Stacy Kingsley - The blog of author Stacy Kingsley

Book Review - THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND by Karen Hamilton

11/11/2019

The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton was not the perfect book. Revolving around main character, Juliette, who is trying to win back her ex-boyfriend, Nate, this is a novel that is trying way too hard to be interesting and the next Gone Girl.

Juliette gets a job as a flight attendant to be close to her ex, Nate, who is a pilot. She has a plan, and she must stick to the plan, otherwise she might not get Nate back. The problem, Nate doesn't want her back, because she is totally psycho.

The characters are not delightful at all. I hated everyone, and those who were even a little developed were not interesting or fulfilling characters. Juliette, or Lily, or Elizabeth, is a narcissist, and nothing she does is reasonable. She is a boring stalker, who doesn't develop any characteristics to recommend her as a character to read this book. There was nothing to make her interesting as a main character, and I was actually bored with her obsession and the reasons for this obsession didn't seem like big enough reasons for her to do everything she has done. There were scenes involving her that didn't make me feel sorry or anything for her. In the beginning we learn that she is with her younger brother, Will, when he drowns in an accident, but this doesn't really get expressed later in the story. When she tells another character about it, it doesn't make any sense why she is telling the story, and there are no reasons for it to be expressed. We also don't get to learn enough about her relationship with her mother, or her aunt Barbara. Nothing is delved into, it is all just surface.

Other characters who could have used more and more interesting development were Nate, the love of Juliette's life, Bella, and Amy... especially Amy, who started out as an interesting friend, and could have been a more interesting character if she had been explored a little more. None of the characters had any redeeming values that made me want to read this book, or care about what happened to them.

I wish I hadn't spent the money on this novel. I usually don't post a review if I hate a book, but this one made me mad. I didn't find any reason to finish it, and wish I hadn't wasted the time. I know there are people who will love this book, just like people loved Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, but I dislike books like this. I want at least one character to root for or enjoy. I want one character who isn't a despicable human being.

I don't recommend this novel, for anyone.

Book Review - YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE by Nicole Baart

10/28/2019

You Were Always Mine by Nicole Baart is about a woman who learns that life can change in mere moments when she learns of her husband's death. Evan and Jessica Chamberlain have been separated for a few months, leaving her life with her two sons in turmoil. Things get worse when Evan is found dead, and the questions keep piling up and keep Jessica awake at night. Everything seems to revolve around their adopted son, Gabriel. Gabe's mother wanted a closed adoption, and Jessica was fine with that, but when she stumbles upon clues that things weren't as they seemed, she becomes suspicious that Evan's death was not an accident at all.

I actually quite enjoyed this novel. This is the first book I've read by Nicole Baart, and I might in fact try to find another by her to see if her books stack up to this one. There are some issues with this book, but the characters were interesting, and Jessica was realistic in her grief. I thought how she went from day to day and through each step felt true to what someone does go through. Trying to pull herself together enough to deal with her children and continue to take care of life as things come and go.

When Jessica finds that a lot of things were not as she thought they were she realizes how much she wanted Evan back, and how little she knew about what he was trying to do. In the end Jessica learns that those who she trusted were the ones who betrayed her, and that her husband was doing more good, even though he was keeping some serious secrets from her..

The family dynamic was interesting, yet is was clear that the family loved each other. The ending wasn't quite what I expected, but I did in fact see it coming, in some of the ways that it did. One of the characters I thought suspiciously about from early on in the novel.

It was not a bad novel at all, and I thought it was a good read. It was an interesting book, with a lot of secrets to figure out. I'd recommend it to people who enjoy Jodi Picoult, as this did seem a little along the lines of the few books of hers that I have read.

Book Review - PHANTOMS by Christian Kiefer

10/22/2019

Phantoms by Christian Kiefer is told from a recent Vietnam Vet's point-of-view. John Frazeier comes home from Vietnam not knowing what to do with his life. A broken young man, like most who came back, and has decided to spend time with his Grandmother and a distant Aunt. The story floats through several decades, from before World War II to 1983. It also includes the lives of several different families, the Takahashis, who were displaced and sent to an interrnment camp during the second world war, the Wilson's, who owned the land the Takahashis lives on and rented a place on, and Frazier himself, as a war hero who wonders what happened to another war hero, of a different time. Ray. Ray Tahahashis arrived home after serving in WWII to find that his family had been removed, and that he was no longer welcome. Then he disappeared. After losing friends, John finds that he can't let the story go, and finds himself obsessed later in life with the outcome.

As a story that involved different time periods it was interesting how these stories intertwined. Seeing a man coming home from the Second World War to find his family and everything he loved gone, then to find out later what happened and how much life had screwed him over, was upsetting and fascinating. Most won't think of the repercussions of the life some leaves behind and the life they return to, especially given the time some soldiers spent away, and still spend on deployment. After most wars, the man or boy sent away is not the man or boy who comes back, and often the lives they are coming back to is not the same either.

