TUESDAY SPARKS: INTROS/TEASERS – “THURSDAY’S CHILDREN”

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I am very excited about my featured book:  Thursday’s Children, by Nicci French.  I have read each of the books in this series so far and love the character of Frieda Klein.

 

 

Intro:  It started with a reunion and it ended with a reunion and Frieda Klein hated reunions.  She was sitting in front of her fire, listening to its slow crackle.  Beside her was Sasha, who was staring into the glow.  Beside Sasha was a buggy.  In the buggy was Sasha’s ten-month-old son, Ethan, a blur of dark hair and soft snoring.  A cat lay at Frieda’s feet, faintly purring.  They could hear the wind blowing outside.  It had been a day of fog and swirling leaves and gusts of wind.  Now it was dark and they were inside, hiding from the approaching winter.

‘I’ve got to admit,’ said Sasha, ‘that I’m intrigued by the idea of meeting an old school friend of yours.’

‘She wasn’t a friend.  She was in my class.’

‘What does she want?’

‘I don’t know.  She rang me up and said she needed to see me.  She said it was important and that she’d be here at seven.’

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Teaser:  Frieda pulled a chair up, close to the fire, and Maddie sat down.  She had long brown hair, artfully styled into shagginess and streaked with blonde.  Her face was carefully made up, but this only emphasized the tightness of the skin over the cheekbones, the little lines around the eyes and at the corners of the mouth. (p. 3).

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Blurb from Goodreads:  When psychotherapist Frieda Klein left the sleepy Suffolk coastal town she grew up in she never intended to return. Left behind were friends, family, life and loves but, alongside them, painful memories; a past she couldn’t allow to destroy her.

So when an old classmate appears in London asking Frieda to help her teenage daughter, long buried memories resurface. But when tragedy strikes, Frieda has no choice but to return home and confront her past. And monsters no one else believes are real . . .

Through a fog of alibis, conflicting accounts, hidden agendas and questionable alibis, Frieda can trust no one in trying to piece together the shocking truth, past and present.

When it comes to psychological suspense there’s none better than Nicci French. And Thursday’s Children is Nicci French at her very best.

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I love this series and this character.  I am hoping to start reading it tomorrow.  What do you think of the excerpts?  Would you keep reading?

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HUMP DAY SPARKS: WAITING FOR “WAITING FOR WEDNESDAY” — JULY 3

The sparks are flying around here today.  Not only is it time for Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill, at Breaking the Spine.  But the book for which I’m eagerly waiting is:  drum roll, please!  Waiting for Wednesday, by Nicci French.  It’s Book # 3 in the Frieda Klein series, and the book will be released on April 3, 2014.

 

I found the image on Goodreads.

Amazon Blurb:  The thrilling third novel starring London psychotherapist-turned-detective Frieda Klein—from internationally bestselling author Nicci French

Nicci French’s Blue Monday and Tuesday’s Gone introduced the brilliant yet reclusive psychotherapist Frieda Klein to widespread critical acclaim, but Waiting for Wednesday promises to be her most haunting case yet.

Ruth Lennox, housewife and mother of three, is found dead in a pool of her own blood. Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson can’t piece together a motive and calls in Frieda, hoping her talents will offer a new angle on the case.

When it emerges that the mother was hiding a scandalous secret, her family closes ranks. Frieda herself is distracted, still reeling from an attempt on her life, and struggling with her own rare feelings of vulnerability. Then a patient’s chance remark sends Frieda down a dangerous path that seems to lead to a serial killer who’s long escaped detection. Is Frieda getting closer to unraveling either case? Or is she just the victim of her own paranoid, fragile mind? Because, as Frieda knows, every step closer to a killer is one more step into a darkness from which there may be no return . . .

Flawlessly executed, Waiting for Wednesday is a penetrating, twisted novel of murder and neurosis with a jaw-dropping climax that will linger in readers’ minds long after they have turned the last page.

 

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I am so excited to finally discover it on Amazon.  It is available in the UK, and I would have ordered there eventually if it didn’t come here.

What are you eagerly anticipating today?