![]() Her half brother has cut off her allowance and her dreadful sister in law reminds her constantly that she lives with them only because of their generosity. Unfortunately, she has zero money with which to meet those expectations. Georgie, aka, Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, is 36th in line for the throne currently held by Queen Mary, and as such has Expectations to Uphold. ![]() Her Royal Spyness was recommended to me most vociferously after Amanda’s and my recent podcast (episode 292) about audiobooks when I asked for advice on what to listen to next, and of course, not that I ever doubted, every person who suggested it was entirely right. This review is for both the narrative and the audiobook performance of Her Royal Spyness. I’m continuing my streak of listening to historical mysteries while I walk the dogs each day, and I’m switching between series so I don’t burn out on the patterns and familiarity of a particular author or character. ![]() Genre: Historical: Other, Mystery/Thriller ![]()
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![]() ![]() The writing was unsophisticated, yet not bad, though the author tends to lean to much towards the purple prose spectrum of romance writing. ![]() I thought it was a little over the top with the mustache twirling evil stepfather but I let it go. The book started well enough, with Amelia and her sister Clara living as wards to their stepfather who hates them. So, as you can imagine when I read the premise for this book I was intrigued by the prospect. One of my favorite tropes in romance is that of enemies to lovers. I have listened to a lot of similar books and the author does not even adhere to the lowest common denominator of what all authors seem to agree on (that ladies are not allowed to accept presents from gentlemen). And the grating inner monologue of the heroine. I have rarely listened to a book where I was aware of every single plot device, something was mentioned and 5 minutes later what could be expected happened. A happy ever after build on the misery of another character was really too much, especially after the whole book revolved about keeping this character and another character happy. When I nearly finished I was ready to give it 2 stars because I persisted but than the ending left me crying, what? And I downgraded to 1. ![]() ![]() But somehow I listened to the whole thing shaking my head most of the time. I thought to return it, when it started cringeworthy. I could not give the book back, because I listened to the whole thing, but I am at a loss to explain why. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The takeaway from the Dark Tower books: The unknown is better left unknown, and if the todash’s beasties ever find their way into your reality, run. As Roland and his and ka-tet, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake, eventually learn, ancient advanced societies of Roland’s “Mid-World” parallel universe found ways to breach the fabric between realities and reach the todash space, and every being who beheld it seems to have agreed that it’s pure terror. The idea of todash creeps into other King books - The Mist and From a Buick 8 are biggies - but it’s always looming in the late Dark Tower novels. Lovecraft, King mesmerized me with the promise of a darkness between worlds, where violent titans lurked and an unlucky few lived out an eternity in foggy hell. ![]() Specifically, todash space.īefore I understood “cosmic horror” as the defining mode of H.P. Stephen King devoted more than 4,000 pages to detailing the fantasy world of The Dark Tower, and yet by the end of Roland Deschain’s journey to the tower, there was still space shrouded in shadow. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He lays out events since then, up to and beyond the Russian hacking of the US Democratic National Committee a decade later, the repercussions of which are still being felt. He begins with the first sophisticated state-on-state cyberattack, in which the United States and Israel used a computer worm dubbed Stuxnet, which they began developing in 2006, to shut down Iranian nuclear enrichment plants. Sanger, the national security correspondent for the New York Times and a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, has penned one of the most comprehensive and accessible histories of cyberwar to date. But with governments fighting ongoing cyberwars, inflicting damage that has cost billions of dollars and undermined democracy, it is time for a much larger public conversation on the subject, as David Sanger insists in his new book The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age. After all, cyberweapons are new, shrouded in secrecy, and invisible to the untrained eye, making them harder to comprehend than bullets or bombs. ![]() Even though major newspapers cover the thrust and parry of cyberwar, it can be difficult to grasp the bigger picture. ![]() |