Stephy Read Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie

 

“No one human being knows the full truth about another human being. Not even one's nearest and dearest.”

About/Summary

First published in 1939, the book follows retired police officer Luke Fitzwilliams as he solves a series of murders in the small village of Wychwood under Ashe.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Period Typical *waves hands* everything (basically 30s type of thinking and speaking might be a bit off-putting to some people, keep that in mind)

Old ladies keep getting called "pussy". I know that word can make some people uncomfortable in some situations. Not sure if this is one of those situations. Also, is this an old slang term I was unaware of? If so, part of me wants it to make a comeback.

Murder (multiple, offscreen)

Murder of a child (offscreen)

Attempted murder

Tropes

Here is a list of tropes used in the book. Now... Let's discuss a couple, I suppose.

Little Old Lady Investigates - I just love the little old lady detective trope. I want to be a little old lady detective. 

Motive Rant - I love a good motive rant. It fills in all the details I missed or weren't shown.

Characters

The main character is Luke Fitzwilliams, a retired police officer. I know nothing about this man. Well, I know his name. And that he's retired.

There's also Bridget (she had black hair... I think...), Gordon (Luke did not like this dude), and various other characters.

My favorite character was the old lady who realized someone was murdering people in the village and went to London to let Scotland Yard know. She died early in the book and I am still sad at the loss.

Honestly, all the characters were a bit meh to me. 

Atmosphere/Setting

The main setting is Wychwood under Ashe, a small village in England. Do itty bitty villages like this still exist, cause I wanna live there.

Writing

Writing was good. Book sucked me in pretty quick. There was a Sherlock Holmes reference, which... I found the first one kind of amusing. After that I was just meh about it. I get it, dude, you're not Sherlock Holmes. 

Plot

The plot is pretty good. A few good twists and turns. The big twist at the end was fan-fucking-tastic in my opinion. I really only had one issue with the book, plot-wise...

Romance

Ugh. That fucking romance subplot. Just ugh. I hated it. The two characters were basically assholes to each other the whole time. 

Like, what is this shit? I hate it... 

Not to mention that they were pretending to be cousins for most of the book.

How diverse is it?

Not very. Bunch of white people having problems.

Overall Thoughts

The book was an enjoyable mystery. But not really something I'm going to recommend to everyone. If you like Agatha Christie's books or mysteries, then yeah. But I dunno. The romance between Luke and Bridget annoyed me so much... But yeah, that plot twist was good. 

And that's all for this one. 

Support me on ko-fi

And I will see y'all on Saturday for the weekly round-up

This Week I...

 Another week gone. Another post of me trying to justify things I do? I dunno.

Wrote

A bit. Reworking my prompt journal is doing pretty well for me. I haven't written any literary masterpieces but I'm writing so that's good.

Read

Finished Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie

Also finished Disney Trivia From the Vault

Also read a little bit of fan-fiction. And some on my Now Reading Stack. 

Watched

Krampus - I fucking love this stupid fucking movie.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - was behind a few episodes. Real glad that bird won the Bird of the Century contest.

Murder, She Wrote - only watched a few episodes. 

Played

Games on my phone. 

I need to get back to Resident Evil 5

Buuuuut... I just bought Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One on Steam. Which, hey, it is only 12 bucks for the Deluxe Edition until the 28th. 60 bucks on Epic Games still. So yeah, if you want it... Me and the kiddo had some money on Steam so I figured I would splurge. 

Posted

A blog post about things that won't get their own blog post.

Anything Else?

Hmm... Nothing comes to mind. 

That's all for this one. Wednesday's post should be a book review.

6 Things I Did That Won't Get Their Own Blog Post - Part 2

Okay. Did not expect to do another one of these so soon. But here is another group of things I watched/read that I don't feel like I can ramble about for an entire blog post.

How to Become a Cult Leader

This popped up while I was scrolling through Netflix and I figured I'd give it a go. It was pretty good. Very informative. And Peter Dinklage was fantastic as the narrator. And I really enjoyed the satirical take where the show acts like a guide to running your own cult. Put a bit of a new twist on the same information. 

 

How to Become a Tyrant

Same basic idea as How to Become a Cult Leader but about tyrannical dictators. I enjoyed this one as well. And saw there was a third one released that I need to watch. 

