The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

New Release for Author Nina Soden

10/12/2016

A little over a year ago I met a wonderful YA author named Nina Soden. She will be appearing with me and several other authors at Nerdcon on the 22nd and 23rd of this month. Recently, Nina Soden finished the fourth book in her Blood Angels series, and it is my pleasure to introduce you all to her. But first, come see us at Rocket City's Nerdcon October 22 and 23!

https://hmcpl.org/rocketcitynerdcon

Blurb about Nina's new release PURSUIT:
Growing up in the most powerful coven of witches Atlanta, Michigan has ever known, gave Phoebe all the resources she needed to develop her craft. However, it wasn't until the tragic slaughter at the annual Founders' Celebration, when she lost her mother, her sister, and both of her grandmothers, that Phoebe really started to find her calling, her purpose. Her cousin Aleerah was the only surviving dhampir in history and her sister Petra had been a gifted, naturally talented, tracker. Magic didn't come as easily for Phoebe, but desperation leads to desperate measures, and Phoebe was bound and determined to carry on where her sister left off. Starting with the ancient ritual of the taking of blood Phoebe not only developed her tracking abilities she pushed herself physically, mentally, and magically until she became the High Council's leading tracker.

What have people been saying about the Blood Angel series?

“From the opening scene to the final chapter, the characters in this book dive onto the page and demand your attention.”
—Genalmt (Amazon.com 5-Star review)

“…It is exciting, twisty, and fun.”
—Carole A. Spalino (Amazon.com 5-Star review)

“The characters are realistic and compelling, and the author’s tone is casual and lighthearted—frequently bringing a smile or even a laugh, or sometimes a tear.”
—Ula Manzo (Amazon.com 5-Star review)

“I quickly inhaled this story. The author has a very easy to read talent that engulfs the reader. I found the pace of the story to be steady throughout. Though the concept has been done before, the author put her own ‘uniqueness’ to it that kept me guessing.”
—WhisperingWillo (Amazon.com 5-Star review)

Where can you buy Nina Soden's books?
Awaken (Book 1 ~ The Blood Angel Series) https://amzn.com/0985885300
Beginnings (Book 2 ~ The Blood Angel Series) https://amzn.com/0985885319
Revenge (Book 3 ~ The Blood Angel Series) https://amzn.com/0985885327
The Chosen (Book 1 ~ The SECTOR C Series) https://amzn.com/0985885335
The Hunted (Book 2 ~ The SECTOR C Series) https://amzn.com/0985885343

Movie Review - THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016)

10/12/2016

I have yet to see the original MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, so I can't compare the two movies, and don't judge me, I am not really into westerns. I am, however, a fan of Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, and Vincent D'Nofrio, so I had to see this movie. I have to say I am glad I did.

A town is being overrun by a robber baron named, Bart, and Bart doesn't care who he kills to get what he wants, and what he want is land. The wife of a murdered man decides that something needs to be done, so she goes off in search of an army, and she finds one. Seven men gather to do what is right. Seven men fight. Seven men gather a town and teach them what it means to take your town back.

I can't really say too much about this movie without giving everything away, and I hate spoilers.

I will say this, as someone who is not a fan of westerns I really enjoyed this movie. It had several moment of humor and I enjoyed the levity of it, especially when such dark moments came later. I enjoyed the character interaction, although the wife of the dead man, Emma, could have been a little more developed, I do understand that she was not the reason this movie was made. I would have liked a few of the characters to be a little more developed to be honest, but even as they were I liked them.

I felt the end was a little clear cut, and I felt that the bad guy gave up a little too easy at one point. He was made out to be this really big bad, and then he became a whiny cry baby, it didn't seem realistic to me.

But, even with the issues I did have, I liked this movie, and I cared. I cared who lived and died and at one point I really wanted one of the characters to live, and it made me really very sad that he didn't.

So, go see this. If you are like me you will most likely enjoy it without seeing the original, I can't promise you will like it if you have seen the original. But that goes for all movies.

