Also known as bingeing and boxsets or “What I did in my holidays…”

Consuming other people’s creativity is nurturing to my own, and though sometimes it is hard to get the balance right, I love a good book-binge. And I especially love bingeing a series.

So to Bingeing…

Generally it’s a bad thing, right? We shouldn’t binge drink or binge eat or even binge exercise. They all have detrimental effects, though I’m not in danger of doing the third and I never really had the money to binge drink back in my party days. 

But bingeing Netflix or a few good books? Well, the worse I feel is guilty that I’m not doing something productive.  You know, like housework. Or writing. Oops. Still, I find—and this I my excuse, lol—that consuming other people’s creativity is very nurturing to my own. 

Do  you find that? Whether you write or paint or dance or sing or do any number of other creative things, others who excel in the field, even perhaps those who don’t, can inspire us. 

Oh, and I was absolutely exhausted from all that renovating. (A ‘quick’ re-tile has led to so many other tasks—you know how renovating can be) As excuses go for lounging in front of the telly, that’s a pretty good one.

Anyway, this latest bought of bingeing exposed me to some great characters—Sister Agatha!—and to some frustration with story structure. 

So what did I binge-watch? 

Dracula. Have you seen it? It was one of those ‘what the heck’ choices for me. Friends were talking about it on social media so I thought I’d give it a go. At first I wasn’t too thrilled. I mean, I’ve read Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula and seen so many movies about him that when Jonathan Harker stepped tentatively into Dracula’s castle I was a bit disappointed. 

And then Sister Agatha burst into the story.

OMG! What a great character. A nun who does not believe in God. A nun who has opinions and attitude and some of the best lines ever, especially in episode 1. 

Nun: “Why would the forces of darkness attack a convent?”

Sister Agatha: “Perhaps they are sensitive to criticism.”

And this one, which is my favourite!

Jonathon Harker: “How can a nun not believe in God?”

Sister Agatha: “”Like many women my age I’m trapped in a loveless marriage, maintaining appearances in order to keep a roof over my head.” 

Great lines delivered deadpan and with great timing. Sister Agatha rocks! As does Dolly Wells, the actress who plays her. 

This version of Dracula is really about Sister Agatha—and for me, she steals the show. 

The series ending was a little disappointing. It’s only three episodes and by ep 3 the story has diverged totally from the original, and the choices made by Dracula in the final scenes don’t seem to fit with the character he had evolved to in Ep 3. I mean, he was always a monster, a succubus literally feeding off the lives of others, destroying dreams and futures without care. In Ep 3 he is portrayed as a full-blown psychopath. Which when you’ve been unfeelingly destroying others for 500 years is no surprise. 

What was a surprise was the choice he makes at the end. I won’t ruin it for you. If you get the chance, check it out. If you do, let me know if you think that choice was in keeping with the character or if you think it was out of character for him at that point. 

Apparently, there with be a second series, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. 

Another series I binge watched over a few days (because by now I was feeling guilty about not doing much of anything else) was The Gift, from Turkey. I quite enjoy subtitled films when I can watch them uninterrupted, and I watch a lot of the crime/suspense thriller genre from other countries. My preference is for subtitles over dubbing—they never get the voices quite right and that just pulls me out of the story. Voices have to suit the character otherwise you get a completely different take on them. It’s the voices that make the dubbed version of Iron Chef is so hilarious and such a different viewing experience to the American Iron Chef.

So, back to bingeing The Gift…

The series is about an artist who has been obsessed with a particular symbol most of her life. Then that exact symbol is uncovered on an archaeological dig. A dig so old that there is no way she could have ever seen the symbol. Despite getting engaged to the son of a billionaire businessman and having a hugely successful art show, she heads off to the dig site to investigate. 

This is a psychological suspense, so cue strange things happening—things that make everyone around her think she’s having a nervous breakdown or worse. Is she a paranoid schizophrenic as everyone tells her, or is she being messed with. By whom? And more importantly, why? 

