First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Mad Honey; Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.

Mad Honey; Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Ballantine Books - 2022

Olivia 

1

December 7, 2018 ...the day of

From the moment I know I was having a baby, I wanted it to be a girl. I wandered the aisles of department stores, touching doll sized dresses and sequined shoes.  I pictured us with matching nail polish--me, who'd never had a manicure in my life. I imagined the day her fairy hair was long enough to capture in pigtails her nose pressed to the glass of a school bus window: I saw her first crush, prom dress, heartbreak. Each vision was a bead on a rosary of future memories. I prayed daily.

As it turned out, I was not a zealot...only a martyr.

What do you think...read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Good Sister; Sally Hepworth

Welcome to First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros hosted by Yvonne@ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.

The Good Sister; Sally Hepworth

St. Martin's Press - 2021

JOURNAL OF ROSE INGRID CASTLE

It's been three months since Owen left. Left. or left me--like so many things in the adult world, it's all a bit gray. e took a job in London; a work opportunity, ostensibly. It's not that I wasn't invited, but it was clear to both of us that I couldn't go. That's another thing about the adult world: responsibilities. In my case, one particular responsibility. Fern.

This is our book group read for October. What do you think -- read more or pass? I hope to start it over the weekend when I finish up something in progress.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Woman in the Library; Sulari Gentill

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.  

The Woman in the Library; Sulari Gentill

Poison Pen Press - 2022

Chapter One

Writing in the Boston Public Library had been a mistake.  It was too magnificent.  One could spend hours just staring at the ceiling in the Reading Room.  Very few books have been written with the writer's eyes cast upwards.  It judged you, that ceiling, looked down on you in every way. Mocked you with an architectural perfection that couldn't be achieved by simply placing one word after another until a structure took shape.  It made you want to start with grand arcs, to build a magnificent framework into which the artistic detail would be written--a thing of vision and symmetry and cohesion.  But, that sadly, isn't the way I write.

I've been patiently waiting for my library hold to become available and just picked this one up.  What do you think --read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Family Remains; Lisa Jewell

                                                    

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.  

The Family Remains; Lisa Jewell

Atria - August 9, 2022

(sequel to The Family Upstairs)

PROLOGUE

June 2019

SAMUEL

"Jason Mott?"

I stare down at the young man that stands below me ankle-deep in the mud of the banks of the Thames.  He has sandy hair that hangs in curtains on either side of a soft, freckled-face.  He's wearing knee-high rubber boots and a khaki gilet with multiple pockets and is surrounded by a circle of gawping people.  I go to him, trying to keep my toes away from the mud.

"Good morning," I say.  "I'm Detective Inspector Samuel Owusu.  This is Saffron Brown from our forensics team."  I see Jason Mott trying very hard not to look as if he is excited to be in the presence of two real-life detectives--and failing. "I hear you have found something. Maybe you could explain?"

What do you think -- read more of pass?  I read The Family Upstairs in 2019 so I am looking forward to starting this on toward the end of the week.

First chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders; Kathryn Miles

                                                  

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon. I just picked this one up at the library.

                                                        

    

Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders; Kathryn Miles

Algonquin - 2022

Preface

THEY MUST HAVE BEEN FOLLOWED.  That's the thought I return to after all these years.

They must have been tracked as they left the Skyland lodge and stepped across Skyline Drive, the well-traveled backbone of Virginia's Shenandoah National Park.  He--for murderers are almost always hes--must have been prowling Skyland's Parking lots and public areas, hoping he's find the right target.  Perhaps he studied the two young women as they lounged in the grass outside the lodge, oblivious as they consulted a map or warmed themselves in the afternoon sun.  Maybe he bumped into one of them as she was leaving the restroom or grabbing a drink in the taproom.  Something about their countenance and mannerisms must have caught his eye, made him decide he'd found what he was hunting for.

What do you think - read more of pass? Are you a true crime fan? I am as long as it isn't too gory.

                                                    

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Hatchet Island; Paul Doiron

                                                     

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon. 

