The last in the series and what a rollercoaster ride it was for Kalle Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. The reader was hooked from the beginning, wondering how on earth she'd extricate herself from the huge mess.
Although gripping and a real page-turner, on quiet reflection after finishing the book, I do have to say there are a few flaws, little niggles that I can't move past. Things that are worrying me. Maybe they would have been addressed in a fourth volume which sadly will never be written. Camilla the twin sister never features, never appears and even at the end we are told Salander has no clue where she was. I have to ask, why was she even included in the story if she played no part whatsoever? Blomkvist texts Salander and tells her she made an error and that's how he found out she'd stolen all that money. When she asks how she slipped up, he tells her that if she meets him for coffee, he'll tell her. They never meet for coffee, he never tells her, so I'm left hanging, how did she slip up? How did Blomkvist find out?
There was also a part where the billions of kronor she had, at the end suddenly turned into billions of US$. Is that the same thing? Are Swedish kronor equivalent to US$?
I also didn't like how she dismissed her inheritance from Zalachenko. I understand she has her own fortune and the money from him is negligable, but it would have left a better feeling, a more warm fuzzy one, if she donated that money to open a centre for abused women and children or something. It would have rounded off the story better.
Otherwise, another cracking good read that had me turning pages until 2am. Now I've finished the series, I can get on with my life and my own writing again!
Don't you love a website where you can list your books as giveaways? The Case of Billy B has had some awesome reviews on both Amazon.com and Goodreads.com. Some change of season madness, or it could be temporary insanity caused by hayfever, but I've decided to put three copies of The Case of Billy B up for grabs.
love
Cindy
This was even better than The Girl with the dragon tattoo! Whereas that took me a week to read, this only took a weekend. Granted, now my eyes feel like the scratchpatch at the local semi-precious stone shop. probably because I couldn't put the book down to go and fetch my glasses. The plot was complex, well-thought out and constructed. It gripped you completely. And the ending???? What was that? Now I just have to get the third one in the trilogy and find out what happens! Another weekend stuffed because of Mr Sieg Larsson!
I had heard all the hype about this book but somehow or other, had never got round to reading it. Then my Dad out of the blue recommended it, and I thought I have to read it. This fast-paced thriller is a book everybody should read. It's well-written and is so gripping, you'll be like me and read the last 300 pages in one go. The only problem with the book, is that you'll find it hard to do you work and other chores, you'll just want to keep on reading.
The plot is complex but well-woven. The heroine is unlike any other heroine you've ever encountered. It's just brilliant.
Last Friday when I came home from school, I gasped with shock the minute I stepped over the threshold into my sitting room. At the far end was my bookshelf. The lovely blue and gold Thai silk runner had been replaced with a psychadelic pink fake fur piece of fabric. A piece of fabric that was kept in a box upstairs with other pieces of fake fur - a leftover from my teddy bear making days. My housekeeper had obviously decided to give the Thai silk runner a wash, and had turned her nose up at the other really nice tasteful runners I have, and opted for the psychadelic pink fake fur. Now, while I appreciate the bright and colourful, the psychadelic pink fur was well...nauseating. I almost felt like I needed to wear sunglasses in the house. To make matters worse, she arranged my wooden map of Africa at a tilt on its side and she fetched the toy purple poodle from my daughter's bedroom and placed it as an ornament on the psychadelic fur. It was all a little much, but she obviously thought it was attractive. I collapsed in the chair and stared mesmerised at the bookshelf. Could I be bothered to change it?
The next morning I found myself sitting in the chair again, contemplating my pink fur runner. Siobhan came tripping down the stairs, her eyes full of sleep. "You still looking at that pink thing? If you don't like it, why don't you change it?" And she flopped down on the couch next to her jeans she'd climbed out of the night before, the pile of dvds scattered everywhere, and her smelly dirty socks.
"You know," I muttered sadly, "I pray to God nobody comes to visit us. I have a psychadelic pink fake fur runner, a shocking pink knee rug Grace has covered the coffee table with; and my lovely bedspread from India has been put on the dining room table as a table cloth! Then to make matters worse, look at your crap lying all over the floor." I shook my head, giving up. There was no point in arguing with her. The day before she'd told me it was my fault she was untidy because I employed a housekeeper. Teenagers.
