FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “EAT THE DOCUMENT”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Today’s featured book is one I chose because of the era and the subject matter:  those were my times, and we were a-changing.  Eat the Document, by Dana Spiotta, is a bold and moving novel about a fugitive radical from the 1970s who has lived in hiding for twenty-five years. Eat the Document is a hugely compelling story of activism, sacrifice, and the cost of living a secret.

 

 

 

 

Beginning:  Part One – 1972 – By Heart

It is easy for a life to become unblessed.

Mary, in particular, understood this.  Her mistakes—and they were legion—were not lost on her.  She knew all about the undoing of a life:  take away, first of all, your people.  Your family.  Your lover.  That was the hardest part of it.  Then put yourself somewhere unfamiliar, where (how did it go?) you are a complete unknown.  Where you possess nothing.  Okay, then—this was the strangest part—take away your history, every last bit of it.

***

56:  As they sat on the porch sharing a hand-rolled cigarette of tobacco and hash, Sissy told Miranda the impeccable pedigree of the Black House.  How everyone knew the house, and how it was actually notorious in youth circles.

***

Blurb:  In the heyday of the 1970s underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker — passionate, idealistic, and in love — design a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see each other again.

Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her fifteen-year-old son, who spends hours immersed in the music of his mother’s generation. She has no idea where Bobby is, whether he is alive or dead.

Shifting between the protests in the 1970s and the consequences of those choices in the 1990s, Dana Spiotta deftly explores the connection between the two eras — their language, technology, music, and activism. Character-driven and brilliant, Eat the Document is an important and revelatory novel about the culture of rebellion, with particular resonance now.

***

Okay, I admit that this is my favorite kind of story from my younger days.  How young radicals, steeped in the idealism of youth and the fervor of their times, put everything at risk for the cause.  I can’t wait to find out what happens to the characters in this story.  What do you think?  What are you sharing today?

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “EVERYONE WORTH KNOWING”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Today I am featuring a book that has been on my stacks for a while:  Everyone Worth Knowing, by Lauren Weisberger.

 

 

 

Beginning:  Though I’d caught only the briefest glimpse from the corner of my eye, I knew immediately that the brown creature darting across my warped hardwood floors was a water bug—the largest, meatiest insect I’d ever seen.  The superbug had narrowly avoided skimming across my bare feet before it disappeared under the bookcase.  Trembling, I forced myself to practice the chakra breathing I’d learned during an involuntary week at an ashram with my parents.

***

56:  The phone rang a little after eleven P.M.  I held it and stared, patiently waiting for the caller ID to register my caller.  Uncle Will:  to screen or not to screen?

***

Blurb:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A GIRL ON THE FRINGE ENTERS THE REALM OF NEW YORK’S CHIC, PARTY-HOPPING ELITE?Soon after Bette Robinson quits her horrendous Manhattan banking job like the impulsive girl she’s never been, the novelty of walking her four-pound dog around her unglamorous Murray Hill neighborhood wears as thin as the “What are you going to do with your life?” phone calls from her parents. Then Bette meets Kelly, head of Manhattan’s hottest PR firm, and suddenly she has a brand-new job where the primary requirement is to see and be seen inside the VIP rooms of the city’s most exclusive nightclubs. But when Bette begins appearing in a vicious new gossip column, she realizes that the line between her personal and professional life is…invisible.

***

What do you think?  Should I move this one up to the top of the stack?

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “THE DAY WE MET”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

My selected book today is an ARC entitled The Day We Met, by Rowan Coleman.

 

 

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Prologue)

Greg is looking at me; he thinks I don’t know it.  I’ve been chopping onions at the kitchen counter for almost five minutes, and I can see his reflection—inside out, convex and stretched—in the chrome kettle we got as a wedding present.  He’s sitting at the kitchen table, checking me out.

***

56:  (Sunday, March 10, 1991 – Claire)

For all the brash confidence I put on display, I was very inexperienced.  I let him lead me upstairs to his room.  He had a single bed.