Movie Review - TRUTH OR DIE

5/3/2016

I wasn't sure about this movie when I first began to watch it. It started like a lot of other movies, a group of friends at a party, having fun at the party, making someone feel awkward at the party. So I thought that maybe this was going to be like a lot of other movies. The person who was made to feel awkward goes out and takes revenge on all those who made them feel bad. It kind of was like this, but much more interesting.

IMDb has the movie summarized as a young British boys and girls travel to an isolated cabin after being promised a night of heavy partying. Instead of the fun they hoped for, they meet a killer out to reap vengeance on them for the death of his brother. This summary does not do this movie justice, it is so much more.

Truth or Dare is a popular game played by schoolchildren. This movie puts a new twist on this innocent game (which usually involves someone kissing someone) and turns it into a game of truth or die. The brother of the boy who died has decided to seek revenge for what his brother did. It involves pride, military idealism, and the need for his brother to not be homosexual. The group of friends are tied to chairs so the brother can interrogate them and find our which one of them sent a postcard to his suicidal brother. He asks them to play truth or dare, but instead it is truth or let's see who gets to guzzle gas and die. One by one the group turn on each other, until they learn who sent the postcard.

Havoc ensues, people die, people get the revenge they desire, and it isn't who or how I expected it.

As far as a horror movie goes, this has lots of gore and blood, and one innocent person quickly gets their neck snapped in a very intense scene, but it isn't really a horror movie as much as it is an intense thriller or suspense.

I liked this movie, I liked the evil of the brother, and the end was not exactly what I was expecting. I thought it held my interest after we got away from the beginning party scene, which I will admit took way too long. If you are bored and wondering what to watch, I suggest giving TRUTH OR DIE a chance.

Movie Review - THE GALLOWS

1/28/2016

I like horror movies. I dislike predictable horror movies. I disliked this movie.

The movie starts with the recording of a high school play. There is a tragic incident which leads to the death of a student during the play and then the movie picks up several years later, at the same high school. This movie is a found footage film, which I have to say is really overdone and dull at this point. There isn't much new out there to this type of horror film.

Anyway, I am getting sidetracked. The film follows four students who are either in a redo of the play "THE GALLOWS", the same play where a student died years before. One of the students is a former football player who has given up the game to be in this play, for one reason only, because he has a crush on the main actress. His best friend constantly teases him about giving up football to be in the play, and when he realizes how terrible his friend is as an actor he comes up with a plan to destroy the set and help his friend.

The students sneak into the the school late one night to destroy the set, and realize they are not alone. Some sinister force is there with them, seeking revenge, seeking friends, they don't know what is going on, but one by one, tragic things again happen.

This movie was just not good. The scares were predictable, the actors were terrible, the plot dull, and everything was just so obvious. There was not one moment in this film where I was actually very interested in watching it. I wanted to throw things because it was just so obvious who was the killer, and why they were killing, and who was the daughter or son of the killer, and ugh. I am so tired of these boring, predictable horror films which think they are being clever by having some sort of twist at the end, but in reality the twist is so obvious that there is no twist at all.

I would like to take back the hour and twenty minutes I spent watching this movie. I don't recommend this movie to anyone. It isn't scary, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's just dull.

Movie Review - JOHN WICK

12/1/2015

I waited a while before I watched this movie, a lot of people told me I wouldn't like how it started, and I didn't. I think too often that movies kill animals because they can and for shock factor, but in this movie it made sense.

John Wick is a man who is deep in depression. After losing his wife he doesn't know what to do with his life. Then one day he gets a gift from his late wife after her death. He realizes that maybe there can be a way back to happiness. After getting some gas in his sporty car, some thugs decide they want something he has. They follow him home, and attack, not realizing who it is they are attacking, or what he was before.

Full of both action and humor this movie was hard to watch but also really well done. I thought as a revenge movie it didn't focus too much on silly fighting scenes and actually everything seemed to have a purpose. When you betray a man who has done some work for you and completed a task you never thought he would complete, it is bad business to go back on a contract.

Keanu Reeves, while often playing himself or versions of himself, was really good in this movie. He showed a range of emotion and I really felt for him. There were scenes where I felt he needed to be a little less of a sympathetic man, and he should have done what was needed, but eventually things worked out.