Kingwood

Indians Plus The First 150 Years

by W.G. ("Bill") Williams

It's a history of the small town I live in. And it is interesting. But... Probably not great for anyone younger than my generation. Not being condescending or anything. But the writer used businesses and buildings to describe areas that are no longer there. While I know where he is talking about when he says "where Foodland was located", my kid doesn't. 

Oh, this book also made me realize that I know, like, five street names in the town I have lived in for almost 40 years. Well, I know more street names now. But still unsure of where they are located. 

It was an interesting read though. In my opinion, it could do with an update and more pictures. 

Resident Evil: Vendetta

Mr. Boulderpunch (Chris Redfield) is after Glenn Arias, an arms dealer that is out for revenge for the government killing his wife, friends, and family at his wedding. Dude has zombies now! Anyway, Chris goes to Rebecca Chambers for help. And then they go find Leon Kennedy for his help. 

Fun movie set in the universe of the games. Those fight scenes were fucking great. Leon and Rebecca both look beautiful. Chris has some weird facial expressions that made me laugh at inappropriate times. But, like I said, fun movie.

Haunted West Virginia by Patty A. Wilson

This book isn't bad. The section on the West Virginia State Penitentiary is bad.

This is a book of ghost stories, which means I take every story with a grain of salt. I am not fact-checking every story. Saying that... I did fact-check something in the section talking about the West Virginia State Penitentiary. Not because I cared that much, but because I was pretty sure the book was wrong and I had to check. The book was wrong. For future reference to everyone: CHARLES MANSON DID NOT SERVE TIME AT THE WEST VIRGINIA STATE PENITENTIARY. This is not the first time I have come across this bit of misinformation, and it probably won't be the last. I don't know why this book even mentioned it. And the rest of the section for the Penitentiary wasn't much better. It mostly just gives history of the prison, misspelled Aryan, and then finishes up with some vague bits about spooky things. Which, I would have been okay with. But I was cranky at this point because of the Charles Manson thing. 

Also, to clear things up: Charles Manson did not serve time at the prison in Moundsville, WV. His mother did. After he was in prison for orchestrating the Helter Skelter murders, he sent a letter asking to be moved to the WV State Penitentiary. He was denied. Also, it took me less than a minute to fact-check that. Here's an article that includes the letter Manson sent.

All of that aside: Book wasn't bad. Just a collection of spooky stories that take place around West Virginia. Fun read.

The Haunted Mansion (2003)

Somehow I never watched this before. Which is real weird since my kid loved it.

This is a good horror movie for kids. I would say middle school age though. I mean there is a suicide before the opening credits end. And some bits might be too scary for younger kids. But that is my opinion. If you wanna show it to your younger kids that is your choice. Hopefully, you know what they can handle.

The movie is about a couple who are real estate agents who think they are going to get to sell a big, old house. But what they get is a house full of ghosts and a curse. 

It's just a fun movie. Gotta watch the new one now. 

I might actually come back to this and do an entire blog post about it at some point.

 

That's all for this one. Have a tolerable Thanksgiving to anyone who celebrates. 

This Week I...

 Hey y'all!

It's Saturday again, so here's what I did this week.

I was fighting a bit of a cold all week so I didn't get much accomplished. I say as though I get shit accomplished any other time.

Wrote

A bit. Started a new prompt journal. And changed how I do it. To explain, my prompt journal is just a journal where I write something for a random prompt that I have collected off the internet. I have a little tote full of little slips of paper that have prompts on them. When I first started doing this, every day I would pick out a prompt and go from there. But at some point I thought it would be a good idea to fill the journal with prompts first and then go through and write as I wanted. I realized recently this does not work for me. Because while I'm putting prompts in the journal, I can think of a slight idea, but when I sit down to write, I forgot the idea. So I decided to go back to picking out one prompt at a time. I'm also not gonna put so much focus on doing one a day. If I want, I'll do a few a day. If I can't come up with anything, I'll just skip that day. We'll see how it goes.

Read

Finished Haunted West Virginia

read a bit on my Now Reading Stack. Also swapped out some books.

That is the stack as of today. 

Watched

Stuff on YouTube. Mostly Gab Smolders playing hidden object games. And some clips from John Oliver's show (we're gonna use those for homeschool.) Like I said, I was fighting a bit of a cold all week which involved dozing off a lot and slight headaches. So, actually watching something with a solid plot that I would have to pay attention to was not going to work for me.