***

Blurb:  A gorgeous husband, two beautiful children, a job she loves—Claire’s got it all. And then some. But lately, her mother hovers more than a helicopter, her husband, Greg, seems like a stranger, and her kids are like characters in a movie. Three-year-old Esther’s growing up in the blink of an eye, and twenty-year-old Caitlin, with her jet-black hair and clothes to match, looks like she’s about to join a punk band—and seems to be hiding something. Most concerning, however, is the fact that Claire is losing her memory, including that of the day she met Greg.

A chance meeting with a handsome stranger one rainy day sets Claire wondering whether she and Greg still belong together: She knows she should love him, but she can’t always remember why. In search of an answer, Claire fills the pages of a blank book Greg gives her with private memories and keepsakes, jotting down beginnings and endings and everything in between. The book becomes the story of Claire—her passions, her sorrows, her joys, her adventures in a life that refuses to surrender to a fate worse than dying: disappearing.

***

I love this author’s work, and it’s been a while since the last one of hers I read.  What do you think?  Does it pique your interest?

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “HOUSE OF WONDER”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

My feature today is a book by Sarah Healy:  House of Wonder.

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Prologue) – The House on Royal Court

Ours were dinners of boneless chicken breasts, smeared and then baked in the congealed contents of a red and white can.  My mother would have clipped the recipe from a magazine, using sharp orange-handled scissors, the type that can slice down a length of wrapping paper like a fin through placid water.  Warren and I would sit waiting, eating our green bell pepper quarters filled with twisting orange strings of squirt cheese.

***

56:  We were given instructions about icing, painkillers, and potential problems against which to be vigilant.  But really, Warren’s injuries were not severe compared with many that the ER saw.  It was their implication that was upsetting.

***

Blurb:  When we were little and I needed Warren, I would rub my earlobe.  And perhaps it was the alchemy of childhood, a magic that happened because I believed it could, but I swear it worked. He always came.

Theirs wasn’t always the misfit family in the neighborhood. Jenna Parsons’s childhood was one of block parties and barbecues, where her mother, a former beauty queen, continued her reign and her twin brother, Warren, was viewed as just another oddball kid. But as her mother’s shopaholic habits intensified, and her brother’s behavior became viewed as more strange than quirky, Jenna sought to distance herself from them. She is devoted to her career and her four-year-old daughter, Rose. But now, in his peculiar way, Warren summons her back to 62 Royal Court.

What she finds there—a house in disrepair, a neighborhood on tenterhooks over a rash of petty thefts, and evidence of past traumas her mother has kept hidden—will challenge Jenna as never before. But as she stands by her family, she also begins to find beauty in unexpected places, strength in unlikely people, and a future she couldn’t have imagined.

***

What do you think?  Does it pique your interest?  Come on by and share your comments and links, please.

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “COPPER BEACH”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

I love this event, and discovering interesting new titles this way.  Today’s feature for me is from an author I enjoy, Jayne Ann Krentz:  Copper Beach.

 

 

 

Beginning:  There was nothing like the drama of a deathbed scene to expose the skeletons in a family’s closet.  You never knew what would fall out when you opened the door, the nurse thought.  Lifelong conflicts, absolution, regret, long-held grudges, enduring love or unrelenting hatred, whatever had been hidden for decades or generations was suddenly made visible at the end.

***

56:  He shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her.  When she took it from him, her fingers brushed against his, sending an intimate little thrill of awareness across his senses.

***

Blurb:  Within the pages of centuries-old books lie the secrets of the paranormal. Abby Radwell’s unusual psychic talent has made her an expert in such volumes — and sometimes taken her into dangerous territory. After a deadly incident in the private library of an obsessive collector, Abby receives a blackmail threat and rumors swirl that an old alchemical text has reappeared on the black market. So Abby hires Sam Coppersmith, an investigator who can also play bodyguard.

***

What do you think?  Does it grab you?  Spark your interest?  I hope you will stop in and leave your thoughts…and links.

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “CANCEL THE WEDDING”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

I hope all those who celebrate it had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Today I’d like to share an ARC from Vine:  Cancel the Wedding, by Carolyn Dingman.

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Prologue – August 1956, Huntley, Georgia)

The strap from the overloaded canvas satchel dug into Janie’s shoulder as she made her way down the well-traveled path to the river.  She could feel that George was already there before she could hear him and long before she could see him.  They were only ten years old but they had been tuned in to each other like that for as long as she could remember.

