Friday, October 19, 2018

Music Review: Talk About Love: Music from the Motion Picture No Postage Necessary


Satya Records; 41 mins 51 secs; Amazon

Available now from Satya Records is Talk About Love: Music from the Motion Picture No Postage Necessary, the first soundtrack singer/songwriter/composer Charleene Closshey, who composed, orchestrated and recorded the film’s musical piano-based orchestral score.

No Postage Necessary was the first movie to released via the Blockchain, which allowed customers to stream the film using cryptocurrency. The movie was released to select theaters and VOD over the summer. It was released to Blu-ray and DVD earlier this month.

Produced by award-winning songwriter, engineer and producer Brent Maher, the album features a duet between Closshey and George Blagden (who costars in the film) on the song "Til I Loved You." "Give Me Your Heart" features a duet between Closshey and Irish singer/songwriter Gareth Dunlop.

The tracks/songs on the album include:


  • Talk About Love
  • Give Me Your Heart featuring Gareth Dunlop
  • Galileo
  • ‘Til I Loved You featuring George Blagden
  • Sam’s Theme (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • The Letter (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Josie’s Theme (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • In Sam’s Defense (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Twistee Treat (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Sam Sneaks, Ames Lurks (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Live (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • What is it You Want? (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Walking Towards Grace (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • The Truth (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Stanley’s Bible (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Acceptance Letter (score from “No Postage Necessary”)
  • Falling Backwards (score from “No Postage Necessary”)



13 Days of Halloween: Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco


Jimmy Patterson; 448 pages; Amazon
To celebrate Halloween this year, I will be featuring 13 horror themed posts. (Hint: They're mostly books!)

Today, I'm reviewing Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco, which is the sequel to Stalking Jack the Ripper (you can read my review here). 

Picking up shortly after the events of the first novel, Audrey Rose Wadsworth, her friend Mr. Thomas Cresswell, and her chaperone Mrs. Harvey are traveling on an orient express headed to the Academy of Forensic Medicine and Science (Institutului National De Criminalistica Si Mecicina Legala), which happens to be located at the Bran Castle in Romania. She's there to enroll as the first female student in Europe's most famous forensics school. However, things don't go as planned, which is something she is sorta used to by now.

One of the former owners of Bran Castle was Vlad the Impaler, or otherwise known as Prince Dracula, which gives the place a very eerie vibe. 

Audrey Rose and Thomas once again gets tossed into a manhunt when a series of strange murders occur around Bran Castle. Due to the way the victims were killed, people start to believe that Prince Dracula has returned to wreck havoc.

Are vampires real?

That the exact same question Audrey Rose and Thomas want to answer as they search for clues that will lead them to the real killer.


Book Blogger Hop: Halloween Edition! - October 19th - 25th




Instructions: Select all code above, copy it and paste it inside your blog post as HTML



Welcome Ghouls and Goblins
to the
Book Blogger Hop: Halloween Edition!
  
If you want schedule next week's thrilling question, click here to find the next prompt fright-fest. 
To submit a question, fill out this form.

How to participate in this week's creepy meme:


1. Post on your blog answering this haunt:

  If you were to dress up as a literary figure {author or character} for Halloween, who would it be?


(This week's question is submitted by Michelle @ Life Among the Pages.)

2. Enter the link to your terrifying tale in the haunting list below (enter your Blog Name and the direct link to your post answering this week’s question. Failure to do so will result in a curse).

 

3. Visit other haunters in the list and comment on their posts. Try to spend some time on the blogs reading other posts and possible become a new creeper.  The purpose of the hop is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
 

Billy's Answer!

I would dress up as Dr. Frankenstein's monster from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein.





Linky List:

The Friday 56: Escaping From Houdini


Rules:
  • Grab a book, any book.
  • Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
  • Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it).
  • Post it.
  •  Add your (url) post below in the Linky at: www.fredasvoice.com
  • Add the post url, not your blog url.


Thursday, October 18, 2018

Blu-ray Review: Down a Dark Hall


Summit; PG-13; 96 minutes; Amazon
Now available on Blu-ray from Summit Entertainment is the supernatural horror flick Down a Dark Hall. Directed by Rodrigo Cortés and produced by Stephenie Meyers (author of the Twilight Saga), the film stars AnnaSophia Robb, Uma Thurman, Victoria Moroles, Isabelle Fuhrman, Taylor Russell, Rosie Day, and Noah Silver.

Based on the book of the same name by the late Lois Duncan, Down a Dark Hall centers around a troubled teenager girl named Kit Gordy (played by AnnaSophia Robb) who is sent to the Blackwood Boarding School, which is ran by headmistress Madame Duret (played by Uma Thurman). Blackwood isn't your normal boarding school. There are only four other students - Ashley (Taylor Russell), Izzy (played by Isabelle Fuhrman), Sierra (played by Rosie Day), and Veronica (played by Victoria Moroles).

Shortly after arriving, Kit's ability to play the piano surfaces, which thrills the headmistress and her son Jules Duret, the music teacher (played by Noah Silver). However, Kit' sudden music talents scares her to death, as she hasn't played the piano in years and when she did, she wasn't very good at it.

The other students have "talents" that suddenly emerge, which slowly drives them crazy. As Kit begins to investigate the secrets of Blackwood, she unveils a hidden evil that wants to devour the students.