One of the most awesome ideas in this movie was the hotel when work was never to be done and trouble was never to be started. It was a safe haven for assassins, drug cartels, and anyone who wanted a break from the criminal lives they were living. I haven't seen an idea like this in any other movies that I have watched, although I am sure there are other examples of this, I thought it was a novel idea.

I really enjoyed JOHN WICK. I wasn't sure I would because of what I had heard about it. I am glad I took the chance and I am interested in what they do to keep the fun and action and story in JOHN WICK 2.

February 17th, 2015

2/17/2015

I watched two movies today but neither of them were very good, in fact I don't want anyone to watch either of them.

The first movie was titled THE SHRINE. It was about a news reporter who decides to find a story so she takes her boyfriend and a co-worker on a trip to a foreign country to find a missing young man. There are a lot of scenes where the dialogue is not in English, and since I watched this on a streaming service, I was disappointed that there were entire scenes I couldn't understand. Maybe the director was trying to make it so the audience had to rely on the fear created by the characters, but there wasn't any. Mostly the movie revolves around demonic possession and religion. Of course, the way in which people are possessed wasn't described or expanded, and neither was the reason for this town to be built around a shrine that possesses people. The ends was disappointing, the beginning was boring and the middle was uninteresting.

The second movie was the remake of OLDBOY. I can honestly say I liked the original better. Josh Brolin was not a great actor in this movie (I preferred him in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) and the story just didn't draw me in like the original movie did. I don't know if it was the acting or the fact that there was way too much going on that just took my focus away from what was going on. I didn't care for the way the remake began, and I didn't care for the main character, or what happened to him later.

I wouldn't recommend either of these movies, especially not to anyone who enjoys the horror or thriller genre. Neither movie held my interest. The fact that neither movie held my interest really made me sad too, I had been looking forward to the remake of OLDBOY since it came out and I am sorry this was (in my eyes) wasn't good.

Movie Review - THE RED SHOES

2/5/2015

A woman who finds a pair of pink high heels on a subway platform soon realizes that jealousy, greed, and death follow them wherever they go. This description is from IMDb.

I wondered why this movie was called THE RED SHOES when the shoes, were in fact, pink. After watching this movie I have come to believe it is called THE RED SHOES because who ever wears the shoes ends up becoming a bloody mess below the waist.

THE RED SHOES is a movie out of South Korea, and it is an interesting film about adultery, obsession and revenge. Several women find a nice looking pair of pink shoes. After noticing that the shoes seem to have no owner these women take the shoes and wear them. One woman finds them at a subway station and she ends up literally losing her feet. Another woman steals them from a friend and she ends up losing her life. Turns out the shoes have a violent history, and murder and death follow anyone who wears them without permission.

Sun-jea is trying to start a new life with her disobedient and abrasive young daughter, Tae-so. Tae-so knows many of her mother's secrets, and due to the hold the pink shoes have over her and her mother, it puts both Tae-so and Sun-Jea in danger.

The movie gets very confusing at about the 3/4 mark and goes into all sorts of directions. I wasn't sure what was going on at this point and I really wasn't sure who I was following, Sun-jea or the original owner of the pink shoes. Like many foreign films I think there is something in the cultural differences that causes a lack of understanding in some of the imagery used. However, that being said, this was an interesting movie. I was a little uncomfortable when I watched the way Sun-jea treated her young daughter, Tae-so, over a simple pair of cursed shoes. Then again, there were times throughout the movie where I think Sun-jea should have smacked the crap out of her rebellious daughter.

If you want to watch more foreign horror films I think you should give this movie a go.

Book Review - THE BODIES WE WEAR

12/24/2014

Faye was eleven when she was forced by drug dealers seeking revenge to take the drug Heam, and since then life has never been the same. Now seventeen she feels like she is ready to exact her revenge and she starts plotting to kill those who drugged her and killed her friend, Christopher.

This is listed as a YA novel, and it works as one if you don't mind your Young Adult reading about the perils of drug abuse, and well drug abuse period. This book is all about drug abuse and how once addicted to a drug it's hard to rid yourself of that needy feeling of addiction. While it might scare some off of trying drugs (at least one young woman dies from the abuse) it also goes into detail the euphoria some feel when taking drugs.

