First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . . 

                                                      

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.   

Today I'm featuring the opening paragraph from Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.  The excerpts shared are from a library copy.

  

Prelude

Baltimore, Maryland

August 3, 1939

My story begins on a sweltering August night, in a place I will never set eyes upon.  The room takes life only in my imaginings.  It is large most days when I conjure it.  The walls are white and clean, the bed linens crisp as a fallen leaf.  The private suite has the very finest of everything.  Outside, the breeze is weary, and the cicadas throb in the tall trees, their verdant hiding places just below the window frames.  The screens sway inward as the attic fan rattles overhead, pulling at wet air that has no desire to be moved.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?
I have been eyeing this book for a while now, and have added it to my (hopefully) soon to be read stack.  It was inspired by a true story, and the cover beckons me to learn more about the narrator's story.

Have you read it?  If so, what did you think?



This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated. 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 and Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts 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.

Today I'm featuring my current read, A Map of the Dark by Karen Ellis (a pseudonym of longtime crime fiction author Katia Lief).  This is the first book in a new series called The Searchers.  The excerpts shared are from a copy I borrowed from the library. 

 

 

Beginning: 

Prologue

She likes the feel of the ground underfoot and so she toes off her sneakers and carries them, swinging loosely from her fingertips.  But after a couple of minutes she steps on something sharp and changes her mind.

 

************

 

Sunday

1

 

Roy's eyes are cloudy.  He blinks and suddenly they're hazel again, like they used to be: green-streaked riverbeds of timeworn memory.  Elsa gently squeezes his hand, hoping he'll say something, anything, as unexpectedly as his eyes gained color.  He hasn't spoken all morning.  He lies there, his short salty hair poking in every direction, staring at the charcoal screen of the turned-off television, taking in the latest news of his diagnosis.

 

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Page 56: "She should have done what she'd told Lex she was doing and gone into the office.  Maybe she still will, if only to erase her lie."

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My thoughts:  The opening lines of the prologue and first chapter don't convey much of the plot, which revolves around the disappearance of a 17 year old girl, who never made it home from her job at a local coffee house.  It is up to FBI Special Agent Elsa Myers to find Ruby Haverstock, despite a lack of promising leads and pressing personal matters of her own. 

 

I found myself fully engaged in the story after completing the prologue and first chapter.  Elsa Myers is an interesting character with a curious past that is slowly being revealed.  I keep reading "just one more chapter" (or two) because I find Elsa every bit as compelling as the investigation and its outcome.

 
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From Goodreads:  A girl, missing
A woman, searching
A killer, planning...

A thrilling new FBI series for fans of Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter.

FBI Agent Elsa Myers finds missing people.
She knows how it feels to be lost...

Though her father lies dying in a hospital north of New York City, Elsa cannot refuse a call for help. A teenage girl has gone missing from Forest Hills, Queens, and during the critical first hours of the case, a series of false leads hides the fact that she did not go willingly.

With each passing hour, as the hunt for Ruby deepens into a search for a man who may have been killing for years, the case starts to get underneath Elsa's skin. Everything she has buried - her fraught relationship with her sister and niece, her self-destructive past, her mother's death - threatens to resurface, with devastating consequences.

In order to save the missing girl, she may have to lose herself...and return to the darkness she's been hiding from for years.

 

 

 

This Friday Focus post was originally composed, compiled, and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . . 

                                                      

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be Reading, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon. 

 

Today I'm featuring the opening paragraph from Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, which I received from the publisher.  

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down. All spring the gossip had been about little Mirabelle McCullough—or, depending which side you were on, May Ling Chow—and now, at last, there was something new and sensational to discuss. A little after noon on that Saturday morning in May, the shoppers pushing their grocery carts in Heinen’s heard the fire engines wail to life and careen away, toward the duck pond. By a quarter after twelve there were four of them parked in a haphazard red line along Parkland Drive, where all six bedrooms of the Richardson house were ablaze, and everyone within a half mile could see the smoke rising over the trees like a dense black thundercloud. Later people would say that the signs had been there all along: that Izzy was a little lunatic, that there had always been something off about the Richardson family, that as soon as they heard the sirens that morning they knew something terrible had happened. By then, of course, Izzy would be long gone, leaving no one to defend her, and people could—and did—say whatever they liked. At the moment the fire trucks arrived, though, and for quite a while afterward, no one knew what was happening. Neighbors clustered as close to the makeshift barrier—a police cruiser, parked crosswise a few hundred yards away—as they could and watched the firemen unreel their hoses with the grim faces of men who recognized a hopeless cause. Across the street, the geese at the pond ducked their heads underwater for weeds, wholly unruffled by the commotion.


