In a ruined and toxic
landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of
stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations
they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has
unwaveringly upheld the silo's rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the
greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.
His fateful
decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is
appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law,
whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be
entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly
her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has
only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper.
Uprising.
My Review:
I read the omnibus version.
I found this book very disappointing.
It got off to a good start, following the story of Holston, a man in charge of security who decides he must go outside to find out what happened to his wife who had already left. His story was intriguing and through him we find out that you must win the lottery to grant you a year to try to conceive a child and that when the windows with one view of the ouside world get dirty, someone who commits a crime or declares they want to go outside must go out into the deadly air to clean the windows with a limited air supply before dying. His wife investigating the Silo history and then ending up sentenced to clean had me screaming 'conspiracy!' and I wanted to know what she found. I was to be disappointed. This part of the story concluded, and the book went downhill quickly. (I assume that this was the end of the first part that was published)
We start all over again with several different characters, a never ending journey through the silo to visit people, descriptions of everything and zero hapening except a new job being handed out. It becomes slow, boring and over descriptive. The characters that we follow now lack the interest of our original hero and they just didn't excite me. It does not build on the first part, it just starts again with new people and we don't get any closer to answers or Allison's investigation. It was frustrating and I started getting tired of the moaning and complaining of the dear leader about how tough her job was. Try being the people who provide everything for your comfort deep in the dark darn Silo then.
I know the world is meant to be grim and it certainly is but it also has to be interesting and intriguing. There must be some exciting plot device to keep the reader hooked but as I turned page after page nothing seemed to change. Dreary conditions. Moaning people. Lack of anything happening. And the plot that was there did not excite or rivet me. Take the cleaning for example. Every single person sent out to die agrees to do the cleaning. Oh come on! Your peers have sent you out there to die in the toxic air and none of them decide to take revenge on those inside by leaving the windows dirty? I find that hard to believe, knowing human nature. Someone would have stuck their fingers up at the camera for sure!
I like to be surprised in books so I don't mind if characters die or shocks and bad things happen. But the way this book was jerking the reader around pissed me off. The author uses Holton and his story to draw you into the plot and as soon as we care about him, he dies. The story switches to the Mayor who is a less interesting heroine but she is ok and we think she might be the future of the Silo. But the author decides otherwise again. By part three, a new character was being groomed for MC status and I had enough and abandoned the book. If the author plans to keep changing the MC is has to be for sound reasons but here I felt it was just for shock value and that doesn't work for me.
So overall this was not for me.
The lovely Amber Michelle Cook is relaunching her two short novellas with gorgeous new covers and I'm very happy to be able to reveal them both here!
Abigail Watson is having a tough day in a hard week in a rotten month,
and don’t even get her started on the year. Until that night when
something wonderfully impossible shows up at her door.
An urban fairy tale ‘antidote’ to those times when the dullness and
drudgery of grown-up life seems inescapable, and to the misconception
that wonder and play are just for children.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Faeries-Behind-Amber-Michelle-ebook/dp/B00B6EO03W/ref=la_B00B5QTBW6_1_3_bnp_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411126648&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/What-Faeries-Behind-Amber-Michelle-ebook/dp/B00B6EO03W/ref=la_B00B5QTBW6_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411127015&sr=1-2
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/272520
What if your deja vu was really flashes of a life running parallel to your own?
An
imaginative child, Janey left childhood far behind as soon as older
children and adults began to tease her for it, much to the
disappointment of her younger brother. On her thirtieth birthday, the
first Pulse hits and drives them to seek shelter at his favorite hangout
– a one-of-a-kind indoor playland for grown-ups called the Imaginarium.
When the place is attacked by urban looters, she becomes an unwilling
'defender of imagination.'
Raised within the confines of
Tanglewood, a workshop-residence formed from the awakening of a grove of
silver birch, Ozanne fled her family's unrelenting expectations for a
life of frivolity and vanity at Court. Upon the passing of a Wave that
obstructs all but personal Glamour, she races back with her brother to
protect it from the Foe, though certain she has little to offer. Why
then does he persist in looking to her to protect them?
Defense
Mechanisms is a contemporary fairy tale of finding realistic, modern-day
happy endings when the ways we learn to protect ourselves from other
people's emotional sore spots, like ignorance and hate, keep us from
being who we really are and finding our place in life.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Defense-Mechanisms-Amber-Michelle-Cook-ebook/dp/B00F3TN24Y/ref=la_B00B5QTBW6_1_1_bnp_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411126613&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Mechanisms-Amber-Michelle-Cook-ebook/dp/B00F3TN24Y/ref=la_B00B5QTBW6_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411126920&sr=1-1
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/353956
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, discovers
vampires are planning to take over the United States. He makes it his
mission to eliminate them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611224/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.
I didn't really have the highest hopes for this film despite loving American history and vampires, but I was pleasantly surprised. We follow the story of young Abe growing up with vampires in his life as he tries to avenge his family. A chance meeting with Henry, a skilled vampire hunter will change the course of his life as he learns the skills he needs to kill his enemies. But his faith in his work is tested when he wants to start a family.
