DWD's Reviews

Published in 2025 by Amazon Original Stories. The Toy Car is a coming-of-age story of Petros, an attractive 17 year old boy who lives on a sunny Greek tourist island. His life is mapped out for him - his father owns a popular taxi service and eventually he will inherit the business.  It's a good life by most standards.  But, his English mother is worried that Petros hasn't seen enough of the world so she convinces his father to send him off to live with her sister and her husband in London for a year abroad. Petros brings along a toy version of his father's taxi, which is where we get the name of the story. Up to this point, the story is pretty good. When Petros arrives in London, his aunt and uncle seem very surprised about everything about him. They have not prepared for his arrival. Everything about the very existence of Petros confounds them. I have no idea why they are acting this way, but it makes for a very poor experience for Petros. He spirals out of control with ...

Lord Byron as a vampire Originally published in 1996 by Simon and Schuster. Performed by Richard E. Grant Duration: 3 hours, 3 minutes. Abridged. I picked up this audiobook version of Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Byron because I very much enjoyed Holland's non-fiction book about the end of the Roman Republic, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic . I am not particularly a fan of vampire books nor of Lord Byron (who I can believe was a vampire, considering the level of his debauchery and self-absorption) but I decided to give Tom Holland another try and trust that he would make it interesting. Lord Byron (1788-1824) The abridgment of the book contributed to my enjoyment, I am sure. There were many long stretches that were so bloated by flowery speeches, especially in the first hour or so of the audiobook, that I probably would have bailed on an unabridged version of the book. However, the last two hours were so interesting and so well-performed by R...