Hatchet Island; Paul Doiron

Macmillan Audio - 2022

Prologue

Every night, no mater how many drinks he'd had or joints he'd smoked, he would awake to the screams of birds.  For an instant, he would think he was back on the island.  Then his hand would find the lamp beside the bed and the light would expose the messiness of his dorm room.

The odd thing was he'd never had trouble sleeping on Baker Island, where the chatter of gulls and keening of terns had lasted from dusk to dawn. The night terrors had only started afterward.--once he'd returned to the mainland.  Now insomnia was short-circuiting his central nervous system.

What do you think, read more or pass?  This book is #13 of the Mike Bowditch mystery series however, I have found that it isn't necessary to read them all in order to enjoy them.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Privacy; NIna Sadowsky

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon. 

Privacy, Nina Sadowsky

Bantam - June-2022

Watching

She's so relaxed, so easy in her own skin, with her long blond hair bound up in a ponytail and her T-shirt,  damp with sweat from her morning run, knotted below her breasts to expose a taut abdomen. She radiates youth and health.

She's also seemingly unaware of the dark temptation her very light ignites.

Would that change if she knew I was watching?

She's oblivious to the telephoto lens I wield from an anonymous sedan parked down the street, which is precisely what makes my surveillance so exquisite.  People reveal so much when they don't know they are being observed.

As I tried to decide what new book to begin, it was the title and cover drew me to this one.   What do you think - read more or pass?  This book releases next month.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Lioness; Chris Bohjalian

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon. 

 The Lioness; Chris Bohjalian

Doubleday and Random House Audio - May 10, 2022

PROLOGUE

Oh, I can't speak for the dead. And I won't speak for the missing. I can only tell you what I think happened.  Others--the dead and the missing--would probably have their own versions.  Blame, I can tell you firsthand, is every bit as subjective as truth.

Of course, I am also confident that the missing will never be found: the Serengeti is vast and it's been years. Years.  But Africa is changing. One never knows.  Someday it's possible that some of their bones--a femur that is recognizably human or a skull that was clearly a woman's or a man's --will be spotted beside a dirt road where a jackal or hyena or magnificent lappet-faced vulture decades ago finished off what a leopard or lion didn't.  Just think for a moment of the age of the fossils and remnants of ancient man that have been found a little south of where we were in the Olduvai Gorge.  Mary Leakey began piecing together the Nutcracker Man only five years before we were there when she saw what looked like two teeth in a jaw.  Nutcracker Man lived two million years ago.  We were there and (most of us, anyway) died there in 1964.

Chris Bohjalian is a favorite author and, from this intro, I can't wait to begin.  What do you think--read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Mad Girls of New York; Maya Rodale

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon. Hoping to start this one soon.

The Mad Girls of New York;  Maya Rodale

Berkley - April 2022

Chapter One

Welcome to New York

I'm off for New York. Look out for me. 

               ----Nelly Bly

NEWSPAPER ROW

NEW YORK CITY, 1887

Nellie did not take New York by storm.  Not at first, not as she planned.  She had arrived in spring, when the city was bursting into bloom and the air full of promise, with a hundred dollars in her purse along with her clips from her days at the Pittsburg Dispatch and ambition to burn.  Of course she would get a job as a reporter for one of the big city papers (even though it was hardly done for a woman).  Of course she would become a sensation (even though it was wisely agreed that a woman should do no such thing).  Nellie was good at two things: asking questions and believing in herself.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Margreete's Harbor; Eleanor Morse

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon. Today's pick is a book that's been on my Kindle for about a year. I was reminded of it by JoAnn @  Gulfside Musing who recently blogged about it. It definitely sounds like a book I might like.

Margreete's Harbor;  Eleanor Morse

St. Martin's Press - 2021

Part 1

1

Burnt Harbor, Maine

1955

Margreete walked barefoot down the hallway to the stairs as the floorboards muttered. "Move," she said to the cat.  Downstairs in the kitchen, she rummaged around in the refrigerator for his food and spooned some bacon drippings into a frying pan to fortify the bread crusts she'd saved for the crows.

