Choices Stories Review 4.5/5 Stars: Blades of Light and Shadows

November 30, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Action Adventure, Choices Stories, Fantasy action adventure, Choices Stories, fantasy

Summary:

You play as a young orphan from Riverbend, an idyllic little village. You and your brother dream of adventures, until one comes calling. Soon into the quest, your brother disappears into the Shadow Realm. From that point on, your quest is very personal.

Side discussion about diamonds: Are they worth it?

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: If you can afford it, it’s best to spend $107-ish. It’s $100 + taxes) for 1500 diamonds. Throughout the games, there are certain choices you can only make if you have the diamonds. Some games, the diamonds are more about special scenes. Others, like this one, you will need it for max experience and special items and so forth.

It’s possible to play the games without diamonds. Heck, most of the stories have youtube videos. Those are great if you want to see an alternate special scene (like with a different character because there will be different lines of dialogue). I think PB lets those stay up (instead of fighting them) because it draws people into the stories as a whole, which will get people to spend money eventually.

Additional Comments:

Plot 4/5: The beginning meanders. The end is amazing. In between, they did everything in their power to make sure you have lots of sidequests to spend diamonds on. Since that’s basically how they make money to pay people to keep writing and animating such stories, it’s fine. The story itself is fairly standard fantasy fare. I think that’s sort of the schtick.
Side Characters 4/5: Mal’s kind of obnoxious. Knowing that’s part of his charm doesn’t quite cover every irritation. The quest makes him a hero, even if he does still have sticky fingers. Nia’s sweet. I think part of your journey is corrupting the priestess’s do-gooderness. Imatura’s tough at the beginning and tough at the end. Tyril’s kind of the emo, tormented soul of the party. The Nesper’s obsessed with snacks. He’s also adorable.
End 4.5/5: I’m not sure if you needed to buy enough lore and legendary weapons to get the scene at the end, but it had the exact feel of the Elementalists’s first book. They’re definitely angling for a sequel, though to be honest, it probably depends how many people spend diamond along the way. Pretty sure they only continue the series that are popular.
Replay value (5/5) is fairly high. You can adventure as either a man or a woman. You can romance one of 4 companions. It’s a tad annoying that if you switch genders, the special adventuring outfit isn’t already paid for (you have to buy it again even if you bought it for your first character. Cheap shot, PB, but I will admit both the female and male special outfits are stellar).
One of the best Pixelberry stories I’ve finished of late, though it’s probably a hairsbreadth behind The Royal Heir Book 2 in overall feels.

Conclusion:

Well-worth playing and replaying if you love fantasy.

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Many of my 50 audible titles are listed on Audiobooks Unleashed.
Whether you’re looking for mystery or suspense or fantasy, I’ve got a title for you. Free codes are probably on audiobooks unleashed.
Normal links go to audible. *The Amazon labeled links are affiliate links. That means I get a very small payment from Amazon if you go through with a purchase.*
Note: Filter by US if you’re looking for those codes as many titles are out.
Ones I think may still have US codes: Reshner’s Royal Ranger, Never Again, Innova, The Golden City Captives, The Holy War, Reclaim the Darklands, Eagle Eyes, Treachery Makes it Tense, Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts, The Dark Side of Science, Ashlynn’s Dreams, Nadia’s Tears, Malia’s Miracles, and Varick’s Quest
There are plenty of UK codes, but not many US ones left.

