Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Friday 56 - No Safe Harbor



Rules:
Grab a book, any book. 
Turn to page 56. 
Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. 
Post it. 
Add your (url) post below in the Linky at http://fredasvoice.blogspot.com/.

DVD Review - 4 Movie Collection: Attack Force/ Into the Sun/ The Russian Specialist/ Conspiracy

4 Movie Collection: Attack Force/ Into the Sun/ The Russian Specialist/ Conspiracy
Directors: Michael Keusch, mink, Dolph Lundgren, Adam Marcus
Starring: Steven Seagal, Lisa Lovbrand, David Kennedy, Danny Webb, Dolph Lundgren, Val Kimer
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
ASIN: B008XAT0SW
Release Date: October 9th, 2012
Running Time: 375 minutes
Rated R

Review:

I grew up watching the over the top action movies from the 1980s and early 1990s, so I was more than eager to review the 4 Movie Collection featuring Attack Force, Into the Sun, The Russian Specialist, and Conspiracy, courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment and Tower PR in exchange for an honest review. 

Steven Seagal plays Marshall Lawson, a commander of an elite military unit, in the 2008 direct-to-DVD Attack Force. While in Paris, three of his soldiers are brutally murdered in their hotel room. He starts his own investigation into their deaths with the help of his much younger girlfriend, Tia, and his military friend Dwayne. He learns that the soldiers deaths are linked to a military drug called CTX, in which Tia was one of the original scientist that helped create it. Whoever takes the CTX becomes an unstoppable killing machine.

I'm not the biggest Seagal fan and it has been awhile since I have seen one of his movies, but Attack Force has to be the worst. The plot is unrealistic and confusing. The fights scenes are ridiculous, the acting is laughable, and half of Seagal's lines are dubbed due to the script being changed after the movie was filmed. Attack Force is one of the worst movies ever made.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Review - Dark Light of Day


Dark Light of Day 
Noon Onyx Book #1 
By Jill Archer 
Genre: Urban Fantasy 
Publisher: Ace 
ISBN: 978-0-425-25715-9 
Number of pages: 384 
Word Count: 123,000 
Buy Links: Barnes & Noble, Amazon 

Book Description: 

Armageddon is over. The demons won. And yet somehow…the world has continued. Survivors worship patron demons under a draconian system of tributes and rules. These laws keep the demons from warring among themselves, the world from slipping back into chaos.

Noon Onyx grew up on the banks of the river Lethe, daughter of a prominent politician, and a descendant of Lucifer’s warlords. Noon has a secret—she was born with waning magic, the dark, destructive, fiery power that is used to control demons and maintain the delicate peace among them. But a woman with waning magic is unheard of and some will consider her an abomination.

Noon is summoned to attend St. Lucifer’s, a school of demon law. She must decide whether to declare her powers there…or attempt to continue hiding them, knowing the price for doing so may be death. And once she meets the forbiddingly powerful Ari Carmine—who suspects Noon is harboring magic as deadly as his own—Noon realizes there may be more at stake than just her life.

Review:

In book one of the new exciting Noon Onyx series, a battle between good and evil had occurred on Earth over two-thousand years ago, leaving Lucifer and his demon followers in victory. Now, the demons rule over the humans as either rules or tributes.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Review - The Anger Workbook

The Anger Workout
By Les Carter, Ph.D. and Frank Minirth, M.D.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 978-1401675431
Pub. Date: October 30th, 2012 (Reprint)
Pages: 256

Review:

I signed up to review this book, courtesy of Thomas Nelson in exchange for an honest review, because anger is part of everyone's lives. Some people can control their anger easily, while others have a difficult time with it. There is not one person that can say that they don't get angry over something every week. With the failing economy, the job market collapsing, and the continuing increases in gasoline prices, there are many things to be angry at.

The Anger Workbook was originally released back in in 1993 and has now been reprinted in an updated version. The authors, Les Carter and Frank Minirth, have written an interactive workbook to help you live a better life by going through thirteen steps toward anger management. Anger is not just slamming doors, screaming at a random stranger, or getting into fights. It is about shutting your feelings down, non communicating with others, feeling frustrated, and being over aggressive.