Ray finds this to be the truth when he returns to what he thought of as home, only to find that everything has changed and he is no longer welcome. As the story moves on the reader gets to see how unwelcome Ray is when the woman he loves and the people of the town react to him in an unexpected way. Decades later, when John returns from Vietnam with the same kind of feeling about where home is, he find himself embroiled in discussions between his distant Aunt, Evelyn Wilson, and Ray's mother Kimiko Takahashi, who only want to know where her son is. Evelyn Wilson however is full of secrets that she is unwilling to share, keeping a family in the dark, and creating more and more unnecessary heartache.

John, is dealing with his own issues, memories and ghosts from his time in Vietnam. He spends some time with another soldier who was with him, Chigger, but in the end, no really gets their happy ending.

This novel not only shows a portrayal of what it looks like for a soldier to come home, but also what secrets can do when left unspoken. One family doesn't find out the entire truth, and another searches for something they let go of. In the end, there isn't justice for anyone, even John loses by not reaching out to someone he should have reached out to.

There are parts of this novel that were hard to read, especially as someone who has been military for most of their life and who has sent men off to war. Parts of this novel were hard to read because of the blatant racism and disgust that some of the character portrayed, Evelyn Wilson was not a pleasant person, and neither was her daughter, Helen.

In the end, the only issue I had with this book was the slipping of time forward and backward. There were moments that were confusing, and there were moments that were overdone, but overall, the book was pretty good.

Movie Review - IT: CHAPTER TWO

10/14/2019

So, what can I say about IT: Chapter Two? It is the second half of the first movie, where all of the children we have met in the first movie have grown up and changed, and forgotten what happened to them that one horrible summer.

I hated this movie. I thought it was dull, and it only kept some some of the good parts of the novel, or even the television mini-series. I would have liked it to be a little closer to what the first movie, the novel, or even the original mini-series was like. I did not think that the use of Pennywise was well done, and I do not think that the characters were more interesting or more developed.

One scene I really, really hated was the scene when Beverly visits her old apartment, and is greeted by an old woman who is very welcoming. I think the director or writer or whoever developed this awful scene should have been fired. there was unnecessary humor, that was not only not needed, but it didn't add anything to the story, or the entire film. It was so silly I almost left the theater, because it was ridiculous.

Another thing I didn't care for was the length of this movie. It is an hour and forty-nine minutes, and it felt like it was an hour and forty-nine minutes. When I took a look at my phone to see only an hour had passed I was very frustrated. So yes, yes this was very slow and ridiculous. There were several moments in the movie that frustrated me. I didn't need this to be a humorous movie, I needed this to be a scary movie. I needed for this to be Stephen King scary. Instead I got a whole lot of discussion, a too little Pennywise. What made the mini-series and the novel scary was the clown. The history behind him, what he was, and how he behaved, this made people everywhere scared of clowns, and here there was a lack of clown.

I also still stand by my original assertion that I don't think Bill Sarsgard is scary as Pennywise. He just doesn't have it in him.

Luckily, I only paid three dollars to see this movie, but even that seems too much. It was not only too much money, but it was too much of my life spent on one thing, which neither scared me or held my attention. I should have been home reading, or sleeping, or having sex, anything but watching this movie.

Movie Review - MaleVolent

9/30/2019

The film MaleVolent is about a pair of siblings Jackson and Angela who run a profitable ghostbusting company, using fake Psychic Angela to hook desperate homeowners. When they are hired to investigate a haunted foster home, they discover that it is the same place where a group of young girls were silenced by a sadistic killer. Angela starts having issues, seeing and hearing things that aren’t there, or at least that aren’t supposed to be there. But they find that the supernatural is not their problem, and humanity might be.

The beginning of the movie didn’t grab me much, mostly because I thought that it was the same as a lot of other movies just like this. A group of people faking the ghosts, get money by making people believe they have gotten rid of the ghosts, and instead they end up being killed by a real ghost, but instead it isn’t the ghosts that people have to worry about, it is the real people.

When the sibling and their crew arrive at the old foster home they find the mother of the home to be off-putting and aggressive. Her son is a known murderer, having murdered several of the young girls she had taken into her foster home. He not only tortured the girls, but sewed their mouths shut, before killing them and placing them on display. The mother claims that the girls were the problem and that her son was the innocent victim, only doing what they forced him to do.

This movie wasn’t great, as there were some very slow moments that made the movie drag at times. But, there were also a lot of frights, and I got goosebumps several times as the creepiness of the movie built. There were some good moments that didn’t rely on jump scares, like most movies do these days, jump scares for ghosts.