Redeemer Chronicles (Fantasy)

Awakening – Redeemer Chronicles Book 1, MG fantasy (Amazon) (free codes)
The Holy War – Redeemer Chronicles Book 2, MG fantasy (Amazon) (free codes)
Reclaim the Darklands – Redeemer Chronicles Book 3, MG fantasy (Amazon) (free codes)
River’s Edge Ransom – Prequel to Redeemer Chronicles (Amazon) (email devyaschildren @ gmail.com for free codes)

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Devya’s Children Series Links:

Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – short stories featuring Jillian. (Amazon) (free codes)
The Dark Side of Science – official prequel to Devya’s Children; Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live. (Amazon) (Please email devyaschildren @ gmail.com for free codes)
Ashlynn’s Dreams – Genetically altered Dream Shaper learns her gift. (Amazon) (free codes)
Nadia’s Tears – Jillian tries to awaken her sister, Nadia, from a coma. (Amazon) (free codes)
Malia’s Miracles – Jillian and her siblings try to save a friend’s mother. (Amazon) (free codes)
Varick’s Quest – Jillian and Danielle get kidnapped. Nadia’s also in trouble. (Amazon) (free codes)
More Scifi:
Reshner’s Royal Ranger (epic sci-fi) just made it there. (Amazon) (free codes)

Guardian Angel Files:

Spirit’s Bane – Allister and Mina are training to be Guardians. Satan’s out to get them. (Amazon) (free codes)
Kindred Spirits – Mina’s exiled to Earth. Allister’s stuck in the Heavens. (Amazon) (free codes)

3.5/5 Stars Roza Shanina Russian Sniper by Robert Corrigan

November 27, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Audiobooks, Nonfiction Robert Corrigan, Roza Shanina, Russian Sniper

Narrated by Kay Webster

Run Time: 38 mins

Genre: Biography

Summary:

This is a very short news article style tale of one of Russia’s most successful female snipers.

Additional Comments:

Felt like a really long book report.
The lady has an incredibly interesting life, but the clinical way this is told makes it feel like 8 degrees of separation. It’s very hard to connect to her as a person, a woman, a soldier, a patriot who fought for—and ultimately died—for her country.
Even with it being very short, parts meandered off away from her tale. It would have been way more interesting if told as historical fiction or fictionalized history with quotes from her journal entries.

Conclusion:

Despite it’s shortcomings, it’s an intriguing tale and worth listening to.

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Many of my 50+ audible titles are listed on Audiobooks Unleashed.
Whether you’re looking for mystery or suspense or fantasy, I’ve got a title for you. Free codes are probably on audiobooks unleashed.
Normal links go to audible. *The Amazon labeled links are affiliate links. That means I get a very small payment from Amazon if you go through with a purchase.*
Note: Filter by US if you’re looking for those codes as many titles are out.
Ones I think may still have US codes: Reshner’s Royal Ranger, Never Again, Innova, The Golden City Captives, The Holy War, Reclaim the Darklands, Eagle Eyes, Treachery Makes it Tense, Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts, The Dark Side of Science, Ashlynn’s Dreams, Nadia’s Tears, Malia’s Miracles, and Varick’s Quest
There are plenty of UK codes, but not many US ones left.

Redeemer Chronicles (Fantasy)

Devya’s Children Series Links:

Guardian Angel Files:

3.45/5 Stars Rampage by Harold Schechter

November 24, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Audiobooks, Nonfiction mass murder, nonfiction, Steven Weber

Narrated by Steven Weber

Run Time: 1 hr and 23 mins

Genre: True Crime

Summary:

In 1949, Howard Unruh lost it and killed 13 neighbors.

Additional Comments:

It would have been nice to learn a bit more about his history.
Short tale basically explained on the back cover copy.
He’s heralded as the face of modern mass murder.
Performance was adequately done.
Even clocking in just shy of an hour and a half, it feels long and unnecessarily drawn out in parts.
I’m still relatively new to the True Crime scene. But seems to me this dude got off scott free. I 100% agree with the headlines that decried his move to a less restrictive mental facility. Because he was cool, calm, and collected, they gave him a pass on the 13 cold-blooded murders. Stupid doctors.

Conclusion:

It’s an interesting tale that left me almost—but not completely—feeling like I’d wasted my life listening to it.

