The nearly 100-foot-high statue of Christ the Redeemer stands atop Corcovado mountain, spreading its arms wide, as if to embrace the entire city. The sun beats down on Rio’s beaches—beaches so filled with sunbathers and tourists that it can be hard to see any sand. Millions of tourists flock to the city every year, and for some, it might seem as though this corner of Brazil is paradise. A place untouched by the worries of the world.

Ruben and Eunice Paiva know better.

Ruben was a left-leaning Brazilian congressman in the early 1960s. But when the government was toppled by a military coup in 1964, Ruben was forced out and into self-imposed exile. He and his family—wife Eunice and five kids—returned five years later, but the military dictatorship is in control. And by 1970, that dictatorship feels increasingly under pressure: Terrorists are kidnapping foreign ambassadors and exchanging them for the release of political prisoners. The country’s rulers want to stamp out this insurgency now. Left-leaning protestors, journalists and educators are increasingly scrutinized.

Oh, and one-time politicians, too.

They come for Ruben on a gloriously sunny day—a holiday, when the Paiva family might’ve well gone to the beach. Several men walk into the house, armed and prepared for trouble. They tell Ruben they’d like him to give a “deposition.” As Ruben dresses for the trip, his daughter, Nalu, asks if she could borrow one of his shirts.

“Do I have a choice, Nalu?” he says with a smile, while a stranger with a barely concealed gun looks on. “And where’s my kiss?”

Nalu, clueless about the room’s looming peril, gives him one. And she asks why he’s putting on a tie.

“I’m just helping these gentlemen,” Ruben say. “I’ll be back soon.”

But he wasn’t back. Not that day, or that night, or the next day. That deceptively mundane goodbye launched the family into a nightmare one can barely contemplate.

The sun seems to always shine on Rio. But on Jan. 20, 1971, the Paiva family entered into a dark, uncertain night.

The post I’m Still Here appeared first on Plugged In.

Why?

Who knows? It’s the future. And in this future, there lives a powerful witch that seemingly everyone wants dead. But this witch, Gray Alys, lives on.

Part of her longevity is because of her magical ability to make eye contact and force anything—man, zombie or feral beast—to see what she wishes them to see. Her other saving grace is the requirement that she must grant any and every wish that someone asks of her.

“I refuse no one,” she will murmur when asked. And people always ask, even though her expression immediately conveys a bitter truth: wishes always lead to one cataclysmic disaster or another.

So, when the city’s Queen approaches with a request to gain the shapeshifting ability of a werewolf, Alys dutifully replies, “I refuse no one.”

But why would the Queen want such an ability? Who knows? And when the Queen’s captain and secret lover later asks that Alys fail in that request, Alys once again declares that she cannot refuse him.

Somehow Gray Alys is required to fulfill requests that even might oppose one another. While in a magic trance, she sees a man who will guide her to that resolution. He’s a large and gnarly gunslinger named Boyce.

This massive mercenary will lead her into the Lost Lands. They will find a werewolf there. And they must also keep one step ahead of the foul crusader-like churchmen that want Gray Alys’ skin.

Oh, and Alys isn’t aware (or is she?) that Boyce also happens to be one of the Queen’s many lovers. He might even be the sire of the child that’s newly growing in her womb.

Oh, what a twisted web this witch now clings to.

But it leads to a conclusion that Gray Alys cannot refuse. Why? Only she knows for sure.

The post In The Lost Lands appeared first on Plugged In.

Unfortunately, they’re also running from the law.

The three fugitives broke free from a chain gang and hightailed it away from their shotgun-toting captors as quickly as they could. And not just for freedom’s sake: The trio is after the spoils of a robbery committed by the fast-talking Everett before he got sent to the farm. The total sum of that heist? One million dollars. Well, technically, a million point two. That’s no insignificant sum of money, especially in the Depression-era South.

But why the rush? (After all, Pete only had two weeks left on his sentence.)