As the flames licked around the edges of the pan, she went back upstairs and shuffled into her slippers. On the landing was a mouse that Romeo had partially eaten in the night.  She bent over the headless body, the gory truncated neck, the tiny pink feet shriveled up like dried weeds.  The cat joined her and nudged the carcass with a paw. "Why did you kill it?" she said.  "It just wanted to live its life."

What do you think read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Nine Lives; Peter Swanson

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.

 

Nine Lives; Peter Swanson

William Morrow and Harper Audio - 2022

Nine

1.

Wednesday, September 14, 5:13 p.m.

Jonathan Grant, unless he let her know ahead of time that he couldn't make it, always visited on Wednesday evening.  His wife had a standing "girls' night out" on Wednesdays--occasionally in the city, but usually in New Jersey--so Jonathan would leave the office by five and be at Alison's one-bedroom apartment in Gramercy Park by five-thirty at the latest.

Gotta tell you, I'm not too fond of this guy already.  However, I started this book, by Peter Swanson, an author I've had mostly great luck with, and I'm really enjoying this stand alone mystery so far.

What do you think?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Very Cold People; Sarah Manguso

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.

Very Cold People; Sarah Manguso

Hogarth - 2022

1.

My parents didn't belong in Waitsfield, but they moved there anyway.  My mother answered the first knock at the door of the new house, expecting a casserole.  We'd painted the house Evening Fog, she told me, but the woman from across the street wanted to know why we'd painted it purple like Italians.  Some people wore their difference honestly, but my parents were liars, illegitimate Waitsfielders, their off-whiteness discovered only after the paint had dried.  By the time I was born, the house had faded to the color of dirty snow.

This is a relatively short debut novel which seems like it takes place in the 1980's. I already like the young narrator.

What do you think - read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - A Town Called Solace; Mary Lawson

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.

A Town Called Solace; Mary Lawson

Knopf Canada - 2021

ONE

CLARA

There were four boxes. Big ones.  They must have lots of things in them because they were heavy, you could tell by the way the man walked when he carried them in, stooped over, knees bent.  He brought them right into Mrs. Orchard's house, next door to Clara's, that first evening and put them on the floor in the living room and just left them there.  That meant the boxes didn't have necessary things in them, things he needed straight away like pyjamas, or he'd have unpacked them.

I started this book yesterday and I'm really enjoying it.  In case, you are curious about CLARA - she is an eight year old girl.  This is an author I have read and enjoyed in the past so I couldn't wait to read it. I was also happy to read that JoAnn at Gulfside Musing loved it.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intro - To Paradise; Hanya Yanagihara

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.  I've read and enjoyed this author's previous (2) books: The People in the Trees and A Little Life so this (720pp.) is a "must read" for me. I've read 13 chapters so far and, although it is different, I am enjoying it.

To Paradise; Hanya Yanagihara

Doubleday - January 2022

Book 1

Washington Square

He had come into the habit, before dinner, of taking a walk around the park: ten laps, as slow as he pleased on some evenings, briskly on others, and then back up the stairs of the house and to his room to wash his hands and straighten he tie before descending again to the table.  Today, though, as he was leaving, the little maid handing him his gloves said, "Mister Bingham says to remind you that your brother and sister are coming tonight for supper," and he said, "Yes, thank you, Jane, for reminding me," as if he'd in fact forgotten, and she made a little curtsy and closed the door behind him.

What do you think. Have you read anything by this author?  

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - One Step Too Far; Lisa Gardner

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read soon.  I started this book and it's quite addictive. It's Book #2 of the Frankie Elkin series which began last year with: Before She Disappeared (loved that one.)

One Step Too Far; Lisa Gardner

Dutton - January 2022

1

THE FIRST THREE MEN CAME stumbling into town shortly after ten A.M., babbling of dark shapes and eerie screams and their missing buddy Scott and their other buddy Tim, who set out from their campsite before dawn to get help.

"Bear, bear, bear," the first guy moaned.

"Mountain lion!" the second guy insisted.

Third guy vomited.

What do you think - read more or pass?  (Lots of details about hiking, camping and rescue and recovery.)