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4/5 Stars Venom: Let There Be Carnage

November 21, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Action Adventure, Movie Reviews, superhero Movie Review, Venom 2

Starring: Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Naomie Harris, and Michelle Williams

Summary:

Venom is an alien living inside Eddie Brock, a down on his luck in life journalist. The symbiotes have a spat and go their separate ways for a time, which almost turns out disastrously. A serial killer gets a hold of part of the alien creature, developing his own mayhem inducing ability. Carnage ensues.

Additional Comments:

This is a sequel, but you can probably watch it without having seen the first. You’ll likely enjoy it more if you have seen Venom though.
It’s definitely got some slow points, but the setup is worth it.
I enjoyed the drama side where Venom and Eddie were having an emotional crisis.
It’s open to a third movie, but there is enough closure that you feel you have an entire story.
As typical of these kinds of superhero/supervillain movies, there’s massive CGI destruction of property and even a thrilling chase sequence.
The part with Frances Barrister being locked away sort of didn’t make sense to me, but that could be because I haven’t experienced the comics.

Conclusion:

Worth seeing on a big screen.

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4/5 Stars Video Game Review Hogwarts Mystery (iphone)

November 18, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Action Adventure, Fantasy Video Game Review

Summary:

You get to play as a young witch or wizard in the Harry Potter world. It’s a long, drawn out adventure story. I have been playing for a few weeks now. It’s fun but there are certainly annoying points.

Additional Comments:

Pro: Graphics are beautiful.
Con: Load times are annoying.
Neutral: If you’re willing to watch a bajillion of the same ads, you can earn energy.
Ah, energy. It’s probably the sorest point. That’s how they make their money. It takes 4 minutes to get 1 energy, but they will happily give you 3 from time to time if you watch an ad. Those are a sanity and life-saver. I get that they need to make money off the game, but 4 minutes is excessively long when it takes about 30 energy for an hour long quest, 60 for a 3 hour quest and about 100 for an 8 hour quest.
Between ads and bonuses you can find every few hours throughout the castle, you should be able to complete a few quests a day.
Con: Certain story quests lock you in until it’s finished. Most, you can come and go as you please to pick up extra energy, feed a pet, or work on your friendships.
Pro: Year 3 features study with a friend. This is an amazing boost to your friendships.
Neutral: Meal with a friend is okay for building friendships, but they don’t give you a lot of experience and there is a 6-hour cooldown between instances. I’d starve if I went to this school. Playing gobstones gives more XP for building friendships. You kind of have to advance friendships if you want your friends to help you on your crazy quest to find your missing brother.
Pro: Most of the answers to quests are available online. Not sure how I’d have made it without those walkthroughs. Major thanks to those who painstakingly put the lists together.
The story itself is fine, but it’s a little drawn out for the sake of prolonging the game. For example, I’m trying to get the lady in the Three Broomsticks to give me my brother’s quill. She’s using me as an errand girl. At least the collection quests are short so far.
Quiddich is fun. I like the game mechanics. You have to move the cursor into the spheres when it reaches the green part. The quest to join the quidditch team for your house is kind of annoying though. Orion’s a jerk.
Con: I’ve had major connectivity issues. I’m not sure if the blame rests with Jam City (game maker) or Facebook or what, but it still stinks. Thank goodness for Youtube videos that tell you how to preserve a game. Even if it’s FB’s fault, I highly recommend connecting your game. I’ve been restarted twice and gotten my game back through the method in this video.
I played ages ago, but I quit because the dueling annoyed me.
Dueling is now possible against other players. It’s a lot more fun that way.
They’ve also done a lot more work with events. Timed quests can be annoying, but they’re possible if you plan carefully. In that sense, it is a bit of a strategy game.

Conclusion:

It’s not bad for a phone game. A little tedious at points (okay, a lot tedious), but still fun.

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3.5/5 stars Blind Cerulean by Gene Kendall

November 15, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Audiobooks, scifi, thriller Gene Kendall, Tom Weitzel, vigilante

Narrated by Tom Weitzel

Run Time: 8 hrs and 46 minutes

Genre: scifi, thriller, vigilante

Summary:

Alley and her mysterious Coach work to save Acadia.