"Get real Mom, who comes to visit?" she sneered nastily. "If you don't like it, stop whining and change it. Do something about it." She sashayed out the sitting room and went back upstairs to get ready to go out.
Of course, I had just returned home after dropping her off at a party when I had an unexpected guest. Luckily, earlier when Siobhan was in the shower I'd taken her dirty plates to the kitchen and picked up the dvds and thrown away her dirty tissues. But, I'd left the dirty smelly socks where she'd left them under the couch, and hadn't yet gotten around to changing the psychadelic fur. My lack of motivation to get up the energy to change my decor resulted in me having to apologise profusely for the state of my sitting room. It was embarrassing.
Today, one week later, I get home from school and the psychadelic pink fake fur fabric is still on my bookshelf as a runner. A week has gone by and I still haven't changed it. What signals am I sending out? My housekeeper obviously assumes I'm happy with her interior decorating skill; my daughter thinks that I don't mind living in a bomb shelter. This got me thinking. When we are unhappy with a situation, what messages do we give other people when we make no effort to change it because we can't be bothered.
Inside, I am very bothered, it's driving me mad, but change takes energy, it takes effort. Many times in life, we just complain and whinge about situations we don't like. We have the power to change it, but we can't be bothered. It's too much effort. So, we learn to live with it or around it. We accept things we shouldn't accept. We lower our standards. And as we get more and more used to a bad situation, the less likely we'll make the effort to change it. Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Nobody but you can change the situation which is bothering you. You have to get up, find the energy and make that change. Throw away the psychadelic pink fur runner. Hide it where the housekeeper can never find it again. Make that change, don't turn a blind eye and just put up with it. Do something about it.
Besides thinking about how we go about changing unpleasant things, which I can blame entirely on my housekeeper and the psychadelic pink fake fur, I've also been thinking a bit about why we say sorry and how many times we really mean it. So I wrote a hub about it which you can check out here http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-do-we-say-sorry.
Long weekend here this weekend, and my goal is to write, write, write. I want to try and finish my up trip part of The Great Mountain to Mountain Safari. Have a great weekend and remember, make those changes in your life which are making you unhappy. Everyone deserves to be happy.
love
Cindy
As a Kellerman fan, I was a little disappointed with Blindman's Bluff. It wasn't as gripping as some of her previous work, in fact it took me up until page 329 to get into it. There were too many characters and the plot was quite predictable. I guessed who El Patron was early on in the novel. The blindman in the story was more a distraction than anything else, and I felt that his sole role was to give the book it's title. Mind you, he wasn't bluffing so not sure how the title fits. I particularly didn't enjoy the last chapter where all the ends were tied together neatly in a forced unnatural kind of way. Some of her other books had me sitting up all night to finish them, and the fact it took me nearly two and a half weeks to finish this one, says a lot.
If you haven't read her earlier work, you'll probably enjoy this. But there are so many better crime thrillers around these days, and this one doesn't stand out.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce a brilliant motivational speaker, Kim Upstone, as a guest blogger on my blog.
Kim is one of 9 children born to a business entrepreneur father (still living) and a housewife (deceased). She has been married 32 years to her husband, Doug, who is a sports writer. She has I has two children, Melissa who lives in Hawaii, and Brent who is married and lives in Tempe, AZ and his wife. They are expecting their first child, Grace, in August. Kim and her husband care for her sister, Debbie (who is 5 years older than Kim). She has special needs and they have Frank, their 4 year old cocker spaniel! They moved to Arizona seven years ago to get away from the cold.
Kim Upstone is the owner of A New Day A New Vision which is not only the name of her company, but her life philosophy. Kim believes that each new day we can create a new vision for ourselves, home and environment. As an author, motivational speaker and intuitive designer she resides with her family in Scottsdale, Arizona. With a background in interior design and interest into the effects of environment upon individuals, accreditation in staging and feng shui soon followed. In addition, she has studied neuro- architecture. Her first book Step by Step To Sold and Feng Shui to Sell are reflections of those principals. Both books were written as guide for home sellers looking to prepare their home by combining Feng Shui and Staging techniques.