Review - A Merry Little Christmas

A Merry Little Christmas
By Anita Higman
Publisher: Summerside Press
ISBN: 978-1609366889
ASIN: B009CCG1F0
Pub Date: October 1, 2012
Pages: 256
Buy Link: http://ow.ly/eyLJH
Blog Tour: http://litfusegroup.com/author/AHigman

Review: 

Franny Martin has been taking care of her family's two-hundred-and-fifty acres Oklahoma farmland ever since her parents died during a thunderstorm fifteen years ago. She is now thirty-three, single, having financial trouble, and facing the fact that she will once again spend the holidays by herself. That is until a handsome stranger, Charlie Landau shows up at her doorstep.

Charlie is from the big city, single and is just looking for something more meaningful in his life, in which he wants to buy Franny's farm even though he knows nothing about farming. He has always been a disappointment to his father and he is hoping that he can be successful at farming so his father can finally be proud of him.

Franny is more than eager to sell the farm as she had put it on the market twelve years ago! Before her parents' untimely deaths, she had dreamed of moving to the big city to follow her passion for music. Now, maybe her dreams can finally come true, but before that can happen, she decides to stay at the farm to help Charlie learn the farm life ways. Despite their different backgrounds and differences, there is a deep connection between the two.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Review: Broken Build

Broken Build
By Rachelle Ayala
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 978-1480010512
ASIN: B0099MLND8
Pub. Date: October 5, 2012
Pages: 330

Review: 

From the author of Michal's Window comes a new suspenseful thriller titled Broken Build, set in the high-tech world with backstabbing and deception around every corner. The author, Rachelle Ayala, had sent me a free copy to review after I had previously reviewed her biblical romantic tale, Michal's Window. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect since this book is set in modern times.

The main character, or should I saw heroine, is Jennifer Cruz, a woman with a rocky criminal past, who has now gone to great manners (plastic surgery, etc) to disguise herself into a new identity, Jen Jones. She takes a job as a computer techno whiz for David Jewell, a software CEO, a man she deeply hurt six years ago in her past life. Of course he doesn't recognize her now. As she spends time with David, their old romantic feelings start to resurface, but she can never erase her past.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

DVD Review - 4 Movie Collection: Universal Solider: The Return/ Knock Off/ The Hard Corps/ Second Command

4 Movie Collection: Universal Solider: The Return/ Knock Off/ The Hard Corps/ Second Command
Directors: Mic Rodgers,
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
ASIN: B008XAT1HM
Release Date: October 9, 2012
Running Time: 367 minutes
Rated: R

I grew up watching countless action flicks during my childhood, some off of basic cable and others my parents rented. Since the first Expendables came out, I have been buying a few of the action movies that I watched as a kid, such as Cyborg, Cobra, Commando, Raw Deal, Kickboxer, etc. So naturally I was excited to review this four movie Jean-Claude Van Damme collection, courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment and Tower PR in exchange for an honest review.

Universal Soldier: The Return is set several years after the events that occurred in the first film. Luc Devereaux (played by Jean-Claude Van Damme) is no longer a Universal Soldier, but he does run the new advanced program for the government. The new soldiers are stronger and faster. They are controlled by an advanced computer program called S.E.T.H. When the government wants to shutdown the program, S.E.T.H. takes control of building and the soldiers. Luc Devereaux is the only one that can shut down the program, but S.E.T.H. is one step ahead of Luc, as the UniSol Romeo (played by Bill Goldberg) kidnaps Luc's 13-year-old daughter Hillary.

The Universal Solider franchise is hard to follow as The Return ignores the two previous made-for-TV sequels and The Return is ignored by the two newest sequels, Regeneration and Day of Reckoning. The Return's plot is really thin. I'm not for sure why the producers wanted to change the tone and ignore a few facts from the first movie. The acting and dialogue is B-movie quality, but the movie does have some great action scenes, starting with the boat chase in the opening and ending with Van Dame fighting Goldberg. In the end, the movie isn't great, but the action is fun to watch.