Additional Comments:

Points for being unique. This story alternates third and second person. I didn’t like that aspect, but it gets points for uniqueness. I found it needlessly confusing to hear sections spoken of as “you.” Second person is rarely used for good reason. It makes sense in choose your own adventure books and the like, but here, the sections sporting it would have been fine or even more powerful if done in third or first person point of view. The back and forth nature of past and present caused more confusion than it’s worth. It felt like 2 very different stories were being told for about 90% of the book. (It clicks together in the end, finally.)
Genre’s actually kind of hard to pin down. It’s billed as a vigilante thriller, but that’s kind of a small part of the plot. The Mx drug stuff conveys almost super human abilities to those who ingest it. The drug experiments and government programs to control the stuff make it seem a wee bit scifi-y. The cult angle wasn’t fully developed enough to make them seem dangerous, but that lent mightily to the mysterious bad guys that need to be fought by a vigilante air. One character even made it seem like an X-file for a while (the gross ones, not the government conspiracy ones).
The title makes it seem almost literary, which this book is certainly not. (That’s not an insult; it’s not meant to be literary.) It might be one of those rare books where too much is happening for everything to gel properly.
The setting didn’t line up very well. I think that’s because the story gave off such strong scifi vibes early on that I expected the story to be set in the future or in a dystopian future.
The big reveals were predictable yet still decently satisfying.
Alley and Chase are likable, though I wish their friendship went somewhere deeper. Even when they were forced closer through circumstances, their relationship seemed distant and cold.
Coach isn’t likeable. He does the grumpy old mentor figure well enough but then it gets over done to the point, he’s just a jerk.
Alley’s mom is kind of useless.
The tech doesn’t seem to line up properly. People would be hard-pressed to find working tape players after the 90’s. If this kid’s 15, then she was born ~2005-ish.
Cover’s cool but it doesn’t really smack as a vigilante. I get a crime and dystopian flavor from the cover.
The performance was competently handled.
The vigilante angle is a lot of fun, but it lacks focus. Her actions don’t seem to have an ultimate goal besides hit drug pushers and do some damage.
The obsession with the 80’s definitely dates the book. There are giant coincidences that are explained in the end.
Closure is mediocre. It wraps up with a three-years-later stamp, but there’s obviously a lot left unresolved. That’s understandable if this is a first in a series, but so far, it doesn’t seem to be.
I like that the story had more going on than simple fight bad guys, but I think it probably went too far into other genre territories to be truly satisfying as a vigilante tale.
I can see it being attractive to some readers, but the oddball mix of genres may be a detractor for others.

Conclusion:

If you’re looking for a high-action genre mix, this is worth checking out.

*I received a free copy of the audiobook. This is my honest opinion. I have freely chosen to provide a review.

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3.45/5 Stars The Saloon Girl’s Journey by Angela Castillo

November 12, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Audiobooks, Christian, historical Angela Castillo, Clean, historical

Narrated by J. Grace Pennington

Run Time: 4 hrs and 49 mins

Genre: historical-ish fiction

Summary:

Darla North escapes life as a saloon girl and comes to live in a place for “unfortunate women.” Ethan Downs is the saint that falls in love with her.

Additional Comments:

This kind of book generally relies upon one of the characters (usually the woman) doing something incredibly stupid and the other (usually the man) chasing them. It’s true to form. In this case, it’s an frustrating series of misunderstandings nobody bothers asking about that leads the MC to basically run away from a loving home.
There is one tiny spot of danger that sort of redeems some of the nonsense.
Narration is fine.
The book started out fine. I liked the small bits of her character in the two other books in this series. Largely, Darla was a disappointment though.
Oh, it ends with presumed happily ever after, but with the past the author gave Darla, there was so much more potential for her shady past cropping up. I felt like that part never panned out.

