Desperate Measures: 1 (Wicked Villains)

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On the night Jafar takes everything from my father, he offers me a devil’s bargain—walk with my freedom and nothing else, or attempt to best him and regain my inheritance. In my arrogance, I play right into his hands. I foolishly assume I have a chance to come out on top. I’m wrong. Without doubt one of the best series I ever read not just because it's a retelling and continuation of my favorite book ever - Pride and Prejudice. Pete and Annie continued to see each other, although not too often. She hadn't seen him in a year and he called, drunk, from Thailand. He asked her to marry him because they wanted the same things. She told him to call and ask her when he was sober. She told him that Dennis had asked her to marry him too. Annie waited for Pete to call but he never did. The only thing he remembered of the conversation was that she said no and that Dennis had asked her to marry him too. He thought that was what she wanted. Pete didn't like Dennis and Annie didn't like him much either. He just wanted money and would comprise his morals to get it. Pete didn't like the fact that he talked about himself so much and what he had. He didn't like the fact that Dennis seemed jealous of what Pete had and made comments about his wealth. As the action unfolds, Pittman somehow evolves from a washed out suicidal reporter to an invincible super hero. Every time he needs help, someone pops up to help him... quite happy to believe his side of the story despite all the evidence that he is a crazed killer.

It was at this point in the book that I was about ready to close it up and start another book because the whole "I'm going to kill myself" angle was getting very, very old. I realize that Morrell was writing out of the pain of losing his own son to cancer, but the book was rapidly losing interest for me. If you’ve spent any amount of time on BookTok or BookTube recently, you’ll probably have stumbled across a series of erotic villain-led Disney retellings. Yep, you heard me. Erotic villain-led Disney retellings.

Matt Pittman’s life is one full of sorrow. His son died of a rare form of bone cancer called Ewing's Sarcoma (the same kind that Morrell's son died from) and his wife left him shortly after, and unable to cope with his pitiful life any longer, he decides to commit suicide. He has the barrel of a gun in his mouth, ready to pull the trigger when the phone rings and he is tasked with an assignment from an old friend; write the obituary for a dying diplomat. And because his friend helped him so much when his son was dying, he felt obliged to do him one last favour before he takes his own life. Pittman finds himself outside of the dying diplomat, Jonathan Wingate’s house, peeping through a glass door. Then he notices everyone leave the room while Wingate gasps for breath. Pittman enters the room and resets the man’s oxygen tubes, but unfortunately, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Due to his fingerprints conveniently being on the tubes, it was too easy for the other diplomats to frame him for the murder of Jonathan Wingate. Pete Sorenson was 6 when parents died and his best friend, Barney (or Barnaby) Sims hid him in his tree house to try and keep the DPS from taking him away and putting him in a foster home. Barney had problems of his own though. His stepfather beat both him and his mother. It was 2 days before they found the boys in the tree house and Pete was taken away. His caseworker was Harriet Wardlaw and she was told to not get personally involved. After being left with a big cliffhanger in Darcy’s Dilemma, Darcy and Elizabeth are under new misunderstandings, and they both go their separate ways - sure the other never wants to see them again. But fate would have it’s way once more, and they are thrown together again, when they both end up in Bath. The trilogy, A Fair Prospect, is outstanding. I give it a 5 star rating, as well as 5 stars to each volume. I am still amazed at the way Cassandra Grafton is able to get into the minds of her characters, and make me feel with them every moment of despair, agony, sadness, elation, joy and relief.

You truly feel the deep, thoughtful research and appreciation of this fine author in the lines in each of the books of the series, told over 3 volumes in perfect dedication to the original.Reeling from the news of Elizabeth’s engagement to Harington, and desperate to avoid any possible further encounter, as much for the lady’s sake as his own, Darcy seeks distraction, removing to the West Country with his sister and cousin where they prepare to embark on a journey to Dublin. Elizabeth, meanwhile, is struggling with an inexplicable lowness of spirit following the gentleman’s removal from Town. Fate, however, has unfinished business with them both, and before long the lady is travelling to the West Country herself. Georgiana and Anne: I love it when other characters catch on about Darcy’s feelings for Elizabeth! It is so diverting to see what they do with this knowledge – how they try to help, manipulate, and matchmake! I especially enjoyed seeing Georgiana and Anne in cahoots with each other. I love when these two cousins come closer together, since we don’t see that at all in Pride and Prejudice. Maybe if I'd read the 46 (!!!) previous books, I'd know where a former police detective got as stinking-ass rich as this guy did. (Best guess: from lawyerin' and maybe wealthy family? I suppose?) But I didn't and I almost surely won't. Desperate Measures is based on Aladdin. We then follow Jasmine when Jafar has overthrown her father. Although the politics are similar the setting is city based instead of the desert. I really love how they write Jasmine and her curiosity of the world around her. The city added a roughness to her encounters and fits the overall feel of the book and sexual encounters with Jafar. I really wish there had been more development of her in the outside world and with other people other than Jafar and within The Underground.