Turns out, the state government plans to flood the valley housing Everett’s treasure in just a few short days. If they’re to get their reward, they’ll have to make it there before the valley is swallowed up by 9,000 hectares of water. No small task, considering they’re still chained to each other.

So, with the authorities nipping at their heels, Everett, Pete and Delmar set off on an odyssey across the forests, fields and towns of 1930s Mississippi; a long and winding road that they’re sure will lead them to their fortune.

Though the fortune they find may be much different than they expect.

The post O Brother, Where Art Thou? appeared first on Plugged In.

But this day is special for him. Because today, this frowzled young man is determined to find folk artist Woody Guthrie, to tell the singer how important he’d been to Dylan. Guthrie’s songs had knocked Dylan flat the first time he heard them. They helped spur him on to writing some new songs of his own.

The problem is, Woody Guthrie isn’t in New York as Dylan had been told. Guthrie’s health had worsened, and he was in a run-down psychiatric facility in New Jersey. So, Dylan starts hitching his way there.

When he finally arrives, he finds Guthrie in poor shape indeed. The man’s Huntington’s disease had beaten him down to the point of barely being able to move or talk. Guthrie is lying, defeated and humbled, in a shabby bed. Pete Seeger, his one last friend, sits at his bedside.

The two men listened as Dylan has his say, praising Guthrie, speaking of the man’s inspiration, delivering his thanks. Then, as Dylan turned to go, Pete Seeger, a seasoned folk artist himself, said, “So, play it.”

“Play what?” Dylan asked.

“The song you were inspired to write.”

Dylan picks up his guitar and plays. His gruff, nasal voice sings of struggles and pain. And Guthrie is visibly moved. In fact, that’s the moment Pete Seeger decides to help this scruffy young folk singer. So he gives Dylan a couch to sleep on for the night. Maybe Seeger can even open a few doors for the guy.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The post A Complete Unknown appeared first on Plugged In.

It’s a realtor. Despite your presence, she’s selling the place to a family of four.

Then painters come in and coat your bedroom in a new color. The family unpacks their things. They begin living there.

They don’t notice you, because you’re dead. There’s no physical part of you that they could notice.

Until the daughter, Chloe, starts to sense you nearby. Her brother, Tyler, thinks she’s finally starting to lose it—what with the recent death of her best friend and all. And the mother and father haven’t sensed you at all, either.

But you’re here. You’re watching. You’re listening.

And sooner or later, they’ll all know it.

The post Presence appeared first on Plugged In.

The ex-British Army window cleaner woke up late for work, earning the anger of her superior. And she was forced to come in even later when she learned that her autistic brother, Michael, had just gotten kicked out of his 9^th care home. (This time, he’d hacked their system and exposed some of their unsavory records.)

Because Joey was running late, she didn’t have time to take Michael back to her house, so he had to wait in the lobby of the Agnian Energy skyscraper while she worked. And because she got to work late, her supervisor is forcing her to work an extra hour later than scheduled.

And that’s why she was still working dozens of floors above the streets below while the company hosted a celebratory gala for investors. It’s also how she witnessed the event—and the building—being taken over by a group of anti-humanist terrorists. They claim that Agnian Energy is killing the planet, and they want to expose its corruption.

As the police catch wind of the situation, they’re informed by the terrorists that they’ve strapped their hostages in bomb vests; should any of their officers attempt to enter the building, they’ll blow the people and the building sky high.

But with her brother still inside, Joey can’t just wait for the cops to resolve the situation.

And despite her occupation, this window cleaner isn’t afraid to make a mess.

The post Cleaner appeared first on Plugged In.

That is, until a mutual friend bumps into Ingrid at one of her book signings. Amidst their small talk is a bombshell: Martha has cancer.

Shocked by this revelation, Ingrid visits her friend in the hospital. Martha is delighted to see her. Martha’s prognosis is not good: Her cancer is inoperable. Martha’s only hope of living lies in experimental treatments.

Ingrid regrets the time they lost and promises to be with Martha every step of her journey. Despite the difficult circumstances, the old friends quickly reconnect. Martha’s spirits are buoyed by Ingrid’s presence.