The end of the movie moved a little too far into the grotesque, and it wasn’t needed as it was creepy enough. I feel like they might have added it so that there were some moments of torture to shock the audience. It was also incredibly sad as Angela realizes that her life is never going to be normal again.

Not a fantastic or great movie, but to watch it on streaming, it wasn’t bad. The time used to watch it was worth it for the end, and the revelation that sometimes things are not always what they seem, and sometimes people deserve to have the ghosts haunting them.

Book Review - IN A DARK, DARK WOOD by Ruth Ware

9/23/2019

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware should have been an interesting book, it should have been a fabulous and suspenseful book, but it was in fact not. Not because of the book itself, no, it was because of other books like it.

Nora is a fictional crime author, one who doesn't often leave her flat. She is invited to her once best friend’s "hen" party, a party for brides-to-be before their weddings. She hasn't seen Clare in ten years, so it is all a surprise to her that she is invited, that is until she finds out who the groom is. Once at the party site Nora, her old friend Nina, Clare, and a few of Clare's friends, Flo, Melanie, and Tom, start the party. Flo wants the party to be perfect, for some reason she feels Clare has saved her life, although we only find out a little bit about that. Nora finds out a devastating fact, and things wander around from there. In the end the reader sees Nora in the hospital, being questioned by the police, about the last day of the hen party, and a shooting that happened.

The issue I have with this novel is not on that is based on the novel itself, but instead it is based on other novels like this. I can compare this novel to Girl on a Train, Final Girls, Our Little Secret, or Tell Me What Happened Again. All of these books have one thing in common, they all involve a woman who has lost part of her memory after some sort of trauma or tragedy, and the police are wondering what happened, and trying to figure it out. In a Dark, Dark Wood, would have been better if it had been the first of this trope that I had read, but unfortunately, it was not, and the story is one that has already been told and I have already read.

While Nora could have been an interesting character, I think both Nina and Flo were more interesting characters, and I honestly wouldn't have minded getting to know Tom a little more. Melanie seemed to be a superfluous character, and besides being there to set Flo off a little more and make her seem a little more unhinged, she didn't seem to be a necessary character.

Beyond the fact that this is like a lot of other books I have recently read, it is actually well written, and more interesting than some of the others mentioned above. I do not think that due to this book trope being overdone that I will never read anymore of Ruth Ware's novels. In fact, I look forward to reading more of her books, I'm just not sure which. I need to get through more of my TBR pile before I pick up a brand new book and bring it home.

Book Review - MARK OF THE DEMON by Diana Rowland

9/16/2019

Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland was not at all what I was expecting. I thought there would be more demons and less police work. In fact, there was a lot of police work and very few demons.

A young police detective named Kara Gillian is learning the ropes of her new job, a homicide detective. Her first case, the murders of a serial killer called "The Symbol Man" due to the symbols he leaves on his victims’ bodies. The reason she is given the case is due to the fact that in her preparation to while she waited for a case she read and reread the Symbol Man case. During all of this she fights a demon she didn't summon, the attraction she feels for an FBI agent, and the disgust of the Chief of the entire department.

The beginning of this was a little tedious and long, all describing one scene in which Kara is summoning a demon, and an intruder breaks into her house. I will admit by writing this I am not giving anything away, so don't worry about spoilers because it isn't one. Throughout the novel Kara has lots of moments where she is supposed to be summoning a demon, or thinking about summoning a demon, or dreaming about demons, or being hurt by demons, but there is not much of a backstory into how she knows all of this except her aunt is a summoner as well. I wanted more backstory, how she started, what happened to her parents, why she was living with her aunts, why she didn't have many friends growing up, and how she went from being on the police force for seven years to becoming a homicide detective?

The rest of the book drifted from one killing to the next, with a few people understanding and knowing what Kara is, and what the "arcane" is. Which frankly annoyed me because the "arcane" was not really described for the rest of us, and a writer can describe things in several different ways. Another thing that annoyed me was, why would a brand new homicide detective be given a cold case once a new body turns up, even if she has read through all of the files available more recently than anyone else in the department? It wasn't believable.

Now, I didn't hate the book, I felt it was a little too back and forth, a little too focused on the bodies being found and how often they were, and the demons that weren't really involved in the story. The ending was a little abrupt, and the bad guy seemed a little far-fetched, but I feel that some of the writing was solid. It just didn't keep me interested. It also didn't make me care who was the killer, plus it didn't give me a reason to care about the people who were being killed.

I probably won't read the next in this series, as I thought the White Trash Zombie series was better, but I don't think I will read any more of those novels either. Sometimes, after you read a series for even a few books you get tired of the characters doing the same things over and over. This is the reason I've stopped reading the Alex Cross series by James Patterson, the character is no longer growing.

