Movie Les Misrables

Les Miserables (2012 film)

Directed by Tom Hooper

Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg

For stealing a piece of bread, a man (Jean Valjean) is imprisoned and then hunted down by Javert, a policeman for years. This version won eight Academy Awards. The awards worldwide are too many to mention.

I, like the Academy, agree that the acting and singing is super. It took me two years to get around to seeing it – I don’t like going to the movies – on TV.

The movie portrays the history of France before and leading up to their 1860s Revolution. Victor Hugo’s book comes alive through music.

Jean and Javert’s journey comes to an end. But you’ll have to see if you enjoy it.

The cast is huge, but the most important are: Hugh Jackman as Jean, who won the best actor; Russell Crow as Javert; Anne Hathaway as Fantine, who won best supporting actor; Amanda Seyfried as Cosette, Fantine's daughter; and many other excellent actors.

This story is about good overcoming evil, leading to a new beginning for France.

It’s just too long.

DVD at Amazon or get on your TV:  http://amzn.to/1EkDZl2

   

Review of Beyond the Great River

Beyond the Great River

People of the Longhouse, Book 1

Written by Zoe Saadia

Reviewed by Author Roy Murry

Trusting someone is hard when there is a language, religious, or cultural bearer. This still seems to be one of the biggest problems in our world today.

In Ms. Saadia’s Beyond the Great River series, she gets down to the basics of this issue, using a 14^th century Mohican Indian village being attacked by foreigners - the Iroquois. Each side thinks that the others are pagans, not really knowing anything about each other.

The link between the two warring tribes comes from an unlikely source – a woman. And in those days women had no say what-so-ever. This young lady by the name of Kentika is not passive like all the others of her tribe - she speaks her mind upsetting many. She is tolerated, because of her father's position.

Her strong tomboy personality, faith in humans, and her acquired language gift allowed her to become the link to the world Beyond the Great River. She pays a high price for who she is, during the adventure in meeting Okwaho of the attacking tribe on a romp through the woods.

Their story is at times strange, funny, and tragic. Where it ends, leaves the reader wondering what comes next. This is what makes this first book in a series a good one to read – it should go you thinking. This is an excellent example. 

I have read a few of Ms. Saadia’s books, and I recommend them highly. She gets to the core of her characters’ personalities and brings them alive in a no-nonsense writing style.

   

Purchase her books at http://amzn.to/1m2jZNO

Review Bangkok Rules

Bangkok Rules

Written By Harlan Wolff

Reviewed by Author Roy Murry

I have been studying detective/whodunit books for about 40 years now. They are my favorite genre. Bangkok Rules has all the ingredients: A cleaver private investigator, villains, and an outstanding background written professionally.

Wolff’s PI Carl Engel is put in a position of doom, where he has no control over the events in his adopted country Thailand – he approved it. He has learned the Thai way of life with its underlining currents of corruption since his teens.

He is given a case by an unlikely source. This client brings about his own future, which leads to the unfolding of an evil person who enjoys his lifestyle. His corruption is so vile that the foul stench upsets Carl into action.

Carl’s action is confusing to the people around him, who are aiding him to the point that most feel he should leave the country. He is up against a truly destructive influential group of individuals.

He finds his way to everyone’s surprise including one of his targets. He overcomes his adversities.

Wolff’s fast-paced novel kept me intrigued. I have been to Thailand, Vietnam, and other countries in Asia. If you haven’t, this is a good read to get you in touch. If you have, the novel will please you with its content.

Purchase at http://amzn.to/1IuKdma

    

Review of On The Rails

Review of ‘On The Rails’
By
Suzan Collins

Reviewed by Author Roy Murry

The tedious and boring function of taking the train and then the subway (Tube in the UK) consecutively, is interwoven into this story of a woman named Nikki, whose quests is to find her soul mate. She has found him and commits to a venture that requires her to commute into London from her country home each time his sponsored charity’s organization needs her to be at meetings.

This feat happens three to four times a week – three to four hours each way. It’s a trip I would not undertake myself for any reason, never mind for love.

Nikki has money and time, because of an event that broke her heart and she is trying to fill that void by Volunteering. She tells her friends that the trips aren't bad; because she gets the charity’s work done while riding the rails.

She connects with the man of her dreams, a man she flirts with, and a man who wants her. Those storylines and that of a commuter’s trials and errors in trying to get from point A to point B are incorporated into what the author calls a Chick Lit. Adventure. There is romance, but I feel too much traveling.

