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, Flowers Over the Inferno by Ilaria Tuti. It's the first book in the Teresa Battaglia trilogy. The excerpts shared are from a hardcover version borrowed from the library.

Beginning:  Austria, 1978

There was a legend that haunted that place, the kind that clings like a persistent odor. It was rumored that in late autumn every year--before the rain turned to snow--the mountain lake would begin to exhale sinister murmurs.

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Page 56:  She had always been entranced by the eternal battle between light and dark, but these days her fascination was mixed with the more pressing need to see the end of the winter (though it had barely begun), and with it the end of these premature evenings.

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My thoughts:  The opening lines are very atmospheric--and I wonder what secrets will be brought to light by "sinister murmurs."

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From GoodReads:  In this thrilling series debut set in the Italian Alps, an instinct-driven detective won't let her aging body and mind prevent her from tracking a brutal killer.

Superintendent Teresa Battaglia has fought for nearly four decades to earn rank and respect on a testosterone-heavy Italian police force. When she’s called to investigate a gruesome murder near a mountainside town, she’s paired with a young male inspector she’s not sure she trusts. But she has no choice—in this remote town full of secrets, eerie folktales and primal instincts, the killer seems drawn to a group of local children, who may be in grave danger.

As Teresa inches closer to the truth, she must confront the possibility that her faculties, no longer what they once were, may fail her before the chase is over.

 

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