This was fantastic—until the last few scenes. With such a strong Why question driving the narrative, you want answers. And that’s where the final scenes let me down. Yes, I can guess what it was all about, and yes, I can make assumptions about why that opening sequence seems to have no bearing on the series, but I wanted an answer. I wanted to know how those opening scenes fit with the story as a whole. Yet they are never explained. I have to be satisfied with assumptions. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love a story that leaves me questioning, that makes me think. I loved Dark, a dystopian suspense thriller from Germany, and that was just as twisty and asked you to suspend disbelief just as far—perhaps even further then The Gift—but the ending of each season answered most of the big questions.

The Gift made me realise how much I prefer the big questions answered. Perhaps there will be a second season of The Gift and that big unanswered question will be addressed then. Who knows. Until then, I have to be satisfied with ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’…

Both these brought home to me how important it is to answer the big question and how frustrating it can be to be left hanging. 

I guess we all have a slightly different idea of what constitutes a tidy ending. 

For me a must-have is an answer to the central story question, that question which drives the plot.

Which brings me to my big news…

Ashes to Ashes is now available as a boxset. 

Out of the over 100 reviews I’ve had for the three books in the Ashes To Ashes series a handful of reviewers felt that some aspects of the first two books weren’t as tied up as they’d like.

I’ve always believed—and still believe—they work well as stand alones as each has a separate mystery of Charlotte to solve.

However, Charlotte’s story continues with each book so from that perspective her story—the desire to be an investigative reporter—isn’t ‘finished.’

So it was great to put the entire story together in a box set. 

If you love bingeing a series, especially a book series, check out the Ashes To Ashes box set. All three novels in the series in one beautiful new ‘box’. 

What I binge-read…

The first three books each have their own series and thogh I’ve talked about bingeing a series I have to confess I’ve only read one in each so far.

The Sleepwalker

If you like Noir Crime you’ll love this. Joseph Knox gets the tone just right with his main character.

This isn’t a story were the city is a character, which you often find in Noir Crime. A bit of a pity because I love London and the hint of grittiness Knox gives the snippets he shows would have been great. I wasn’t convinced about the motivation of the femme fatale character. She does have a lot to lose, yet because we never get inside her head and feel it, she felt a little flat to me and her actions ultimately seemed extreme.

But this isn’t a story about a femme fatale. This is about Aidan Watts, a cop on the outer with too many demons to count, but boy does he end up counting them!

Fantastic story.

5 stars

The Snow Killer

Good story, nice twist.

For most of this book I was wondering why I kept reading. We know who the killer is, we know why they kill. There was some tension from knowing more than the police who were after the Snow Killer, but not really enough to sustain my interest. But I kept reading and the final twist was pretty good.

This one wasn’t really my style. If you read a lot of this type of procedural thriller you’ll probably pick the twist early.

However, if you love to know more about the family life of the police hunting down the killers then you’ll really enjoy this one.

3 stars

Deadly Games by Sally Rigby 

The first in a series, this book brings together two opposites in educated academic and forensic psychologist Georgina Cavendish and DCI-with-a-chip-on-her-shoulder Whitney Walker.

Well drawn characters, gruesome crimes and a serial killer who likes to play games makes this a solid police procedural. If you read a lot of police procedurals you won’t find anything startling in this book, but if you love a good twisted killer and a tenacious detective you’ll really enjoy this one. 

4 stars. 

The Bottle of Tears by Nick Alexander

Saved the best till last…

Had this one on my iPad for a while and to be honest the title kind of put me off given all the disaster we’d been bombarded with in Australia this summer, but oh my god, what a fantastic book! 

This is a fabulous portrait of personal and family secrets and how we shape history to suit ourselves. Nick Alexander lets the personalities and family life unfold as the story moves forward and I found myself liking and loathing various characters as more was revealed. 

If you love stories of flawed and fractured families, you’ll love this one.

5 stars