I read this book a couple of years ago and it was a decent, if not great read. I actually prefer the film. There was an outstanding performance from Dominic Cooper as Henry the vampire hunting mentor. He gets better and better in every film that I see him in and I think he has a great career ahead of him. Benjamin Walker does a decent job of portraying Abe though I actually felt that Bill Oberst Jr was more convincing in the role in Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies. But that is a personal thing and it's not easy to play the part of such an icon so both did good jobs. Anthony Mackie and Jimmi Simpson were part of an excellent support cast.
The plot has a lot of good action sequences with scary vampires and no sparkles in sight! My favourite bit was the train scene which was well put together, with exciting moments and a few twists. History and fantasy are nicely mixed in this film and there is plenty of interest to keep viewers entertained.
I'm not a big fan of this talk over narration in films. I like to see events unfold rather than having someone telling me what is happening. Still, this is just a minor niggle and doesn't spoil the film in any way. So overall a good film that I'd watch again.
I blog about great looking new releases,
new books sent to me for read and review, book reviews of what I've read
and features about exciting new authors to try.
But what about all the books that are
already on my TBR, waiting for me to read them? Don't they deserve a
mention and a chance to be highlighted? Yes they do!
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, where I
will take the time to tell you about some of the books that have been on
my shelves for a while and maybe a few of you will add them to your
wishlists/tbrs. If you have read them, why not leave a comment to tell
me what you thought of it-but no spoilers please!
This week I am starting to look at the tbrs that are on my Kindle and
Kobo. And there are quite a lot of them so that will keep us going for a
good few weeks!
When monsters appear on
Earth, Maggie MacKay is on the job. No one is better at hauling the
creepy crawlies back where they belong. No one, that is, except Maggie's
dad, who vanished in the middle of an assignment. Now, an elf named
Killian has shown up with a gig. Seems Maggie's uncle teamed up with the
forces of dark to turn Earth into a vampire convenience store, serving
bottomless refills on humans. Ah, family...
The only hope for survival lies in tracking down two magical artifacts and a secret that disappeared with Maggie's dad.
WARNING: This book contains cussing, brawling, and unladylike behavior. Proceed with caution.
Block it out.
Impossible for Talia Lyons. When you’re a Mind Manipulator, it’s hard
enough to block the thoughts of others, let alone your own.
Block
it out. The pounding, siren-ready world Talia inhabits as she trains
with her fellow Hunters, the country's top-secret covert operatives. The
physical demands. The emotional toll.
Block it out. The secrets
that Talia’s boyfriend is hiding. Talia’s unbidden feelings of
frustration and annoyance toward her teammate, the Casanova of the
compound. The wondering why she cares what he thinks.
Block him
out. Ian Crane. The man behind the bloodshed marring Talia’s memories of
her murdered parents. The man she’s determined to kill.
Block it all out. Focus.
Talented
is an emotionally raw Dystopian Romance, about the life of a girl with
extraordinary psychic powers, and what happens when a heart is torn
between love and rage.
Welcome to Charlotte’s world of unusual powers, wonderful friendship, new love and shocking betrayal . . .
Charlotte
Rollins is an elemental, but she doesn't know it yet. Now, with the
help of her old friend Cale and her new friend Keller, she will fight
against an evil whose only goal is to consume her.
The unwitting attendees
of a country ball are all too busy striving to hide secrets and make
matches to see what’s going on around them until it’s almost too late!
Among
the green and rolling hills of Old England, the fields lie ripe for
reaping under a blighted Harvest Moon. While tenants and servants fear
the eerie light, Mr. Dorchester invites several families of his
acquaintance to his estate—for a visit culminating in a ball to
celebrate his ward’s engagement to a most eligible neighbor. Amid all
the usual hopes and anticipation such an event inevitably excites:
– The disillusioned host is desperate to seize his last chance for happiness,
– His foreign ward struggles to pass herself off as a Blushing English Rose,
– The governess pines for her employer and seeks to free him from blackmail,
– The reclusive apothecary, working there under false pretenses, hides more than one secret,
– A local beauty raised to marry well is awakening to her true character,
– And a young gentleman is finding great satisfaction in playing the indispensable manservant.
All
the while, signs of the dead rising increase until the entire household
wakes in the middle of the night to a gut-wrenching scream inside the
house.
Where imagination and suspense reign over splatter-gore,
and the knowing modern reader can enjoy accompanying unsuspecting
characters down the road to the inevitable, while themselves
encountering mysteries and unexpected twists along the way.
Where can I buy this book?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Victorian-Dead-Book-One-ebook/dp/B00NHDEL1Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411125877&sr=1-1&keywords=Amber+Michelle+Cook
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Victorian-Dead-Book-One-ebook/dp/B00NHDEL1Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411126004&sr=1-1&keywords=Amber+Michelle+Cook
Amber Michelle Cook writes stories of deep, meaningful fun.
Partly
raised in Germany, she went to an international school for high-school,
majored in linguistics, loves literature and period pieces. She's also
a photography/graphic arts artist of color and wonder living in the
great Northwest.
In addition to leading improv writing tables,
she's one of the team behind National Novel Editing Month and Member
Relations Chair of Communications/Marketing for the Northwest
Independent Writers Association.
Aside from words and stories, she adores dogs and is fascinated by any and everything aquatic. Especially cephalopods.
Where can I find Amber?
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6903892.Amber_Michelle_Cook
https://twitter.com/cook_amber
