Book Review: Nora Roberts' Angel's Fall

You know ... seldomly I have been so indifferent to a book as I was to the new one by Nora Roberts. Usually, she either leaves me ecstatic or disappointed with her books, but never indifferent ... until now.

So what is it about Angel's Fall that didn't grip me? I mean I have read the book from cover to cover in just 24 hours and the book has about 480 pages. I really can't put a finger on it. But first things first:

Summary:
After being the sole survivor of a shooting in a restaurant, cordon bleu chef Reece Gilmour slowly patches her life back together. Driving from town to town, working in diners and other greasy spoons, she is a bundle of nerves and paranoia, running away from the violent shooting she only survived barely two years ago.
When she comes to the Wyoming town Angels Fist, she is strangely drawn to it and for the first time in over a year, she has the urge to settle down, even if it is only for a few weeks. She not only finds a job, but a home, love and the semblance of stability and sanity. Until the day she witnesses the murder of a woman up in the mountains.
Her hard fought stability is shattered by events that question her own sanity and chips away at her sense of self and her reputation in town. Is the murderer after her, or does she only imagine things?

Review:
I have to admit, never was it as hard as with this book to get through the first third of it. I really had to force myself through the descriptions of town life and Reece first steps to healing. Only when the first stalking occurs (after the murder) I got hooked on the plot. From then on it was not an easy but an enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, half-way through I suspected who had killed the woman. So the ending was not so surprising anymore.
Did I like the book? I guess I do ... though I still feel a bit on the undecided side of it. It's not one of Nora's best books, but it is also not a stinker as it is well researched (depression, guilt, paranoia) and a good read once you get into the rythm of things, but somehow the characters left me untouched.
So, yeah we have poor victimized Reece who almost died in the cleaning cupboard of her kitchen, I felt a bit of compassion for and with her but the others .... either they were coming too short (Joanie) or they were redundant (like Lo). And somehow her male heros are one long string of tall, dark, handsome (though it was a nice touch that he didn't have too sensitive a side) It seems Nora Roberts copies herself. The plot itself is nothing to write home about. Okay, so it has a bit of depth here and there, and offers oh-kay sub-characters, but considering what she has written over the past years, it only seems like a bad copy of her own work. I guess it was bound to happen some day. She has been writing since 1981 and sooner or later she had to fall back on ideas she had already used in books before.

All in all, a good summer read. But hopefully her new trilogy (Celtic Circle) and Born In Death will be much better - well it better be because Born In Death was postponed to November because of this mediocre book called Angel's Fall.

Book Review: Nora Roberts' Angel's Fall

You know ... seldomly I have been so indifferent to a book as I was to the new one by Nora Roberts. Usually, she either leaves me ecstatic or disappointed with her books, but never indifferent ... until now.

So what is it about Angel's Fall that didn't grip me? I mean I have read the book from cover to cover in just 24 hours and the book has about 480 pages. I really can't put a finger on it. But first things first:

Summary:
After being the sole survivor of a shooting in a restaurant, cordon bleu chef Reece Gilmour slowly patches her life back together. Driving from town to town, working in diners and other greasy spoons, she is a bundle of nerves and paranoia, running away from the violent shooting she only survived barely two years ago.
When she comes to the Wyoming town Angels Fist, she is strangely drawn to it and for the first time in over a year, she has the urge to settle down, even if it is only for a few weeks. She not only finds a job, but a home, love and the semblance of stability and sanity. Until the day she witnesses the murder of a woman up in the mountains.
Her hard fought stability is shattered by events that question her own sanity and chips away at her sense of self and her reputation in town. Is the murderer after her, or does she only imagine things?

Review:
I have to admit, never was it as hard as with this book to get through the first third of it. I really had to force myself through the descriptions of town life and Reece first steps to healing. Only when the first stalking occurs (after the murder) I got hooked on the plot. From then on it was not an easy but an enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, half-way through I suspected who had killed the woman. So the ending was not so surprising anymore.
Did I like the book? I guess I do ... though I still feel a bit on the undecided side of it. It's not one of Nora's best books, but it is also not a stinker as it is well researched (depression, guilt, paranoia) and a good read once you get into the rythm of things, but somehow the characters left me untouched.
So, yeah we have poor victimized Reece who almost died in the cleaning cupboard of her kitchen, I felt a bit of compassion for and with her but the others .... either they were coming too short (Joanie) or they were redundant (like Lo). And somehow her male heros are one long string of tall, dark, handsome (though it was a nice touch that he didn't have too sensitive a side) It seems Nora Roberts copies herself. The plot itself is nothing to write home about. Okay, so it has a bit of depth here and there, and offers oh-kay sub-characters, but considering what she has written over the past years, it only seems like a bad copy of her own work. I guess it was bound to happen some day. She has been writing since 1981 and sooner or later she had to fall back on ideas she had already used in books before.

All in all, a good summer read. But hopefully her new trilogy (Celtic Circle) and Born In Death will be much better - well it better be because Born In Death was postponed to November because of this mediocre book called Angel's Fall.