Then, Martha learns that her treatments have failed. Her cancer has metastasized. Even with her treatments, it’s now only a matter of time. She bemoans the false hope she allowed herself. Though Ingrid finds the prospect of death terrifying, she is steadfast in support of her friend. She’s happy to do whatever is needed to comfort Martha … or so she thinks.

Martha is tired of fighting. Now, she simply wants a “good death.” In her mind, that means leaving life behind before she deteriorates any further. And so, through some illicit means, she acquires a euthanasia pill.

She plans to take it to end her life. And she wants Ingrid to be there when she does.

Martha says she has “faced death many times” as a war correspondent but has always shared the journey with others. Everyone else that Martha is close with has refused her request. Ingrid is the only one left.

As you might imagine, this stirs up an incredible amount of conflict in Ingrid. Assisting Martha in her suicide would be gut-wrenching … not to mention illegal.

What’s a friend to do?

The post The Room Next Door appeared first on Plugged In.

Stan knows that in the life of a teenager, even the smallest problem can feel monumental. And so he tries to impart some of the wisdom that has come to him with time and experience. Many of his students eventually realize he’s right: All things eventually do pass, often without the dramatic outcomes they expected. As a result, they’ve come to respect Stan and trust him.

But Nathan Williams is another matter. All Stan really knows about Nate is that he’s in foster care, he’s a decent athlete, and his grades are poor. Oh, and he just got arrested for burglary.

Still, Stan sees something promising in the teen. He knows that Nate has had some seriously tough luck. But with the right guidance, he believes Nate could become a great man.

So, Stan pulls a few strings to get the prison warden and judge (both former students) to release Nate into his custody. Then he pulls a few more to get Nate’s probation officer (another former pupil) to cut the wayward teen a few breaks.

Unfortunately, that was the easy part. The hard part will be getting Nate to trust him—to accept that Stan is offering this gift, this opportunity, purely out of the goodness of his own heart.

[Caution: This review contains spoilers.]

The post Brave the Dark appeared first on Plugged In.

But sometimes, “happily ever after” is less permanent than you’d expect. Bridget knows that all too well.

Mark, you see, has died. Killed during a humanitarian mission to the Sudan. And that left Bridget a grieving widow with two young children. It’s been four years since his death, and Bridget is still picking up the pieces. Her family and friends tell her that she needs to get back out on the dating scene, that meeting someone new will help her move on from her grief.

But Mark was the love of Bridget’s life. The father of her children. She’s not sure she wants to move on.

“Can you survive?” Bridget’s father had asked her after Mark had passed. When she tells him that, yes, she’ll survive, he says, “It’s not enough to survive, you’ve got to live.”

All right, fine. Bridget will do a little living. She dusts off that old, familiar diary. She returns to her job as a television producer. And she even meets a potential new beau, Roxster, a garbologist who is very much her junior.

The post Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy appeared first on Plugged In.

The retired Marine sniper has no connections, no relationships. No one will miss him if he “vanishes” for a year to monitor a secret so big that not even the president knows about it.

And what is that secret?

Well, no one really knows. But the monitoring station there is made entirely of concrete. And the cliffside is covered in suspended mines, automatic sentries and “cloakers” that prevent satellites from finding the location. And deep in the fog below, Levi can hear unworldly screeches. The soldier whom Levi is set to relieve from the duty, J.D., tells him the task: to restock the mines and ammo every day, and prevent whatever creatures make those sounds from getting out.

With that simple task explained, J.D. leaves Levi to his own devices.

Except, he’s not fully alone. Because across the gorge, there’s another tower like his own, similarly equipped with sentries, mines and a lone guardsman. And despite being told not to communicate, it’s not long before the two sentries start talking.

Her name is Drasa. She’s from Lithuania. And she, like him, is an expert killer.

Despite being separated by a gorge full of ominous fog and screeching unknowns, she makes Levi feel a little less alone in the world.

Especially when she warns him that something is crawling up his tower.

The post The Gorge appeared first on Plugged In.