Feng Shui for Special Needs, her second book, is given out as a free ebook for people with life and learning challenges. Based on her own personal experience, the books help those who work with special needs children and adults to make enhancements to their environments all in an effort to allow them to flourish.
Her new book All I Want Is Everything released in December 2009 is drawn from her life’s journey of searching how to find her everything and learning to dance in the storm. All I Want Is Everything is a guide to help women reclaim happiness and peace in the search for their everything. About Kim's Book in her own words:
What do you want from your life? Do you want to discover for yourself what your everything is and then be able to live each day of your life with happiness and joy no matter what the circumstances. Do you want to have each day a realization of the gift you have been given to be here. Do you want to creating for yourself the vision of who you want to be?
I wanted everything too and from the outside, it appeared that I had everything, a loving husband and two beautiful healthy children and strong faith. I have great house and all the things that go along with it. But even with all of those things I still felt something was missing. There was piece to the puzzle I needed to find. If I could locate that missing part I would then be complete and happy.
My search lead me to look in many different directions, mostly outside of myself for the answers. It wasn’t until out of desperation I asked for guidance and received it that I learned all the answers were all within me waiting to be discovered.
All I Want Is Everything, A Guide to Love, Peace and Happiness is my journey to find my everything. What I found was so much more than I could have ever hoped for. They were the questions that lead me to the answers only I could answer. What I have created is a guide for your journey. Questions for you to answer that will lead you to your everything. You too can discover the secrets hidden safely, waiting inside for you to choose to bring them into the light.
Website http://www.anewdayanewvision.com/
Kim's book is also for purchase on her website. Kim will give a donation for each book purchased to Global Orphans Project.
Reviews of Kim's books
I was excited from the beginning when reading Kim Upstone’s “All I Want is Everything” when she took my favorite quote and expanded upon it.
No one can keep your light bright but you, and although a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle, you cannot keep another candle burning brightly by dimming yours.
And, I was not disappointed as I continued on reading. Ms Upstone hit close to home with her poignant examples of the ways in which we set ourselves up for failure and unhappiness, keeping our spirits empty by the ways in which we scramble to fill them. She is right when she says that disappointment and unhappiness become the norm. I see it everywhere in many people.
I love when these books give you exercises, as I feel like they are involving me in my healing process – a doing instead of telling – a practical application of the lessons. And, Ms. Upstone’s book is like chemistry for the real (social) world. I was so excited to see different exercises instead of the same old tried and true ones. In fact, the first exercise alone, even though I struggled to do it, led me to a profound discovery in my own personal life. She took something I have always known, have read over and over in various books and yet was still unable to do, and she put it into words that I could finally understand. It made sense, and is going to become my new mantra!
Now, shocking me, rather than just giving me a bunch of fancy worded vague advice ( I have read a lot of self-help books), she gave me not only practical advice of what to consider, and what not to consider…but also practical applications like suggestions of how to respond. Amazing. Actual words with which to respond so that those I encounter cannot steal my spirit, my light. I have written it down and I am going to carry it around with me until I learn to react that way instinctively! I mean so many times I have read to not surround yourself with people who are dark spirits, and Ms. Upstone does say this to, but also gives us ways to deal with them when we have to. It is really impossible to avoid them completely, I mean what about all the people you encounter just going to school events for your kids?
Well, now all this was written just after reading the first chapter! To my delight, Ms. Upstone kept up this pace throughout the book. In every self-help book there are things that touch each one if us depending on where we are at in our lives. And, this one touched me where I am out right now. Maybe not every word of it, but it was about the best I have read. I am putting her up there with my favorite, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer in effecting my life over-all. I have pages in my notebook of notes, exercise and now practical advice. Thanks, Kim Upstone!
was excited from the beginning when reading Kim Upstone’s “All I Want is Everything” when she took my favorite quote and expanded upon it.
No one can keep your light bright but you, and although a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle, you cannot keep another candle burning brightly by dimming yours.
And, I was not disappointed as I continued on reading. Ms Upstone hit close to home with her poignant examples of the ways in which we set ourselves up for failure and unhappiness, keeping our spirits empty by the ways in which we scramble to fill them. She is right when she says that disappointment and unhappiness become the norm. I see it everywhere in many people.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
.jpg)