Played

Games on my phone. I'm trying to get another Amazon gift card from MistPlay so must play some games. It is such a hardship. 

Posted

A blog post about things I watched or read that won't be getting their own rambling blog post.

Anything Else?

Applied for a job.

Kiddo and I tried out a chicken and broccoli recipe. Chinese Chicken and Broccoli? Anyway, it was a bit soy sauce heavy for us so we're gonna modify it when make it again.

Made pepperoni rolls. Need to make more. I only made 12. That is not enough.

And that's it for this one. Not sure what Wednesday's post will be. 

6 Things I Did That Won't Get Their Own Blog Post

 Hello There!

I try to keep this blog pretty positive. So, if I watch or read something I either dislike or I just can't come up with a lot of good things to say about it, no blog post for it. But, negativity sells. Or something. Mostly I just like to share my thoughts, even though no one really wants that. And I will be clumping them together because I don't have enough thoughts about these things to fill out a whole blog post.

Now, let us begin.

Goosebumps: Say Cheese and Die 

by R.L. Stine

This book wasn't bad, really. Quite good for what it is. What it is being a horror story for kids. I just didn't want to focus an entire blog post to it. I mean... It's a story about kids going into an abandoned spooky house and stealing a camera. Then bad things start happening. Sorry kids, but you brought this on yourselves.

Goosebumps: How to Kill a Monster 

by R.L. Stine

Again, not a bad book. Quite good horror story for kids. I was just annoyed by the kids for most of the book and I sort of hope they got eaten in the end. Dog was okay though. And those grandparents, what the fuck? Oh, by the way, the book is about two kids who have to stay at their grandparents house while their parents go... off on a business trip? I can't remember. Grandparents tell the kids to stay out of a certain room. Which, of course the kids go into. And find a monster. And then the grandparents just kind of ditch the kids in the house with the monster.

Return to Salem's Lot

I watched Salem's Lot and figured I should watch this "sequel" as well. Nope. Just don't. It is bad. So bad. The main characters were... Some... Guy... And his son... I cannot remember their names. Let's just call them Asshole and Dipshit. Dipshit is in trouble so his mom sends him to live with his dad, Asshole. Or something. And... They go to Salem's Lot... For some reason? The whole thing was just bad. And not hilariously bad. Just bad.

The Way of the House Husband

I watched the anime. And fucking loved it. The basic plot is a retired gangster decides to become a househusband. And he takes his new job very seriously. I watched the entire anime twice in one day. Episodes are short and fun. Highly recommend if you like humorous anime with no real plot.

Stephen King's Rose Red

I love this movie... mini-series? Whichever. Anyway, basic plot is this: There is a haunted house, Rose Red. A college professor takes a group of psychics to try and get proof of... ghosts I guess? There is an autistic character in this, but I am not sure how good the representation is. I prefer haunted house horror movies to any other kind and this is a fun haunted house movie. It gives me Winchester House vibes. It's not a cinematic masterpiece, but a fun haunted house movie. Also, for some reason my brain thought the asshole professor and the asshole journalist student guy were having a secret affair. I think I've been reading too much fan-fiction...

Good Eats

I used to watch this show all the time when it was on Food Network. I'd just be channel surfing, see it was on and be like "Oh, let's see what Alton's cooking". It is a good show. I probably will never use any of his recipes, but he gives some good cooking tips. And he does it in a fun way. Totally recommend this show to people.

Well, that's all for this one. Go watch The Way of the House Husband. Don't watch Return to Salem's Lot. 

This Week I...

Another Saturday, which means another post about shit I did this week. 

Wrote

A whole story! Well, it's not a long story, but I wrote something!

Also wrote bits on other stories.

And some on blog posts.

Read

A book on the history of Kingwood, WV. 

A bunch of fan-fiction.

The Way of the House Husband

Watched

Good Eats

How to Become a Cult Leader

How to Become a Tyrant

The Way of the House Husband - I watched a bit of the live action thing... But, while not bad, I wasn't enjoying it as much. I'll watch the whole thing one day. But I went back and watched the anime. Again. Twice. I just can't stop.

Stuff on YouTube.