Book Review: Nora Roberts' Angel's Fall

You know ... seldomly I have been so indifferent to a book as I was to the new one by Nora Roberts. Usually, she either leaves me ecstatic or disappointed with her books, but never indifferent ... until now.

So what is it about Angel's Fall that didn't grip me? I mean I have read the book from cover to cover in just 24 hours and the book has about 480 pages. I really can't put a finger on it. But first things first:

Summary:
After being the sole survivor of a shooting in a restaurant, cordon bleu chef Reece Gilmour slowly patches her life back together. Driving from town to town, working in diners and other greasy spoons, she is a bundle of nerves and paranoia, running away from the violent shooting she only survived barely two years ago.
When she comes to the Wyoming town Angels Fist, she is strangely drawn to it and for the first time in over a year, she has the urge to settle down, even if it is only for a few weeks. She not only finds a job, but a home, love and the semblance of stability and sanity. Until the day she witnesses the murder of a woman up in the mountains.
Her hard fought stability is shattered by events that question her own sanity and chips away at her sense of self and her reputation in town. Is the murderer after her, or does she only imagine things?

Review:
I have to admit, never was it as hard as with this book to get through the first third of it. I really had to force myself through the descriptions of town life and Reece first steps to healing. Only when the first stalking occurs (after the murder) I got hooked on the plot. From then on it was not an easy but an enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, half-way through I suspected who had killed the woman. So the ending was not so surprising anymore.
Did I like the book? I guess I do ... though I still feel a bit on the undecided side of it. It's not one of Nora's best books, but it is also not a stinker as it is well researched (depression, guilt, paranoia) and a good read once you get into the rythm of things, but somehow the characters left me untouched.
So, yeah we have poor victimized Reece who almost died in the cleaning cupboard of her kitchen, I felt a bit of compassion for and with her but the others .... either they were coming too short (Joanie) or they were redundant (like Lo). And somehow her male heros are one long string of tall, dark, handsome (though it was a nice touch that he didn't have too sensitive a side) It seems Nora Roberts copies herself. The plot itself is nothing to write home about. Okay, so it has a bit of depth here and there, and offers oh-kay sub-characters, but considering what she has written over the past years, it only seems like a bad copy of her own work. I guess it was bound to happen some day. She has been writing since 1981 and sooner or later she had to fall back on ideas she had already used in books before.

All in all, a good summer read. But hopefully her new trilogy (Celtic Circle) and Born In Death will be much better - well it better be because Born In Death was postponed to November because of this mediocre book called Angel's Fall.

Book Review: H.P. Kerkeling's Ich bin dann mal weg

Okay, this book this time has only been published in German so far and I think only Germans will be interested in it. I have read it in May, before the hype hit the press.

The author of the book is one of Germany's top comedians and he is liked by both young and old, het and gay (he himself is gay and is out of the closet for decades now). HaPe Kerkeling is seen as the funny guy who portrays all these weirdo characters that seem to be so typical for Germany and even though in interviews he comes across as quite an intellectual, I was more than surprised about his first foray into writing:

Ich bin dann mal weg (Take care, I'm off then) is a sometimes funny, sometimes pithy rendition of his pilgrimage on the St. James Way from France to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. 800 kilometres through the Spanish plains and wilderness and the beautiful yet troubled mountains of the Basque region.

I got interested in it as I had been to the same pilgramage about 12 years ago with some co-students as some kind of dare - so seeing that Ha Pe who is a self-proclaimed couch potatoe had done the same as I did (when I was still a bit more sporty) I was curious of how he had experience this pilgramage. As he is also non-religious but spiritual like me, I had to have the book.

I read it in one go and I laughed and smiled, I sometimes shook my head in wonder or nodded in agreement. The people he met, the things he experienced ... it all had a ring of truth, a sense of remembrance that touched me. It is a deeply spiritual book in a non-religious way. Of course, being on a pilgramage it has religious over-tones but Kerkeling finds a way to keep all the religious and especially the Roman-Catholic connotations at a minimum. He makes fun, he puts on trial but with a lightness and some sort of playfullness that entertains but also makes you think.
He describes all things human, and how he reacts to it. The 320 pages strong book, enriched with some nice photos, is an excellent and very detailed travel guide. Even though the book is more or less about God, religion, re-incarnation (a topic that the yellow press took up gratefully) and the central question of "who am I?" Kerkeling's thoughts in his daily vignettes are poignant and show the cheekiness of the author, here is an example from July 3rd : "Sometimes it is most reasonable to be simply unreasonable!"

If you read this book it will touch you on many levels, it will give you an inside on one of Germany's famous celebrities, it will touch your own spirituality and it will make you want to pick up a walking-staff and go all the 800 kilometres yourself, following the St. James Way.

Book Review: H.P. Kerkeling's Ich bin dann mal weg

Okay, this book this time has only been published in German so far and I think only Germans will be interested in it. I have read it in May, before the hype hit the press.