What do you think?  Would you continue reading?
As with her previous novel, Everything I Never Told You, the author reveals a momentous event in the first paragraph of the story as well as hints about the stability of a seemingly normal family.  Ng has a talent for hooking the reader on the first page and delivering a well-crafted, thoroughly engaging tale. 

This book was selected for the next meeting of one of my book clubs, and I am eager to read and discuss it.



This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 and Book Beginnings

 It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts 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.

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen.  The excerpts shared are from a copy I found on my Kindle. 

 

Every so often, I'll come across a title hiding on my little gadget that I didn't know I had and/or don't remember getting.  While my physical book shelves are constant visual reminders of my collection, what is lingering in the cloud is always a surprise.

  

Beginning:  Memorial Day Weekend, 2014

Sycamore Glen Neighborhood Pool

Matthews, North Carolina 

 

Cailey

Cutter and I were there when they opened the Sycamore Glen pool for the summer.  So I actually saw, with my own eyes, the spider web that was woven across the gate, keeping all the people from just walking right on in like they'd done every year.

********************

56% of eBook: "She hadn't answered to her parents in fifteen years and wondered how it was that she was back to making excuses as to her whereabouts."

********************

My thoughts:  I can feel the anticipation of summer in the opening lines.  Based on the synopsis, however, it sounds as though this will be anything but another ordinary summer in Matthews, North Carolina.

 

********************

From Goodreads:  In an idyllic small-town neighborhood, a near tragedy triggers a series of dark revelations. 

 
From the outside, Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, might look like the perfect all-American neighborhood. But behind the white picket fences lies a web of secrets that reach from house to house.

Up and down the streets, neighbors quietly bear the weight of their own pasts—until an accident at the community pool upsets the delicate equilibrium. And when tragic circumstances compel a woman to return to Sycamore Glen after years of self-imposed banishment, the tangle of the neighbors’ intertwined lives begins to unravel.

During the course of a sweltering summer, long-buried secrets are revealed, and the neighbors learn that it’s impossible to really know those closest to us. But is it impossible to love and forgive them?

This Friday Focus post was originally composed, compiled, and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . . 
                                                      

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be Reading, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring a book I picked up from the library, Promise Not To Tell by Jayne Ann Krentz.

Chapter 1

Hannah Brewster splashed the accelerant around the inside of the small cabin, working feverishly because time was running out.  She was certain now that the demon would come for her that night.  He had been stalking her for weeks.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?
Jayne Ann Krentz is one of my go-to authors.  She writes in several genres, and her romantic suspense novels are among my favorites.  Every time I learn of a new title being released, I request it from the library.  This one is the second in the Cutler, Sutter & Salinas series.

This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 and Book Beginnings

 It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts 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.

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart.  The excerpts shared are from a hardcover edition I borrowed from the library.

 

  

Beginning:  Begin here:

Third Week in June, 2017

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

It was a bloody great hotel. 

********************

Page 56: "She was another person by the time the doors opened."

********************

My thoughts:  The title and synopsis attracted me to this book, which I will be starting soon.  I've got a feeling it's going to be a page-turner.

********************

From Goodreads:  From the author of the unforgettable New York Times bestseller We Were Liars comes a masterful new psychological suspense novel--the story of a young woman whose diabolical smarts are her ticket into a charmed life. But how many times can someone reinvent themselves? You be the judge.

Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.
Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete.
An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two.
A bad romance, or maybe three.
Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains.
A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.
A girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

  

 
This Friday Focus post was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

 

First Book of the Year 2018

Happy New Year!!

Welcome to my first post of the new year . . . and my first meme of 2018 . . . hosted by the amazing Sheila at Book Journey.

My first book of the year is The Little French Bistro by Nina George . . .

  

   

This is also my first book club book of the year.

The group has read and enjoyed the author's previous novel, The Little Paris Bookshop, and all but one of us took a trip to Paris together a few years ago.  It will be fun to revisit France in our reading.

I wish all of of you a new year filled with health, happiness, dreams come true and, of course, good books!

First Book of the Year 2018 was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com and cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.