#Thursdaydoors – A beautiful church in New York #NYC #photos

Posted on February 23, 2017 by suzannerogersonfantasyauthor

I haven’t taken part in #Thursdaydoors hosted on Norm’s site for ages. When I spotted these beautiful church doors on an Uptown tour of New York, I knew they were a perfect specimen to showcase.

I’m afraid I don’t remember the church name or exact location on the tour, maybe someone out there will recognise it? Here’s a few more shots to admire the craftsmanship of such a beautiful building.

This is my last photo post from my recent New York holiday. Here’s the links for the rest…

Snowy Central Park

A tourist’s photo guide to New York

Beautiful buildings on the Uptown bus tour

Check them out and let me know what you think.

#WordlessWednesday New York Uptown Bus tour #photos of beautiful buildings in #NYC

Posted on February 22, 2017 by suzannerogersonfantasyauthor

#Weekendwanderings A tourist’s #photo guide to New York City #NYC

Posted on February 19, 2017 by suzannerogersonfantasyauthor

Last week I spent 4 days in New York City. It was surreal to be in the city that never sleeps, and I can tell you from my 4th storey hotel room that song lyric is true!

As my friend and I are both celebrating a big birthday this year, we left the kids at home and set off on an adventure. The 8 hour flight was turbulent and being stuck in my seat most of that time allowed me to watch 3 films! Luckily I’m a film junkie, and I enjoyed The Girl on the Train (review here), Inferno and Bridget Jones’s Baby.

Anyway, that’s the background to the trip, now for the photos.

The day before we arrived, New York had its first snow storm of the year. Everywhere was piled with snow.

On our first trip out we visited Central Park. I really like the Christopher Columbus statue outside.

I love the icicles and the scenes depicted below.

Central park was magical under a layer of snow.

Here’s my WordlessWednesday post of snowy pictures from Central Park.

There were plenty of quirky things to see as we walked around the city.

And this shot of Trump Towers proved popular on Instagram. There were armed body guards outside (hidden by the jeep in this picture) and NYPD across the street. There were also a couple of demonstrators with some very interesting drawings of the new president!

The best way to see New York is on one of the many open top bus tours. These are fun and hassle free, even in the minus degree temperatures we experienced. On the Downtown tour I took a few shots of Time Square.

These are best views I had of The Empire State building and the new World Trade Center on the bus. But you can hop on and off the bus tour at any stage to visit these iconic places.

Empire State Building

New World Trade Centre

Here’s the FBI headquarters…

And this was impressive too

Our bus ticket also included a free ferry trip past the Statue of Liberty, which was a must see attraction.

The view of the city from the ferry was stunning, although I had to crop the pictures as there were peoples heads in the way.

All around the city you can spot churches tucked in between the skyscrapers,

and everywhere you looked were brilliant buildings like this one.

Finally, we paid to go on the Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Center. It had a 70th floor observation deck, although this was shut due to strong winds. The view was still magnificent from the 67th & 68th floors.

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On Wednesday I’ll share some pictures of the buildings in the Uptown New York bus tour. This had some of the most beautiful and exclusive buildings with views across Central Park.

#Film #Review The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins #thriller

Posted on February 17, 2017 by suzannerogersonfantasyauthor

I jumped at the chance of watching The Girl on the Train on my way to New York last week. Not only did I enjoy the audiobook of it last year (see my review here) but I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get excited about my arrival in NYC.

Initially I was surprised to hear they were changing the location from London to New York, but in the end I don’t think the setting played much part in the film – it could have been set anywhere. This turned out to be a disappointment during my flight to NYC, but the film was entertaining enough to take my mind off all the turbulence we experienced.

As far as I can remember, the script stuck mostly to the book. The scenes jumped around quite a lot, as they do in the book, but for some reason it’s easier to follow in the book. Even for someone who knows the story, I did find myself getting confused a couple of times. I think this maybe because some of the story threads were not fully shown in the film, which is understandable in an adaptation.

I think Emily Blunt is a talented actress and she played a drunken Rachel Watson very well. All the acting in the film was good, although I don’t recall the detective in the book being as annoying as the one in the film.

The worse thing for me were the sex scenes. Although not explicit, it was terribly embarrassing to watch whilst sitting next to a complete stranger on the plane. Mind you, he was watching the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which also has plenty of sex scenes to blush over.

As far as entertainment goes, I enjoyed this film a lot and I recommend to those who love a mystery thriller.

I rate it 3.5 stars – the audio book got 4 stars.

Have you read the book, or listened to the audiobook? What do you think is best, book or film?

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If anyone is interested, here’s my pictures of a snowy Central Park last week. I also hope to post some more pictures of my weekend in NYC tomorrow.