Conclusion:

If you’re a completionist and have read the others, might as well finish the series. It’s a clean, historical style Christian book.

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2.75/5 Stars A Familiar Evil by Anne Patrick

November 11, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Audiobooks, Christian, mystery Anne Patrick, Leonor A Woodworth

Narrated by Leonor A. Woodworth

3 performance

2.45 story

Summary:

Jordan Russell left her husband and the FBI career to become chief of police of her hometown.

Additional Comments:

This deviates very slightly from the formula for most Christian suspense books. This time around there’s a married couple whose relationships is on the rocks. Expect some mention of sex once they both come to their senses. Still fits the clean category though so it’s all fade to black or talk about in passing.
I don’t buy that the husband didn’t know where she was until the cousin said something. He works for the FBI. She left the FBI. If she up and disappeared, there would be a very thorough search.
If you have very high suspension of disbelief, you may enjoy this more than I did.
It’s about 4 hours too long to be interesting.
Story’s kind of forgettable. That could legit be that the author write very similar stories. Tragic past. Check. Troubled present. Check. Bad guy obsessed with her. Check. Handsome dude trying to win her back. Check.
I read it a few weeks ago and had to think hard to recall the character.
For as hyped up as this lady was, I fully expected her not to become the damsel in distress.
Exciting section was kinda cool, but it took a LOT of visit here and visit there and pitch a fit in between to get there.
They’re clean. The Christian parts are probably a tad heavy handed for most people, but it doesn’t hide that part. It’s probably filed under Christian fiction.

Conclusion:

The author’s worth trying, but I’m not sure this would be my first recommendation if you’ve never tried her before. (I think the one about the psychic artist was better.)

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3.5/5 Stars Viva Jacquelina!

November 6, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Action Adventure, Audiobooks Bloody Jack Series, Katherine Kellgren, L.A. Meyer

Performance 5

Story 3 Stars

Narrated by Katherine Kellgren

Run Time: 9 hrs and 29 mins

Summary:

Another long-winded detour for the trouble-magnet, Jacky Faber.

Additional Comments:

Jacky’s off to Spain to fulfill her obligation to the government. Things go awry, of course.
She ends up getting to an artist’s studio and working as a model. She repeatedly claims no to be shy and that pans out in this book.
The mushroom thing was alternately amusing, highly disturbing, and finally fitting.
It almost seemed like 3 unrelated books: the war, the desertion/art studio detour, and finally, the gypsy tangent.
I’d think the character would get more sense eventually.
The performance is amazing as usual.
Story kind of drones on and on. I enjoyed the third act though.
The brush with the cult seems far-fetched, even for these books, which do excel at the ridiculous.
I had to take a long break after this one. As much as I love Katherine Kellgren, there’s only so much of the Faber voice one can take at once and stay sane.

Conclusion:

Third act almost makes up for the rest of the plot plodding.

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3/5 stars Vengeance on Tyneside by Eileen Thornton

November 3, 2021October 23, 2021 Julie Gilbert Audiobooks, cozyish, mystery Agnes Lockwood, Eileen Thornton

Agnes Lockwood Mysteries 3

Narrated by Deborah Balm

Run Time: 7 hrs and 24 mins

Summary:

Agnes Lockwood stumbles over another body and helps the coppers collar the bad guy.

Additional Comments:

The cops seem especially incompetent this round. I know cozies are supposed to have a supersleuth, but if she’s dating the DCI, it’d be nice if he wasn’t completely useless.
There’s trouble in paradise this round. It’s kind of annoying to read, but it does hit some realistic notes.
These are clean, cozies set in the UK.
Agnes could be taken as a nosy old biddy or a Murder She Wrote wannabe or a harmless rich lady with way too much time on her hands.
The conclusion worked out well and felt satisfying, but the bad guy himself was kind of disappointing. He’s not exactly a Moriarty.

Conclusion:

If you’re looking for clean and cozy and British to book, this is a good series for you to check out.

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