
Still dealing with the Covid-19 craziness. Even though I’m blessed to be allowed to continue working during this time, I can feel mental exhaustion creeping in. So, I’ve been diving into various fictional worlds as a means of escape… it’s also a free vacation, in it’s own way.
The Elven King’s Blade is actually a web-based serial title, written by X. Aratare (or RaytheReign).
Ciaran has been fighting an unknown wasting disease his entire life, a disease which took the life of his mother, and has resigned himself to an early death. He decides to travel to a family-owned cabin with his pet fox, Twig, who adopted him when he was a young boy and has never left his side.
What he finds in the small, country town is proof that he didn’t hallucinate the black riders he and his mother fought and that there is more to the world than he ever imagined. After saving Elven King Aethaden’s life and discovering what he really is, Ciaran decides to follow his destiny and go to the elven realm to fight the ‘forces of evil’ there.
If you’re at all interested in web-serials, then I would suggest checking this title out.
This book was suggested to me by a co-worker at the library. She is very well-read and had only just started reading Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.
I am familiar with Bardugo’s young adult works, but hadn’t heard about this venture into adult fiction.
As an urban fantasy title, I am expecting it to be darker than my usual fare, but am excited to hop into the world she’s created. 🙂
I’m not sure what to say about Seasons after Fall, mainly because it was not at all what I thought it would be… and not in a good way.
After the first hour and a half, it began to feel like I was just following the same actions over and over again. The mechanics, which at first were interesting, quickly became clunky and annoying… after seeing the seasons change the first few times it no longer evoked any kind of awe in me.
There is one part of the game that was really interesting. You’re required to solve puzzles by blowing fog away so you can access new parts of the level. But this is only utilized the once and then it’s back to the same old actions.
Lookit this cute little sleepy fox!
The most difficult trophy for me to get was also the most annoying out of all of them. The worst part of the game is that you are doing the exact same things in the exact same locations to both progress the game and to earn trophies.
“A bird” bugged me the most because it requires you to happen to stop in the right location and SIT THERE for an extended amount of time.
Doing absolutely nothing.
At no other point in the game are you asked to pause and wait for something to magically happen, so unless you’re trophy hunting you probably won’t ever get this one.
A bird Very Rare 12.9% In the Woods of the Ancestors, listen carefully, find the bird and keep very still.
The story was weird and disjointed, which may have been what they were going for, but it didn’t help further the plot of the game for me. Rather, it felt like here is some random dialogue and there is a cut scene and now a different character is talking to you… but none of it felt connected.
Ultimately, other than the beautiful visuals and fun soundtrack, Seasons after Fall was kind of a disappointing waste of time. Honestly, it felt like it just dragged on for too long… maybe if they’d cut the last third of the game it would have been more fun, but towards the end I wasn’t looking forward to playing.
I’m really sad about how disappointed I am with this game, but I guess you can’t expect every game to be perfect for you. Maybe I just wasn’t the audience they were looking for?
Title: Seasons after Fall Developer: Swing Swing Submarine Genre: Adventure Platform: PS4 Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Trophy difficulty: Monotonous
After thoroughly enjoying my play through of Final Fantasy XV, when I heard there was a prequel in the PlayStation store I knew I would be playing it as well. And it was free!
Think of A King’s Tale as an old school arcade game and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the game play involved. It was certainly a trip down memory lane for me, as the graphics and combat system continually reminded me of when I was a kid playing games at the local pizza restaurant.
One of my favorite things about A King’s Tale is that you’re basically playing through Noctis’ bedtime stories, as told by his father, King Regis (hence the King’s Tale, lol). There are some throwaway lines that pay homage to Princess Bride and another that brings up a lesser known Astral, Carbuncle, who I think is the cutest thing to ever exist.
For the most part, earning trophies in A King’s Tale was a straightforward task, until I got to the last two I was missing…
To earn Combo King, you have to do all of the combos in one level. This trophy was difficult for me to earn, mainly because I kept forgetting what attacks I had already done and which ones still needed to be completed.
Sweet Dreams is truly an Ultra Rare trophy, with only 1.3% of players having earned it. The most difficult thing for me, as I worked on this trophy, was remembering to count how many enemies I had cast magic on, lol.
I enjoyed the story in A King’s Tale, even when it got a little silly… but you have to remember that this is a bedtime story being told to a child. Wouldn’t want to give Prince Noctis nightmares now, would we?
Anywhos, for a free game, you’ll get loads of enjoyment out of this title, especially if you like arcade or retro gaming.
Stats (for nerds)
Title: A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV Developer: Square Enix Genre: Action Platform: PS4 Rating: ★★★★☆ Trophy difficulty: Difficult
Fair warning: I gave up on this review about halfway through. What can I say? I suffered through the movie, couldn’t manage to get through writing a cohesive review.
Follows a group of UAC Marines as they respond to a distress call from a top secret scientific base on Phobos, a Martian moon, only to discover it’s been overrun by demons who threaten to create Hell on Earth.
I freely admit that I enjoy nothing more than sitting down and watching a truly horrible sci-fi movie at the end of a long workday, but even I have standards when it comes to what constitutes “bad sci-fi.”
From the very first moment that we see our main character, one disgraced Lieutenant Joan Dark (and yes, that’s a play on Joan of Arc), she is entirely unbelievable. This is not a reflection on actor, Amy Manson, as the acting in this film was surprisingly good without being over-the-top cheesy.
However, while I don’t mind the decision to have a female lead in a science fiction / action movie, if you want the audience to believe her, then you need to make her believable. And Joan Dark wasn’t convincing as a marine, friend, or even really as a person. There was no depth, nothing for the audience to relate to.
The death of her (very religious) mother made her lose her faith in God, but it’s mentioned so briefly that you forget the moment even happened (or that she had a mom in the first place). What should have been a poignant moment where Joan remembers her faith turns out to be a blink and you’ll miss it demons-are-afraid-of-crosses plot point.
For a movie about space marines, there was no point where I was able to believe that this woman was a soldier.
The CG work wasn’t the best, but for what I assume is a smaller budget film they weren’t terrible. The space scenes and the hellscape, in particular, were extremely well done and I thought that the tablet tech was also really cool. Again, there are moments where this movie does something right, they are just few and far between.
Joan waking up from crypto sleep, cryo sleep, crypto sleep… whatever.
Throughout, Joan is mean just to be mean. This here girl don’t need no man and certainly doesn’t have feelings for a guy she was in a four-month relationship with. Though, he very clearly is still in love with her and I can guarantee that will be a plot point in the future.
Lol, the “doomed moon.” Roll credits!
I’m sorry, but I feel like Hollywood has pretty much exhausted the “an entire unit has been given a shit assignment over the actions of one person” trope. This will surely be yet another future plot point.
In order to fight the enemy, you gotta stop fighting yourself
Captain Savage
Alright, y’all… at this point it’s just rambling thoughts. I’ve been looking at this post for two weeks now and can’t even make coherent sentences out of my thoughts from watching the film.
Feel free to let me know in the comments how horribly this post is written, lol.
Meandering Michelle 