Special Features include:
  • Welcome to Blackwood: Venturing Down a Dark Hall
  • Deleted Scenes



Wednesday, October 17, 2018

DVD Review: The Resident: The Complete Season One


Fox; 615 mins; Not Rated; Amazon
The last thing network television needs is another medical drama, as there are already way too many of them, but here I am writing a review for The Resident: The Complete Season One DVD, which was recently released by Fox Home Entertainment. There are no special features or extras on the three-disc set.

Created by Amy Holden Jones, Hayley Schore, and Roshan Sethi, the series stars Matt Czuchry, Emily VanCamp, Manish Dayal, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Bruce Greenwood, Moran Atias, Merrin Dungey, and Melina Kanakaredes.

The series centers around the medical staff at Chastain Park Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Manish Dayal plays Devon Pravesh, a first-year medical intern who is assigned to a third-year resident internist, Conrad Hawkin (played by Matt Czuchry).

Hawkins is a hot-head doctor, who wants Pravesh to do exactly as he says to do. He's a little bit of a risk-taker, but he also cares very deeply for each one of his patients. When he's not attending to his patients, he's trying to get his ex, nurse practitioner Nicolette "Nic" Nevin (played by Emily VanCamp), to take him back. He also likes to bunt head with the chief of surgery, Randolph Bell (played by Bruce Greenwood), an aging doctor who will do anything to keep his position at the hospital.

Episodes on the DVD set include:
  • Disc 1
    • Pilot
    • Independence Day
    • Comrades in Arms
    • Identity Crisis
  • Disc 2
    • None the Wiser
    • No Matter the Cost
    • The Elopement
    • Family Affair
    • Love Lost
  • Disc 3
    • Haunted
    • And the Nurses Get Screwed...
    • Rude, Awakenings and the Raptor
    • Run, Doctor, Run
    • Total Eclipse of the Heart




Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Tuesday Picks! - October 16, 2018


Welcome to my Tuesday Picks! post, where I'll be picking out my favorite books and movies that are being released this week.


Books
Every Breath
by Nicholas Sparks

Buy Link: Barnes & Noble


Once again, I don't have a clue what books are being released this week, except for Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks. I used to read the author's books, but I got tired of the sappy endings. Nevertheless, his newest book looks interesting.


Movies

Down a Dark Hall

Buy Link: Amazon

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Buy Link: Amazon

Halloween II
(Steelbook)

Buy Link: Amazon

Fall Reads: Blood Communion: A Tale Of Prince Lestat



KNOPF: 275 pages; $27.95; Amazon

The Gothic-horor author Anne Rice didn't hit my radar until I was teenager in the mid-90s after I had watched the edited version of Interview with the Vampire on network television. Shortly later, I bought the film on VHS. Well, my parents bought the movie since I was underage at the time and the movie was rated R. That lead me to seek out Anne Rice's novels, which I believe I got the first three books in the The Vampire Chronicles at Barnes & Noble. To make a long story short, I was obsessed with reading anything written by the author throughout my high school years. While my tastes for books have changed as I have gotten older, I still read every new novel in the series.

The 13th novel in The Vampire Chronicles, titled Blood Communion, was released this month from KNOPF. It's under 300 pages, making it the shortest entry in the series.

Blood Communion takes place after the events Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, where the Prince is telling his life story to the Blood Communion (aka Vampires). The first few chapters is basically a recap of all the previous books; telling us readers (or vampires) about Prince Lestat's past. Then the novel shifts towards the main plot involving the death of the ancient vampire Maharet by the hands of Rhoshamandes, the Child of the Millennia, a demon spirit who refuses to live by the laws set by Prince Lestat.


Monday, October 15, 2018

Monday Morning Madness: October 15, 2018


Once again, I'm a little late with my Monday Morning Madness post! I meant to have this written early this morning, but I was tinkering with this blog's coding and lost track of time. Yes, I said coding, which is something I know very little about. My blog designer is AWOL; actually I believe she might have been finishing college. Anyway, I've had to learn how to create icons, post headers, and other graphics. And now I'm trying to learn coding.

IntenseDebate Is Staying For the Time Being

It has come to my attention that a few reader can't comment with the IntenseDebate comment system. I apologize for the inconvenience, but the IntenseDebate is staying on this blog for now. I get way too much spam through the Blogger's comment system, which is one of reasons why I switched. I'm well aware the IntenseDebate is missing the Wordpress, IntenseDebate, and Twitter login butson. I'll try to get this fixed, if it's even possible. The old Blogger comments have been restored to all the old posts and you still comment on them using the old comment system.

Don't worry this isn't going to be a permanent thing! I do have plans for the blog. 

Book Blogger Hop's Future

Don't worry! I'm not getting rid of the meme. I have a few new ideas and rules to improve the Book Blogger Hop. My ideas are in the early stages right now, so there won't be any official changes until 2019.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?


It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by The Book Date.

What am I currently reading?

Well, as of this morning, I have only a few chapters left to read in Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat by Anne Rice. I'll finish reading it sometime today and my review will probably be posted tomorrow.




I came across America Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell by Deborah Solomon at a Dollar Tree store last week. I don't read very much nonfiction, but I've always admired Norman Rockwell's illustrations, so I thought I would give this book a chance. I'm only on page 13 at the moment. The book is nearly 500 pages with tiny, tiny lettering. I'll be reading a little bit of it from time to time while I'm reading/reviewing other books. I have no idea when I will get it read.


What am I reading next?