Played

Nothing. I didn't even play games on my phone this week.

Posted

My ramblings about Star Wars: The Clone Wars

A Witcher fan-fic. (need an AO3 account to view that, by the way)

Anything Else?

Nothing much.

Kiddo finished up their required reading for the school year. Which is awesome.

Well, that's all for this one. Wednesday's post should be a round up of various things.

For now I must go. Cat demands attention. 

Stephy Watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Hello There!

Today I will be rambling about The Clone Wars. Movie, not show... Nor the actual war... 

Warning, there might be spoilers ahead?

You're reckless, little one. You never would have made it as Obi-Wan's Padawan... but you might make it as mine.

-Anakin Skywalker

 About/Summary

Jabba the Hutt's son is kidnapped and (for some fucking reason) he contacts the Republic to ask (demand...) for Jedi help. Oh, and Anakin gets a Padawan.

Okay, so, this takes place after Attack of the Clones, and I've always treated it as an opening for the show. But... It might take place during the first season of the show? I am not 100% sure. If you want to watch everything in chronological order I would suggest looking up some lists for that. I know they exist. I am not that dedicated so I watched this before starting up the show. 

Content/Trigger Warnings

Death (a lot of unnamed clones die)

Child endangerment (baby Hutt is in danger, Ahsoka is still a child, and those clones are only, like, ten years old)

Tropes

Here is a list of tropes. Now, let me ramble about some.

Bait-and-Switch - The bit when it looks like maybe Threepio is kicking ass and not taking names and then it's revealed that it was a group of clones (which is obvious, really) made me laugh.

By Wall That is Holey - this is some silent movie shit and I am here for it.

Characters/Casting

Characters are fantastic. And I really liked the voice acting.

Writing

Writing is pretty good. It was written by Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy. I feel like they got the Star Wars vibe pretty good. I would say it's a bit more light-hearted, but... Like, 15 clones die in the first few minutes. 

Plot

The plot is pretty good. The main plot is Anakin and Ahsoka rescuing the baby Hutt and returning him to Jabba. Obi-Wan is off doing something else. And Padme is trying to help, I think? 

Animation

I don't like this animation style. I'm sorry to everyone who did the animation for this, but I do not like the style. I don't think it's bad or anything, I'm just not a fan.

 

Costuming

I suppose... Is costuming a thing in an animated thing? Fuck it, I'm gonna talk about it. Costuming was fine. Padme's one outfit looks like one she wore in Attack of the Clones, but it can't be the same one since that one got damaged and turned into a nice little crop top. So, I suspect Padme has multiple copies of that white outfit and it is her "action" outfit.

How diverse is it?

Not very. I mean, most of the characters look identical.

I think I'm funny.

Overall Thoughts

Overall I enjoyed this movie. I do still question the logic of making Anakin responsible for another sentient being, but Jedi Order be like that. 

The movie is pretty good. And I do recommend checking it out and the series to any Star Wars fan that hasn't watched it. Or, ya know, be confused about so much in the new shows. Whatever you want. I don't control you.

That's all for this one. 

If y'all wanna toss some money my way via Ko-Fi, that would be awsome (disclaimer: All money received from now until January 1st will be used to buy my kid nerdy shit for Christmas and their birthday)

See y'all on Saturday to see what nonsense I got up to this week.

Oh yeah, and if you wanna yell about Star Wars, leave a comment, we can yell together.

This Week I...

 Hello there.

Saturday again. So let's see what I did this week.

Wrote

Mostly blog posts. Wrote bits on some story ideas but nothing major. Since I broke my external hard drive, I gotta re-do my Writing Challenge document cause that's all I had saved on there.  Thankfully I have a spreadsheet that has most of what was on that doc. Cause all I really had was some basic ideas. So I've been copying and pasting those basic ideas onto a document all week. Cause I have way too many basic ideas and nothing written for them... 

Read

Bits on my Now Reading stack of books. And fan-fiction. Oh, I also started reading the Way of the House Husband manga. It is just so good. Gonna watch the live-action show soon too. I need all of it.

Watched

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Only watched a few episodes of the show. Which that show is even more depressing after reading fan-fictions where the clones live long and happy lives. 

Murder, She Wrote

Stuff on YouTube

Played

Played a bit of Resident Evil 5. Need to get back to that... I was enjoying it.

Posted

Book Review

Monthly Plans

Anything Else?

Ummm... Not really. 

Now, if you'll excuse me. My cat needs attention.

Plans for November

Another month is upon us. And, while no one is asking, I will be answering the question of what I plan on doing for the month.

 

In November I'm wanna...

Write

fucking something. Been in a major writing rut lately. Just wanna get something written.

Read

The Stand. I am going to finish that book, I fucking swear.

Watch

Second season of Good Omens.

Red, White, and Royal Blue movie.

Star Wars stuff.

Play

Resident Evil 5. I started it up a couple of days ago and I really wanna stay focused and keep playing it. I would like to actually finish a Resident Evil game.

Anything Else?

I plan on spend the entire month panicking about getting stuff for my kid for Christmas and their birthday.

And those are my plans for the month. Yeah, this one is short. But the first of the month kind of snuck up on me.

Stephy Read A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands

 Hello There!

First. I would like to formally apologize to Ryan for finishing this before finishing The Stand. As always when I read Stephen King, I needed something fluffy to break up the OH MY FUCKING GODS THIS IS HORRIBLE moments of terror. And I made a mistake. For the first two or three chapters of this book, I was switching off with The Stand. I would read a chapter of it, then a chapter of this. And then... This book sucked me in and it was all I read until I finished it... I am sorry. I will go back to the Stand now. 

“Birthdays could be such a bummer when you were older than the country you lived in.”

About/Summary

A Quick Bite is a paranormal romance written by Lynsay Sands. It was first published in 2005. And is the first in the Argeneau series of books. 

Lissiana Argeneau faints at the sight of blood. Which wouldn't be a problem, but she's a vampire. To help her with this, her mother kidnaps a psychologist. As one does.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Kidnapping

Sexual Content

Attempted murder

Blood

Mentions of mental abuse (not to or by the two main characters)

Characters

The main characters are Lissiana and Greg. And they are great. But the best character is Thomas. Love that boy. But this isn't Thomas's story, so I will refrain from gushing about how much I love him.

Lissianna is a vampire (or immortal). She has hemaphobia, and faints at the sight of blood. Vampires in this series drink from bagged blood, so that is quite the problem. She gets a job at a homeless shelter thinking she could feed from the people at the shelter, but that proves to be a bad idea. 

Greg is a psychologist who does a lot of work dealing with phobias. He is a workaholic whose family keeps trying to set him up with various women.

They were both solid characters. I really liked them.

A lot of characters that continue to show up throughout the series were introduced in this book. Most of them stick around for the entire book, a couple just show up for a chapter and then disappear. There are a few mortals in this book. Do not expect to ever see or hear from them again. They are unimportant.

Atmosphere/Setting

The book takes place in Canada. Toronto I wanna say... *looks at notes* Yep. Toronto. I did not have this in my notes. I looked on GoodReads.

Oh, and according to the first page, it takes place in November of 2000. Helpful. 

I didn't get much for either atmosphere or setting. 

Writing

I absolutely adore Lynsay Sands's writing. She puts, in my opinion, the right amount of humor in her books. I like a bit of humor in whatever I'm reading or watching. 

I do have one issue though... The phrase "she had curves in all the right places". I don't know why, but over the years I have grown to hate that phrase. It was used once in this book so I could roll my eyes and carry on. But gods, that phrase...

Plot

The plot is fun. Main plot is the romance. Or is the main plot the one with the attempted murder 🤔 Either way, fun plot. Well done with no plot holes. Though... What did happen to those dudes that tried to commit that murder... 🤔 Eh, I'm sure they're fine.

Romance

The romance is great. The series explains the instant love thing by saying all vampires have a Life Mate, someone they can't read or control. Which is cool. 

How diverse is it?

Not very. Just a bunch of straight, white Canadians really.

Overall Thoughts

This series is one of my favorite (if not my top favorite) series of books. This series is for sure my favorite romance books. I love these books. They are fun, easy reads with happy endings. I love how vampires were made in this series. It's different and interesting. I basically love everything about this book and the rest of the series. 

Don't pick this up expecting some masterpiece of literature. It's a fun romance novel. If you like fun romance novels with a good amount of humor, I highly recommend checking this book out.

I think that's all for this one.