Waiting for a briefcase repair in a Manhattan luggage shop, a woman on crutches stumbles and falls in Stone's lap, but Priscilla Scott's got baggage--and she ain't rid of it yet! Of course Stone discovers this in parts and pieces, and there is the matter of attractions, so he and Cilla become constant companions for a few days of heavy breathing. When Donald Trask show up in his office unannounced and begins threatening Stone, he links Cilla with Herbie Fisher to pay off the sulking husband. He becomes a major league pain in the ass in parallel with the serial killer team going on the offensive. She buys a fabulously expensive apartment on Fifth Avenue and Trask shoots and stabs her to death as a housewarming present. It's so amazingly written and catches the tone of the original yet adds aspects which gives it a bit more spice, wit and romance - almost unbelievable considering how marvelous the original was already. Within a few hours, Matt goes from being a suicidal obituary writer to being a fugitive, on the run and trying to save the life he was so eager to take only a few short hours before. He also manages to get an innocent woman entangled in his mess; a nurse named Jill who helped take care of Wingate during his brief stay at the hospital. Together, the two take on a life of espionage and stealth as they try to outrun and outsmart the practically invisible assassins trying to kill them while they attempt to prove their innocence. When I read this book I was a lot like the Matt at the beginning of the story so he was definitely someone that I understood and I could also relate to. He had suffered losses that were extremely painful (the death of his son and divorce from his wife) and because of it, he had become severely depressed and felt like he couldn’t continue living. Regardless of how he chose to deal with his grief I felt like Matt was a good man, a strong man. For years after his son’s death, he had carried on living even though he didn’t think he had anything worth living for. And considering the story took place within the span of about a week to a month the drastic change was quite remarkable because the version of Matt that greets you at the beginning of the story and the Matt that bids you farewell at the end are two completely different people. He went from a hollow shell wilting away, to a man making an effort to live because he finally found the will to do so.MAIN CHARACTERS: Elizabeth Bennet. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Bennet, Charles Bingley, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Georgiana Darcy, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Nicholas Harington (new original character), Serena Seavington (new original character) CIA έχει αποφοίτους Γέιλ, το Στέιτ Ντιπάρτμεντ αποφοίτους Χάρβαρντ κλπ. Κάθε κολέγιο έχει μυστικές οργανώσεις (π. χ. Νεκροκεφαλές), οπότε κάθε Πρόεδρος διορίζει τους συμφοιτητές του, συντρόφους του σε αυτές τις οργανώσεις κι όταν ολοκληρώνεται η προεδρία, αυτοί καταφεύγουν στον ιδιωτικό τομέα, ως μέλη διοικητικών συμβουλίων σημαντικών επιχειρήσεων με επιρροές στην Ουάσιγκτον. Ένα σκάνδαλο λοιπόν είναι δυναμίτης για τον καθένα από αυτές τις ομάδες, πόσο μάλλον για τους 5 συμβούλους. Αυτοί οι 5 λοιπόν υπήρξαν θύματα σεξουαλικής παρενόχλησης από έναν καθηγητή τους αλλά υπέκυψαν (ο 6ος αρνήθηκε και συντομα αναγκάστηκε να φύγει από τη σχολή αλλά η αριστοκρατία δεν θέλει να ενοχλείται από τέτοια μικροπράγματα και το κουκούλωσαν). Ναι αλλά δεν είναι αυτό το σκάνδαλο, ούτε καν υπόνοια περί ομοφυλοφιλίας των 5, το σκάνδαλο ήταν άλλο: εκμεταλλεύτηκαν το κίνημα του μακαρθισμού για να καταδώσουν επικίνδυνους αντιπάλους ως κομμουνιστές και να τους εξουδετερώσουν ενώ οι ίδιοι, κρυφά, χάρη στον καθηγητή τους, ασπάστηκαν τις ιδέες του κομμουνισμού, τις οποίες φυσικά μετά τον Ψυχρό πόλεμο και την κατάρρευση αυτής της θεωρίας, βιάστηκαν να την απαρνηθούν. Υπάρχουν όμως στοιχεία αυτής της φιλοκομμουνιστικής τους στάσης κι έτσι ο δημοσιογράφος ξεκινά έναν αγώνα θανάτου. Mirroring how The Teacher was filmed in Budapest, Desperate Measures was also filmed in the Hungarian capital though the sinister events of the Channel 5 drama actually go down in Manchester. This was something which Amanda Abbington previously told RadioTimes.com was a bit “weird”, as they had the Northern English city in their minds when they were filming. Famous for his suspenseful fiction that delivers sheer emotional power, David Morrell, the bestselling author of First Blood, The Brotherhood of the Rose, The Fifth Profession, and Assumed Identity, here presents a mesmerizing novel of intrigue and high-action thrills. Fallen star journalist Matt Pittman holds a gun in his hand, ready to commit suicide until he's abruptly interrupted by a phone call and a bizarre assignment: to write the obituary of a man who is not yet dead. Suddenly, clinging desperately to a life he was so recently eager to discard, Matt finds himself both a murder suspect by the police and a target for murder by invisible assassins. Praise Wow! I LOVED this story! Desperate Measures is the third and the last of the A Fair Prospect trilogy. I have enjoyed all three of them!