Book Review: Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell
Stolen Tongues
Author: Felix Blackwell
Published: June 20, 2017
320 Pages
Reviewed By: Kim
Kim’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
A romantic cabin getaway doesn’t go exactly as planned.
High up on the windswept cliffs of Pale Peak, Faye and Felix celebrate their new engagement. But soon, a chorus of ghastly noises erupts from the nearby woods: the screams of animals, the cries of children, and the mad babble of a hundred mournful voices. A dark figure looms near the windows in the dead of night, whispering to Faye. As the weather turns deadly, Felix discovers that his terrified fiancée isn’t just mumbling in her sleep – she’s whispering back.
Kim’s Review:
Dang, this was a scary one!! I legit got creeped out while reading this book! Thanks to Beccie for getting it for me!
First, the issues. I didn’t have too many but there were just enough to keep me from giving 5 stars. I didn’t get nearly enough by the end; y’all know I love getting as much info as possible and I’m upset when I don’t get it. I get that some things are better left buried, but I also like digging things up; it’s what I do! But, paradoxically, I think the effectiveness of the horror diminished as the story went on. It wasn’t that I learned too much of the creature and the situation, it’s just that it happened so much and the exposure to it all was every night, that eventually, the horror just kind of wore off. It became a daily occurrence that should have terrified me, but just felt too much.
I also felt that the twist wasn’t super twisty. I appreciate the metaphor and I was still satisfied with the explanation that I got; but as long as it took to get there, the pay off just felt anticlimactic. All that makes it sound like I didn’t like this book and that couldn’t be farther from the truth! I actually really liked it! It had me creeped out and I liked the Native American culture that was thrown in. I was able to sympathize with the characters and got very invested in their plight. This is a great read for the spooky season!!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Audiobook Review: Travel by Bullet by John Scalzi (The Dispatcher #3)
Travel by Bullet
Series: The Dispatcher #3
Author: John Scalzi
Narrator: Zachary Quinto
Published: September 1, 2022
Audiobook: 3 hours 43 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: October 13-15, 2022
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
The world has changed. Now, when someone is murdered, they almost always come back to life—and there are professionals, called “dispatchers,” who kill in order to save lives, to give those near the end a second chance. Tony Valdez is a dispatcher, and he has never been busier.
But for as much as the world has changed, some things have stayed the same. Greed, corruption and avarice are still in full swing. When Tony is called to a Chicago emergency room by an old friend and fellow dispatcher, he is suddenly and unwillingly thrown into a whirlpool of schemes and plots involving billions of dollars, with vast caches of wealth ranging from real estate to cryptocurrency up for grabs.
All Tony wants to do is keep his friend safe. But it’s hard to do when friends keep secrets, enemies offer seductive deals, and nothing is ever what it seems. The world has changed… but the stakes are still life and death.
Jessica’s Review:
Scalzi is back with a third Dispatcher novel and Quinto narrates again! And this one is a recent release too! This new novella seems even more real because the pandemic is brought into play and affected this world as well as ours! It affected a dispatcher’s job too, and we get to see this mentioned. And wearing a mask is commonplace in this world as it can be in our world, with people choosing to wear masks whenever they are out.
The world is much darker too with the rich/elite/villains taking advantage of ‘murder’ and the 99.9% chance of coming back by ‘traveling by bullet’, hence the title of this new novella. This world has so much more greed, corruption, and death manipulation than what we have now and if this actually happened I can see our world becoming like Tony’s world.
These novellas are fast paced, and enjoyable! You like Tony, but is he as good as we think? Quinto is the perfect Tony and I really want to see these stories play on tv with him starring!
I hope Scalzi gives us more Dispatcher novellas! This series is one to make you think a lot about this world, and Scalzi has done a brilliant job of bringing us into it.
Purchase Links:
Please Note: This new release is only currently available as an Audible original.
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Audiobook Review: Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi (The Dispatcher #2)
Murder by Other Means
Series: The Dispatcher #2
Author: John Scalzi
Narrator: Zachary Quinto
Published: September 20, 2020
Audiobook 3 hours 33 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: October 12-13, 2022
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
In the world of the Dispatchers, a natural or accidental death is an endpoint; a murder pushes the do-over button and 99.99% of the time the victim comes back to life. Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher who’s been taking shadier and shadier gigs in financial tough times, and after witnessing a crime gone wrong, he finds people around him permanently dying in a way that implicates him. He has to solve the mystery of these deaths to save the lives of others–and keep himself out of trouble with the law.
Jessica’s Review:
This novella should follow your reading of The Dispatcher and then continue on. This world is such a strange world where if you are murdered, there is a 99.9% chance that you will come back to life. We still don’t know why this started or the cause, and I don’t think we will ever know. This world has just come to accept this and move on in a new way, the good and the bad.
We have Tony Valdez back and you just can’t help but like him. And he gets in way over his head when he witnesses a bank robbery gone wrong: One of the bank robbers doesn’t come back to life.
This story is definitely of the noir category and a quick read/listen and Quinto is just brilliant and makes the story enjoyable! This is not a world I would like to find myself in, or even find myself in the job of a Dispatcher: There are so many issues with this type of job of being a Dispatcher along with morality issues and the law in general. And just the temptation of becoming ‘dirty’ for money. I hope Scalzi brings us more of Tony and his misadventures of life as a Dispatcher!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK