Birds Of Prey - J.A. Jance

Summary and Review of Birds of Prey by J.A. Jance

Category: Books

Genre: Suspense

Author: J.A. Jance

The story takes place aboard a cruise ship named Starfire Breeze cruising in Alaska. Everybody was out there to of course just kick back and relax.

Until two unexpected events that killed two people panicked the rest of them. An ex-homicide cop named J.P. Beaumont was there to at least enjoy the whole thing and rest and heal some wounds while accompanying or to chaperone his grandmother and his step-grandfather who just got married and is on their honeymoon stage but he quickly got involved with the event.

Basically, it’s a fast read and J.A. Jance has a nice humorous side.. which is actually good. Good for a couple of hours reading. Easy to read… and thrilling at the same time. Nice plot and kinda unique.

It actually mentions the Philippines as well but not in a good light people.

Among the hired help, there seems to be a caste system on board cruise ships. At least that was true on Starfire Breeze. Sailors who did grunt labor on board were mostly of Far Eastern extraction– mainland Chinese and Korean. Room attendants, kitchen help, and servers in the buffet areas tended to hail from the Philippines. In the dining room, the wait-staff personnel seemed to be Portuguese or Italian, with the supervisors-headwaiters- and maitre’d’s–all Italian. The young folks in crisp white uniforms who worked behind the counter at the purser’s desk and the people who manned the cash registers in the concessions–the gift shops and bars — tended to be Brits or Americans, while the captain and other top-echelon officers are Italian.

Oh well. At least Pinas got mentioned once again.

The Wildflowers - V.C. Andrews

Summary and Review of The Wildflowers by V.C. Andrews

Category: Books

Genre:Teens & Family

Author: V.C. Andrews

Four “Orphans with Parents” as what Misty called themselves in therapy under Dr. Marlowe.

Misty, Star, Jade and Cat. They were asked to be in group therapy since their cases are somewhat like each other.

Misty shared about her life first she is an only one child, she shared how her parents went through a divorce and how it affected her, her lovelife and everything. She even tried to run away and was brought back home when her boyfriend tried to steal a convenience store and they were caught. That’s why she is in therapy because of that.

Star is black and her father went away and never came back. Her mother was a drunkard and she has a brother whom she was like a mother too. When her mother went away with another man promising to return with more money they were placed with their wise grandmother. Star loved her grandmother soo much and hermother just called once in awhile to promise them that she will give them a good life. Until now, her mother hasn’t reurned. Star’s special someone was in a situation like his but in a different view… anyhow the guy died.. that’s why Star is in therapy because she was in turmoil.

Jade is richer than Misty. Like Misty she is an only child. She lives with her mother and father under one big house while her parents fought for her custody. Trying to win her heart…. and give her poison (sweet stuffs, treat her and all that) just so she would say something good about them to the judge. But, she knew her parents never really cared they just want to show each other who is superior whoever gets to win the battle. Like Jade she ran away to San Francisco meeting up with her chatmate Loneboy. It turned out her chatmate was a psycho and she was locked up in the house for 2 days. When she went home nobody noticed she was gone. She kept it all up inside her and burst out when she’d had enough.

Cat a very elusive and mysterious girl to the rest of the three. She rarely speaks and smile. It turned out that she was adopted and she was somewhat “molested” by her father. But she never knew about it since she though her father loved her. No one was affectionate to her even her mother. Her mother is like a psycho also… very old-fashioned. She never lets Cat wear any modern clothe that shows this and that she always let her wear a size bigger than her size. She was sent to therapy when they learned about what her so-called father did to her.

They’re all like some wildflower growing out of the garden, untended, left to fend for themselves most of the time, to pray for the right amount of rain and sunshine because there’s not enough water to nurture them.

When they found each other and formed the OWP club they were like wildflowers who found their own private garden.

Are You Uptown or Downtown?

You Are Midtown

You love so many things, you don't fit into any one label. Your city girl persona goes to a fancy restaurant one night and a dive bar the next.

Are You Uptown or Downtown?

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Mango Charlotte

Summary and Review of Mango Charlotte from Bistro Rosario

A cake made at Bistro Rosario located at Torres Street, Davao City.

This is my favorite cake. (wow, I’m being biased about my reviews!) but, really among all the cakes that I have tasted this one is the BEST!

This cake has real mango in it (yes, almost like a mango float but even better). Not too sweet, just creamy and milky. Just enough, you might say compared to conventional cakes.

Really yum yum! Costs Php 500.00. Not bad, after all it’s tasty and you would want to eat more.

This Charlotte cake has different varieties. It comes in Ube (4/5), Pandan(3/5 - because of the coco they placed with it. I dont like coco… but anyone who loves coco would like it), Durian (4/5), and Blueberry (3/5).

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The Mermaids Singing - Lisa Carey

Summary and Review of The Mermaids Singing by Lisa Carey

Category: Books
Genre: Family & Love
Author: Lisa Carey

Major characters are: Cliona, Grace and Grainne.

Setting: Inis Muruch - the Island of the Mermaids and Boston.

This book is about mother and daughter relationships. Its about three generation of mothers and daughters who failed to understand each other and express their love.

Cliona was originally born in Inis Muruch who as a child hated her mother and never came to understand her. She saw her mother as a woman who has no joy in her, a harsh woman and unreachable. She hated her name because it is named after some mythological being and her name is not common. She loved her father who was a fisherman like all the men in their island. She went to Boston (America) to work as a maid while saving up money to go study about nursing. It is her dream to be a nurse at Inis Muruch. While she was working under the Willoughbys as a maid, she got pregnant, and her plan to go back to Inis Muruch failed. She named her daughter Grace.

Grace disliked her mother for naming her simply as Grace. Grace thought her mother as a stern woman who bore no expression on her face whatsoever. She was born in Boston, but when she was almost 15 years old she was forced to go back with her mother at Inis Muruch, which she did not like. Her mother married a man named Marcus who owns a hotel, and has a lot of kids. She hated living with them, she hated living in an island because she did not feel free. The only time she feels free was when she goes under the water and swim the whole day. All her days in Inis Muruch was not good. People always see her sulking, pouting and it was evident she was never happy. She fell in love with a man named Seamus and she bore him a daughter and she named her Grainne. She wanted to abort her daughter but Seamus and her mother would not let her. She felt trapped and all her visions of leaving the island vanished. But later on after three years of leaving in the island married to Seamus she decided to leave with Grainne.

Grainne always wondered why she never knew her father or whether she has any relations aside from her mother. She asked about her grandmother and her mother told her, she is dead and that the only family she has was her mother.

It’s a nice story about mothers and daughters. About freedom, loving one another, conformity and family.

Cold Sea Rising - Richard Moran

Summary and Review of Cold Sea Rising by Richard Moran

Category: Books
Genre: Adventure & Nature
Author: Richard Moran

Richard Moran has a good writing style minus the high falluting words. You can understand how each scene is being described right away. Your imagination fires up. A fast read because the words just flow easily and so you can read and finish fast.

A page-turner and it fills you with suspense as each event unfolds.

Here is the sitch: A massive volcano from the land at the bottom of the Earth has cut loose the ROSS ICE SHELF the size of Spain. Imagine, a floating berg the size of Spain and it drifts to warmer places and it would melt and the estimated rise of sea level would be twenty point six feet, which would drown all the ports of the world.

When Russians learned about this, the Russian defense minister named Savin suggested that they take over the Ross Ice Shelf that is drifting and have a floating harbour that would make everyone fall under them. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet named Romanov (the leader of Russia) did not agree to this but he was overtaken by the Presidium to make it possible. Savin is a power greedy person, prepared to make others die for his cause, for Russia to be on top.

The U.S. learned about this and another political underdog, the security adviser of the President of the U.S. manipulated and reasoned to the President that the only way was to give out a “leak” to the New York Times that they will use their laser weapons that could turn all the 5,000 Mongolian/Russian soldiers into ashes once they started the descend at the ROSS Ice Shelf.

When the whole world learned about this… every country thought it was the end of the world. Old issues were renewed. Old fights were triggered. The two superpowers (US and Russia) were like declaring war, and everyone thought it’s world war three starting. Sudden outbreak of brush fires from Africa to Indonesia. The laser threat had the world believing that it’s the end of the world and that man is on the edge of Armageddon. The feeling of scores of countries would be “The end is near. It’s time to settle scores once and for all.”.

South African guerillas under Nukomo are preapring to cross the border of Botswana and march on Pretoria. Radio Indonesia has announced renewd insurgent attacks against several cities and military posts on its outer islands. In South America gunboat fire has been exchanged between Chile and Argentina over those islands they’re claiming at the tip of the continent.

It actually mentions the Philippines. In this story the Philippines gets hit by a Tsunami wave caused by a nuclear that was released by a Russian submarine named Mezen. Actually it’s not just a Tsunami it’s a 280 foot wall of radioactive water. Rawr. Russians.

The Philippine government had declared a state of emergency and ordered it’s citizens to evacuate the vulnerable shores from Mindanao to Luzon.

Although the back of the Tsunami had been broken against the shores of New Guinea, an immense surge of radioactive meltwater continued to wash north toward the Philippines, China, and Japan.

For almost an hour McCoy conducted radiophone interviews with government disaster directors in Manila, Singapore, and Tokyo.

*when the crisis was over and everything was resolved by Rankin and McCoy underwater the whole West rejoiced and stooped evacuating but…*

The broadcasts from Shanghai, Sydney and Manila were far more somber as the monitor showed the devastation wrought by the Antarctic Tsunami.

It’s actually a good book. But I don’t like the part when Melissa died to get her work underwater because she left it. I want Melissa and Josh to be reunited and not some Ukranian woman named Anya be the one who ended up with Josh. Oh well, it’s not my story. It’s Richard Moran’s.

Small Town - Lawrence Block

Summary and Review of Small Town by Lawrence Block

Category: Books
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Author: Lawrence Block

Wooo! Finally finished the book.

The story in this book happened after the 9/11 attack. Setting: Modern New York.

This book involves an “insane” serial killer. Well, all serial killers are insane right? I mean, they think unnaturally… and they feel they are justified whenever they are out to do the kill. Well, certainly this one has his own justification.

The first person to appear in the story is Jerry Pankow a gay man who cleans gay bars every morning to make his own living. He also cleans some apartments and they are the “private clients”. Obviously, this person gets to clean the apartment of the first victim who appeared to be strangled, but he did not know about it yet, since he thought she was just sleeping. Sooo he cleaned the crime scene.. which was typically his job right?

The gay man Jerry Pankow wasn’t accused, because no evidence was pointed against him but instead a writer named John Creighton was suspected to be the killer. Most of the evidences pointed against him, because he was basically the last person who was seen with her the night it happened. Apparently, he forgot anything about her because he was drunk… which is not a good excuse right? Of course not.

This story actually just ruminates around a few bunch of people who are actually related to each other.

Maury Winters is the lawyer of John Creighton, a friend of Susan who owns an art gallery.(you’d know her when you read the book. And i tell you.. I don’t like her role. Too crazy Haha). Maury Winters has a private detective named Jim Galvin (good role since he helped John Creighton’s case be dismissed of an evidence he found out when the story is about to reach it’s end) who has a friend who was a police commisioner of New York named Fran Buckram who was later involved with s**ual activities with Susan. Susan was also involved with another writer named Jay McGann and Lowell Cooke(publisher) who both have wives.

There are a few relations to them but it would spoil the whole book.

This book is haunting and thrilling at the same time. It tells a lot about the different kinds of “ART”. How people express themselves to ARTS. Painters through their painting, killers would then be involve with the art of blood and war.

Nice… but there are some parts that are not good for kids. PG 18 uhm make it R18.

Zoe Saldana

Movies that star Zoe Saldana

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