The book is an easy read, I read it in a few hours, and if your teen is a fast reader it won't take them long to get through this book. Faye is an hard character to like or get interested in, her history is developed enough that the reader knows why she is addicted to Heam and why it really wasn't her fault, but there are relationships in the story that aren't really explained. For example when a person gets addicted to Heam the family of that person just disowns them and refuses to talk or acknowledge them, but why this happens is never explained.

When Faye meets Chael the story takes a turn and the reader hopes that finally she will be able to move on and start a real life, but then humans being humans, bad things happen and Faye suffers consequences. She doesn't really care if she lives or dies, and she knows that once she gets her revenge she may die and she is fine with that.

In the end, I personally, didn't find the book to be complete. With everything that happens, all the drama and tension and struggle that Faye goes through, to have the book end so simply didn't work for me. I understand the authors need to bring things to a close, but the last few chapters seemed almost thrown together and they didn't flow as well as the rest of the story. If felt rushed, like the author needed to finish the book and wasn't sure what to say.

Movie Review - DARK TOURIST

12/4/2014

DARK TOURIST follows the dark hobby of Jim and his dark mind. Jim has a strange hobby: grief tourism - the act of traveling with the intent to visit places of tragedy or disaster. Each year he takes a week-long vacation from work and visits the locations of murders and takes in the lives of different serial killers. The movie follows him when he visits the crime scenes of Carl Marznap, a serial killer from New Orleans, Louisiana. The final scenes of the movie follow Jim's downward spiral and lets the audience know what has really been happening in Jim's life.

I thought this would be a fascinating movie, and honestly I've never given any thought to touring the places where serial killers have lived or killed, although if I think about it I do know there is a tour of where Jeffery Dahmer killed and lived in Detroit so I guess it isn't a new thing. Unfortunately I was incredibly disappointed in this movie. It delved too deeply into the psyche of Jim and there were moments where he was with Melanie Griffiths character that seemed like they were unnecessary to the film. There were moments when I was very confused as to what was going on, and who the story was really following, Jim or Carl. Their stories at one point intertwine so much I'm not sure who's flashback is being shown.

This movie could have been a lot more interesting if it showed Jim at more of the places that Carl had killed and if it had explored each of their characters a little more in depth. Honestly, I would have liked more in the film about dark tourism.

One thing I can say is that the ending was a little unexpected, there is a point in the movie where Jim's life can go one of two ways, and while I did wonder if some of what was happening was a dream or hallucination, I thought that while the ending was an interesting twist it was also a cop-out.

You might only want to watch this if you are bored and want something a little twisted.

Movie Review - OUIJA

11/16/2014

Ugh, another horror movie that only tries to scare you with sudden appearances of ghosts, loud bangs, and surprising actions by the characters (no they were not surprising at all).

This movie starts with the sudden death of Debbie. Debbie's best friend, Laine, finds an antique Ouija board in Debbie's room and tries to use it to say goodbye.This of course isn't what happens, because if it was the movie would have been a lot shorter, yet maybe not as dull. If you know anything about horror movies you already know two things about this one. The first thing is that when someone uses a Ouija board to contact someone (or spirit ball, or video camera and electrical equipment) they never contact the person they are seeking out. The second thing you know is that the living characters will be tormented and killed one by one until the last one either survives by outsmarting the evil spirit, or until the end of the movie where a cliff hanger lets the audience know that it's not over.

Laine is a dull character with one thing on her mind, but the real problem isn't that her grief makes her behave like an idiot, it's that she doesn't care when all of her other friends start dying. There is no grief for anyone but Debbie. The characters are not interesting and honestly I almost wanted them to all die, because none of them did anything to help themselves and they were just so stupid in what they were doing.

The plot of evil in this movie didn't make sense. There was a subplot with a horrible mother/daughter relationship but none of it was explained well enough to make sense. I wouldn't recommend this movie, partly because it just wasn't good, if I don't care about any of the characters why should I care if they live or die? I also don't recommend this movie because it just isn't scary. It relies too much on sudden sounds and people appearing in glass and a fake ghost yelling in a young girls face. Sorry, Ouija just didn't do it for me.