Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #28

It's Friday . . . time to share excerpts from one of my current reads with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

This week's selection:

 

 

Beginning:  Prologue  October 8, 1663

On the same day, two murders.

 

My thoughts:  An attention-grabbing opening for sure.  Who has been killed?  Why?  Who is the murderer?  

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Page 56:  "In his workshed now, Drummond moved on to his prize, the perspective tube he had recently purchased in London.  Safe in its nest of wood shavings and hay, the two-yard-long instrument made Drummond shiver with anticipation."

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From barnesandnoble.com:  From a debut novelist, a gripping historical thriller and rousing love story set in seventeenth-century Manhattan.

It’s 1663 in the tiny, hardscrabble Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now present-day southern Manhattan. Orphan children are going missing, and among those looking into the mysterious state of affairs are a quick-witted twenty-two-year-old trader, Blandine von Couvering, herself an orphan, and a dashing British spy named Edward Drummond.

Suspects abound, including the governor’s wealthy nephew, a green-eyed aristocrat with decadent tastes; an Algonquin trapper who may be possessed by a demon that turns people into cannibals; and the colony’s own corrupt and conflicted orphanmaster. Both the search for the killer and Edward and Blandine’s newfound romance are endangered, however, when Blandine is accused of being a witch and Edward is sentenced to hang for espionage. Meanwhile, war looms as the English king plans to wrest control of the colony.

Jean Zimmerman brings New Amsterdam and its surrounding wilderness alive for modern-day readers with exacting period detail. Lively, fast paced, and full of colorful characters, The Orphanmaster is a dramatic page-turner that will appeal to fans of Hilary Mantel and Geraldine Brooks.

 

Enjoy life with books . . .

 

Catherine

 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #28 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.