The author of the book is one of Germany's top comedians and he is liked by both young and old, het and gay (he himself is gay and is out of the closet for decades now). HaPe Kerkeling is seen as the funny guy who portrays all these weirdo characters that seem to be so typical for Germany and even though in interviews he comes across as quite an intellectual, I was more than surprised about his first foray into writing:

Ich bin dann mal weg (Take care, I'm off then) is a sometimes funny, sometimes pithy rendition of his pilgrimage on the St. James Way from France to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. 800 kilometres through the Spanish plains and wilderness and the beautiful yet troubled mountains of the Basque region.

I got interested in it as I had been to the same pilgramage about 12 years ago with some co-students as some kind of dare - so seeing that Ha Pe who is a self-proclaimed couch potatoe had done the same as I did (when I was still a bit more sporty) I was curious of how he had experience this pilgramage. As he is also non-religious but spiritual like me, I had to have the book.

I read it in one go and I laughed and smiled, I sometimes shook my head in wonder or nodded in agreement. The people he met, the things he experienced ... it all had a ring of truth, a sense of remembrance that touched me. It is a deeply spiritual book in a non-religious way. Of course, being on a pilgramage it has religious over-tones but Kerkeling finds a way to keep all the religious and especially the Roman-Catholic connotations at a minimum. He makes fun, he puts on trial but with a lightness and some sort of playfullness that entertains but also makes you think.
He describes all things human, and how he reacts to it. The 320 pages strong book, enriched with some nice photos, is an excellent and very detailed travel guide. Even though the book is more or less about God, religion, re-incarnation (a topic that the yellow press took up gratefully) and the central question of "who am I?" Kerkeling's thoughts in his daily vignettes are poignant and show the cheekiness of the author, here is an example from July 3rd : "Sometimes it is most reasonable to be simply unreasonable!"

If you read this book it will touch you on many levels, it will give you an inside on one of Germany's famous celebrities, it will touch your own spirituality and it will make you want to pick up a walking-staff and go all the 800 kilometres yourself, following the St. James Way.

Book Review: H.P. Kerkeling's Ich bin dann mal weg

Okay, this book this time has only been published in German so far and I think only Germans will be interested in it. I have read it in May, before the hype hit the press.

The author of the book is one of Germany's top comedians and he is liked by both young and old, het and gay (he himself is gay and is out of the closet for decades now). HaPe Kerkeling is seen as the funny guy who portrays all these weirdo characters that seem to be so typical for Germany and even though in interviews he comes across as quite an intellectual, I was more than surprised about his first foray into writing:

Ich bin dann mal weg (Take care, I'm off then) is a sometimes funny, sometimes pithy rendition of his pilgrimage on the St. James Way from France to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. 800 kilometres through the Spanish plains and wilderness and the beautiful yet troubled mountains of the Basque region.

I got interested in it as I had been to the same pilgramage about 12 years ago with some co-students as some kind of dare - so seeing that Ha Pe who is a self-proclaimed couch potatoe had done the same as I did (when I was still a bit more sporty) I was curious of how he had experience this pilgramage. As he is also non-religious but spiritual like me, I had to have the book.

I read it in one go and I laughed and smiled, I sometimes shook my head in wonder or nodded in agreement. The people he met, the things he experienced ... it all had a ring of truth, a sense of remembrance that touched me. It is a deeply spiritual book in a non-religious way. Of course, being on a pilgramage it has religious over-tones but Kerkeling finds a way to keep all the religious and especially the Roman-Catholic connotations at a minimum. He makes fun, he puts on trial but with a lightness and some sort of playfullness that entertains but also makes you think.
He describes all things human, and how he reacts to it. The 320 pages strong book, enriched with some nice photos, is an excellent and very detailed travel guide. Even though the book is more or less about God, religion, re-incarnation (a topic that the yellow press took up gratefully) and the central question of "who am I?" Kerkeling's thoughts in his daily vignettes are poignant and show the cheekiness of the author, here is an example from July 3rd : "Sometimes it is most reasonable to be simply unreasonable!"

If you read this book it will touch you on many levels, it will give you an inside on one of Germany's famous celebrities, it will touch your own spirituality and it will make you want to pick up a walking-staff and go all the 800 kilometres yourself, following the St. James Way.

O M G

Jeesh, I don't believe it ... we are in the semi-finals of the footy world cup. As Olly was watching (and shouting and yelling) I went out with Chica. The little one was really nervous because of all the shouting and singing coming from the different houses.


ETA: Olly is jumping around like a ball around here, he is really happy :D

O M G

Jeesh, I don't believe it ... we are in the semi-finals of the footy world cup. As Olly was watching (and shouting and yelling) I went out with Chica. The little one was really nervous because of all the shouting and singing coming from the different houses.


ETA: Olly is jumping around like a ball around here, he is really happy :D

O M G

Jeesh, I don't believe it ... we are in the semi-finals of the footy world cup. As Olly was watching (and shouting and yelling) I went out with Chica. The little one was really nervous because of all the shouting and singing coming from the different houses.


ETA: Olly is jumping around like a ball around here, he is really happy :D