Movie Review - HELLRAISER: JUDGEMENT

9/10/2019

I was hesitant to watch Hellraiser: Judgement because Hellraiser: Revelations was just so damn awful that it just about ruined Pinhead for me. Not only was the actor in Revelations awful, but the entire plot of the movie was also terrible. When I found that Judgement had been released I was leery, but decided I would give it a shot, and if it turned out to be as bad as Judgement I’d just give up on any new movies made in the Hellraiser series.

Before I start this review, I want to say that I will always find Doug Bradley the best actor for Pinhead, and no one else quite grasps the character. I wish he had returned, but understand that because he didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement he wasn’t going to reprise the role. I do have to say the actor who plays Pinhead in Judgement was not as bad as the actor who took on the role in Revelations, and they took the makeup closer to what the original makeup looked like in the original movies.

Judgement involves a cop and his partner, who is also his biological brother, who are running after a serial killer who kills those who are “sinners” of sorts. As the movie moves on we find ourselves in the office of a cenobite who has the job of finding the guilty and punishing them.

There are little bits of both heaven and hell in this movie, as we get to see both sides of the story, and what happens when one side wants the accused to live. There are such sights to see, but the question is who is in control, and who gets to open the box.

A lot happened in this movie. A young female detective is sent to find out which brother may be having a breakdown. There is adultery, which is standard in a Hellraiser movie, as whoever opens the box has something to offer, and usually it is their destructing soul. In the end, everyone gets what they deserve, like most of the Hellraiser movies. And we get to see just what happens when one disagrees with Heaven and doesn’t quite do what is asked of them.

I thought this was more interesting than the last movie, but nothing could be worse than that travesty of a film. I enjoyed the direction and the new cenobites I was introduced to. I also thought the theme of being judged before being sentenced was interesting. There wasn’t quite enough Pinhead in this to make it follow the rest of the films, but that could just be me because I thoroughly enjoy the idea of him. I also have to say that I really loved the ending, and thought it was a creative way to end the film, sending someone back to be who they were, making them relive what they had tried to escape.

Don’t be afraid of this film. It is better than it looks and is 100% better than the last monstrosity was.

September 06th, 2019

9/6/2019

If you are looking for a way to support independent authors, check out the Fredericksburg Independent Book Festival. I will be selling all of my books here, and I might even be selling bookmarks. It happens September 21, in Fredericksburg, Virginia! Come one, come all, bring your bodies... No not those bodies... although whatever, I don't judge!

Another great reason for coming to this event?
1- Meet new and upcoming Indie authors
2- Find books you might not find in other places
3- There is such a wide variety of books and I always walk away with more to add to my TBR shelves
4- If you haven't ever met me, come, meet me, I'm a real treat!!!
5- I have a new book out! It isn't horror, but it is hilarious! And part of the profits go to a local cat rescue!
6- BOOKS!!!!!!!

Check out the website here:
fredbookfest.com/

Book Review - THE MURDERS OF MOLLY SOUTHBOURNE by Tade Thompson

9/2/2019

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson has a plot that reads as:

Every time she bleeds a murderer is born. The rule is simple: don't bleed. For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she's been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.

Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she'll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?

When reading the plot and premise of this book I was intrigued, and it didn't disappoint. This is the first in a trilogy, and I will be honest, I think the entire trilogy could have been put into one book as this was only 134 pages long, and I read it in two days (only because I started it really late and didn't feel like finishing it, instead I decided to sleep).

Molly is a girl who should never bleed, because when she does a new molly is born from her blood. This has apparently been happening since she was born, and it made me wonder not only about her birth, but also about other childhood incidences that happen to make children bleed. I also wondered about how the parents discovered that all of the mollys wanted to kill Molly herself?

As I write this there were quite a few unanswered questions: how did they discover the issue, if they had Molly in the hospital how did they keep the issue from the doctor, what did they do with all of the bodies, how fast was a molly born from Molly's blood, and a few more that weren't answered. I feel that, while this was a fun and new idea to me, it didn't quite go as far as it could have, instead focusing on Molly and her rage then acceptance at having to continually kill herself, or watch her parents kill versions of her. I would have like a little more, besides the angsty teen Molly who lets all mollys live and becomes overrun with them.

All of that being said, I did find this enjoyable, and at the end I did want to know what was going to happen next. My issue with this really is that I think the trilogy should have all been one book, because I don't know that I am willing to pay another $12 for the next book if it is this short. Not that I think it isn't worth it, I feel as if things were drawn out to get more money out of it, and that bothers me a little. I absolutely support authors and artists making money, and support as many people as I can, but this seemed a little over what I was willing to do or pay.

I do recommend this novella (?). It was an interesting premise, and it reminded me a little of Pretty Dead Girl, which I enjoyed until the end.