***

56:  One didn’t have to be very present while Mrs. Chatham was speaking; she didn’t require much in the way of response.  At the moment she was retelling the family tree of nearly everyone in town.  It seemed as if everyone was knotted together in one way or another as she went through the names.

***

Amazon Description:  A heartfelt fiction debut that will appeal to fans of Emily Giffin’s Southern charm and Jennifer Weiner’s compelling, emotionally resonant novels about the frustrations of blood ties, Cancel the Wedding follows one woman’s journey to discover the secrets of her mother’s hidden past—and confront her own uncertain future.

On the surface, Olivia has it all: a high-powered career, a loving family, and a handsome fiancé. She even seems to be coming to terms with her mother Jane’s premature death from cancer. But when Jane’s final wish is revealed, Olivia and her elder sister Georgia are mystified. Their mother rarely spoke of her rural Southern hometown, and never went back to visit—so why does she want them to return to Huntley, Georgia, to scatter her ashes?

Jane’s request offers Olivia a temporary escape from the reality she’s long been denying: she hates her “dream” job, and she’s not really sure she wants to marry her groom-to-be. With her 14-year-old niece, Logan, riding shotgun, she heads South on a summer road trip looking for answers about her mother.

As Olivia gets to know the town’s inhabitants, she begins to peel back the secrets of her mother’s early life—truths that force her to finally question her own future. But when Olivia is confronted with a tragedy and finds an opportunity to right a terrible wrong, will it give her the courage to accept her mother’s past—and say yes to her own desire to start over?

***

What do you think?  Does it pique your interest?  Come on by and share your thoughts…and links, please.

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “GETTING EVEN”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Today’s featured book is an ARC from Amazon Vine:  Getting Even, by Sarah Rayner.

 

 

 

Beginning:  1. Friends all

“We’ll be late,” said Dan.

“Aw…Five more minutes?” said Orianna, snuggling up to him.

With her head on his chest, she could feel his breath come and go.  She gazed absentmindedly past the geraniums on the windowsill and into the distance; she was in that soporific state after making love when nothing else matters.

***

56: Dan was in the middle of being shown some uninspiring product shots by a photographer’s rep when he noticed Orianna hovering.  He could tell from her jigging feet she needed to speak urgently, so while the rep was concentrating on a particularly dull transparency, he mouthed, “Give me ten minutes.”

***

Blurb:  How would you feel if your best friend at work betrayed you? Was secretly having an affair with an influential colleague? Won a coveted promotion, then teamed you up with a mere junior, leaving you feeling completely demoted? What would you do? For Ivy there’s no choice. The only person she has ever trusted, Orianna, has blown it big time. So there’s only one way forward: revenge.

Ivy’s campaign is brilliant, if horribly destructive, and she’s determined to get even with the woman who has dared to cross her. But is Ivy really the innocent party? Or is she hiding secrets of her own?

From Sarah Rayner, the international bestselling author of One Moment, One Morning, comes Getting Even, an unputdownable story of jealousy, sex, friendship and backstabbing set in the heart of London’s Soho adland.

***

What do you think?  Do the excerpts grab you?  I know I like the premise of this book, so I’m hoping for a fun read.  Come on by and share your own picks.

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “CROOKED RIVER”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Today’s featured book is an ARC from Amazon Vine:  Crooked River, by Valerie Geary.

 

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Sam)

We found the woman floating facedown in an eddy where Crooked River made a slow bend north, just a stone skip away from the best swimming hole this side of anywhere.  Her emerald green blouse was torn half open and her dark, pleated skirt was bunched around her waist, revealing skin puckered and gray, legs bloated and bruised.  Her hair writhed like black snakes in the current.

***

56:  I was halfway up the ladder when he (Bear) said, “Did everything go okay with Deputy Santos today?”

I missed the next rung and almost slipped off.  I balanced, found my footing again, and kept climbing.

***

Blurb:  With the inventiveness and emotional power of Promise Not to Tell, The Death of Bees, and After Her, a powerful literary debut about family and friendship, good and evil, grief and forgiveness.

He is not evil. I am not good.

We are the same: broken and put back together again.

