Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & 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 a recent blog tour read, Bookmarked for Murder by V.M. Burns.  It's the fifth book in the Mystery Bookshop mystery series. The excerpts shared are from the eBook I received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

 

Beginning:  "Samantha Marie Washington!"

 

It was never good when my grandmother included my middle name.  Mid-thirties and I still cringed as much as I did as a kid.  I snapped the book I was perusing closed and looked up.  "What?"

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56% of eBook:  I tactfully questioned whether Irma's tumble down the stairs could have been an accident.  After all, she did wear six-inch hooker heels on a daily basis, and it was possible she merely tripped.

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My thoughts:  It's a universal uh-oh moment—hearing one's full name said by a parent or grandparent.  The immediate attention grabber is a good way to start a story. 

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From Goodreads:  Amateur sleuth Samantha Washington’s shopping trip to Chicago takes a deadly detour when a man is murdered on her bus . . .

After some post-Christmas retail therapy in the Windy City, mystery bookshop owner and historical whodunit novelist Sam Washington is returning home to North Harbor, Michigan, on a chartered bus. With Nana Jo and her gal pals Irma, Dorothy, and Ruby Mae from Shady Acres Retirement Village along for the ride, it's a lively trip. But one passenger is not so lively—a gentleman Irma befriended is found dead in his seat after an unscheduled stop. The ladies immediately shift gears to find out who punched his ticket, while Sam slips into the driver's seat to make sure Nana Jo and her crew steer clear of fatal conclusions.

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This Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for the blog, bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution. Sharing this original post on Twitter with appropriate recognition is appreciated.