The traveling back and forth seems overwritten at times, but it is the glue that brings Ms. Collins’ story forward because it is here we learn about how Nikki is coping with the world around her and the romances in her life.

To find out about those romances and how she deals with them and her traveling experiences, I recommend this adventure which will take a few sittings to understand all of Nikki’s rail adventures. Take the book on a long train ride or many trips in the Tube. It will be enjoyable that way.

Purchase at http://amzn.to/1m2eIpw

Review of Game of Love

Game of Love

Written by Melissa Foster

Reviewed by Author Roy Murry

Finding ones’ way in life is a chore. But knowing who you can be a tougher challenge without proper feedback from a loving family and friends.

In their teenage years, Dex and Ellie were an item but not lovers in a biblical way. They were friends.

Her presence in his life gave him strength. However, Ellie had strengths of another kind, but her home environment weakened them and led her to Remington’s home, especially to Dex’s room.  

Her home environment resulted in mental roadblocks that affected the way Ellie communicated her feelings. Dex has no doubt of his abilities or who he is because he was nurtured by his family and his best friend, unbeknown to her, Ellie.

Because of reasons not told to Dex, Ellie was taken out of his life. She is now on his doorstep again, four years after a prior short encounter. She still has emotional baggage – insecurities as to who she is – strengths and weaknesses.

Dex’s caring and loving push Ellie in the right direction, but it is a woman friend of his that apparently helps Ellie see some light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s a gripping story from the beginning to end, that will have you crying, and laughing at times. Traumatic events bring us to a conclusion.

Ms. Foster’s style of characterization leaves no doubt as to who loves who; and the steam in the relationship goes up and down, keeping the reader guessing if the joining of Dex and Ellie will ever be completed.

Game of Love, The Remingtons, Book One; Love in Bloom Series stands alone. However, it may be interesting to see who will fall in love in the next book of this series.

Purchase at Amazon: http://amzn.to/1m2epew

Review of My Devouring Love

My Devouring Love:

       The First Weeks

Written by Donna Noville –Theiler

For you my fans, I read this book to see what all the fuss was about Zombies. The thought of the undead walking around eating humans seems to me to be an over the edge concept. However, Ms. Noville-Theiler has produced a novel that uses that concept effectively.

A love story comes about while Zombies are festering in the world around them. The main character, Abby, is put in a position away from home, that changes her life forever. Because of an infection that produces the Zombies, the dynamic of her family is changed.

She and her young sister, Ava, are separated from their mother and father, one by choice. This separation leads to their flight from the Zombies. Some of the people they meet on this journey hinder their return home, and others propel them forward.

What I can say most, is that there are Zombies, zombies, and zombies everywhere. You can’t get rid of them even to the end, which turns into a new beginning.

Whether in the new beginning (Seconds Weeks?), produces the renewal of an old love or the continuation of a started one remains to be seen. I can assure you there will be Zombies in the weeks that follow.

So if you enjoy Zombies tales, Donna did an excellent job writing about them and their curl existence.

Purchase at: Amazon http://amzn.to/1JEHhAU

Review of Disappeared

Disappeared:  MANTEQUERO

Written by Jenny Twist

Reviewed by Author Roy Murry

Can love or the lack of it, kill you? In Ms. Twist’s short novel, where a person disappears on vacation, many levels of love are deviled into. The love of friends, relatives, and an unknown Vampire type character are brought into the light.

An English teacher has not returned from her vacation in Spain. Her adoring cohort is surprised she has not returned and is flustered over the matter. It seems that no one else is concerned other than that missing teacher’s niece and the travel agent who sold her the ticket.

Alison, the protagonist, inquires getting no answers. She and the overweight travel agent, Heather, decided to do something about the disappearance of their friend June. After some investigation, they go to Spain together on holiday.

Alison, who speaks Spanish, and Heather, who has a European driver’s license, arrived in the town where June had stayed. What seems like a pleasant place turns into a Frankenstein event after they go to a local bar.

Infatuation leads one our vacationers into an unsafe situation. The unraveling of it changes their lives forever.

The reading was easy and not overburden with subplots. The story is a quick, entertaining read for a rainy or wintery afternoon.

Purchase at Amazon: http://amzn.to/1IuKntP