Still grieving the sudden death of their mother, Sam and her younger sister Ollie McAlister move from the comforts of Eugene to rural Oregon to live in a meadow in a teepee under the stars with Bear, their beekeeper father. But soon after they arrive, a young woman is found dead floating in Crooked River, and the police arrest their eccentric father for the murder.

Fifteen-year-old Sam knows that Bear is not a killer, even though the evidence points to his guilt. Unwilling to accept that her father could have hurt anyone, Sam embarks on a desperate hunt to save him and keep her damaged family together.

I see things no one else does.

I see them there and wish I didn’t. I want to tell and can’t.

Ollie, too, knows that Bear is innocent. The Shimmering have told her so. One followed her home from her mom’s funeral and refuses to leave. Now, another is following Sam. Both spirits warn Ollie: the real killer is out there, closer and more dangerous than either girl can imagine.

Told in Sam and Ollie’s vibrant voices, Crooked River is a family story, a coming of age story, a ghost story, and a psychological mystery that will touch reader’s hearts and keep them gripped until the final thrilling page.

***

What do you think?  Do these excerpts grab you?  Intrigue you?  I know that I am eager to read this book.  I hope you’ll stop by and chat.

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IGNITE YOUR FRIDAY WITH BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “TEARS & TEQUILA”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Today’s feature is a review book called Tears and Tequila, by Linda Schreyer and Jo-Ann Lautman.

 

 

 

 

Beginning:  All she could see was the emptiness.

No flowers bloomed beside the gray stones.  No weeping willows reached down to caress the ground.  The trees were bare.  The sky was gray.  The air held a mix of cold and snow.

***

56:  (And a portion of p. 55)

“Joey, ” Daniel called.  She looked over.  He was striding toward her, looking frazzled.  “I’m glad you’re still here.  I’ve called everyone I can think of.  I can’t find anyone to lead Grief Group tonight.  So I thought of you.”  He talked to her through the open passenger window.

Joey eyed him, stunned.  “Me?  Why?”

“You said you minored in psych, co-led groups with a psychiatrist, and worked in hospice.  You’re a natural.”

“I’m not a grief counselor,” Joey said with indignation.

***

Blurb:  Joey Lerner has been running, from place to place and job to job. Now, at 32, she’s running from her home in New York City, where the last surviving member of her family has died, to Los Angeles, where she hopes to start over. Never one to follow the rules or take the obvious path, and thanks to her grandfather’s hands-on training, Joey gets herself hired as the ‘handyperson’ at a funky community center owned by an Australian surfer. Soon, the job of leading a Grief Group of young widows and widowers falls into her lap. The problem is – Joey hasn’t yet healed from her own losses. Over the next nine months Joey and the Grief Group journey from death to life, together and alone. Along the way, Joey discovers the work she was born to do.
Tears and Tequila is a story of love, loss, friendship, courage and, most of all, renewal; it tells of the healing that happens when you become part of a community in which everybody is missing someone.

***

Yeah, I excerpted more than two or three sentences, but I wanted to get to the end of a thought.  What do you think?  Does it grab you?  I hope you’ll stop by and share your thoughts.

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FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “EVERYWHERE THAT MARY WENT”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

 

Today I am sharing from my current read:  Everywhere That Mary Went (e-book), by Lisa Scottoline.

 

 

 

Beginning:  “All rise!  All persons having business before this Honorable Judge of the United States District Court are admonished to draw near and be heard!” trumpets the courtroom deputy.

Instantly, sports pages vanish into briefcases and legal briefs are tossed atop the stock quotes.

***

56:  As I leave his office, I see that Delia’s headset is off, resting at the base of her neck like a cheap choker.  As I walk by, she’s sipping tea in a genteel way from a white china cup.  An affectation she’s picked up from Berkowitz, who likes to stub out his Marlboro in the saucer.

***

Blurb:  Mary DiNunzio is trying to make partner in her cutthroat Philadelphia law firm. She’s too busy to worry about the crank phone calls that she’s been getting—until they fall into a sinister pattern. Mary can’t shake the sensation that someone is watching her. Following her every move. Then the shadowboxing turns deadly, and she has to fight for something a lot more important than a partnership—her life.

***

This is one mystery from Scottoline’s various works that I have missed.  I am eager to read it.  What do you think?

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