First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Night She Disappeared; 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 Night She Disappeared; Lisa Jewell

Atria Books - 2021

Part One

1

June 2017

The baby is starting to grumble.  Kim sits still in her chair and holds her breath. It's taken her all night to get him to sleep.  It's Friday, a sultry midsummer's night and normally she'd be out with friends at this time.  Eleven o'clock: she'd be at the bar getting in the last round for the road.  But tonight she's in joggers and a T-shirt, her dark hair tied up in a bun, contacts out, glasses on and a glass of lukewarm wine on the coffee table that she poured herself earlier and hasn't had a chance to drink.

I never got a chance to read this once last year when it was published but, it should be perfect this month for the RIP Challenge.  Have you read it?  Would you read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Old Place; Bobby Finger

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 Old Place; Bobby Finger

G.P. Putnam - 2022

1

Mary Alice Roth woke up and stared at the the big old trunk, which may as well have been a reflection.  Unmoved for years, the trunk of carved, glossy hardwood sat under the window in her bedroom because she'd lost the only people strong enough to lift it somewhere else.  At her age, the number of able bodies in a house --hold doesn't tend to change, and neither does the way you sleep, which meant Mary Alice--the sole inhabitant of 4 County Road 1818 for over ten years and a left-sided sleeper since she was in a crib--knew that for the rest of her life,  the first thing she'd see in the morning would be the hideous antique trunk she hated more than just about anything else in the world.  And now she couldn't get rid of it even if she tried, unless she wanted to throw out her back and and spend hours moaning on the floor hoping someone would knock on the door and check on her.  It was that sort of bottomless pit of fact that made her wish she were dead.  Bur she wasn't, not today at least.  So she silenced the buzzing clock and began another week of living.  What else was there to do anyhow?

I forget where I read about about this books but, from the lengthy into, I'm curious to know more about Mary Alice.  How about you read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intro - Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six; Lisa Unger

 

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.

Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six; Lisa Unger

Park Row -2022

Prologue

Christmas Night 2017

The carcass is spread in the middle of the table. Carved, flesh torn away, eaten, ribs exposed.  The turkey when it was removed from the oven, is now just a pile of bones.  Plates are smeared with gravy, wineglasses empty, stained red.  A swath of maroon lipstick mars a white cloth napkin. The lights from the Christmas tree blink, manic.

I used to read everything Lisa Unger wrote but, it's been a while. This catchy title had somewhat of a creep factor for me so I added it to my RIP Challenge list.  What do you think, read more of pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Killers of a Certain Age; Deanna Raybourn

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.  

Killers of a Certain Age; Deanna Raybourn

Berkley - 9/5/2022

Chapter One

November 1979

"My mothers always says it's common as pig's tracks to go around with a run in your stockings."  Helen says, eyeing Billie's ripped hosiery critically.

Billie rolls her eyes. "Helen, it's murder, not cotillion."

"It's not murder," Helen corrects. "It's an assassination, and you can make an effort to look nice.  Besides, they're supposed to believe we're stewardesses and no stewardess would be caught dead with torn pantyhose."  Helen brandishes a familiar plastic egg. "I brought spares.  Please go change while you still have time.  I'll start the coffee."

What do you think --read more or pass?  I've been so looking forward to this one. Not only is is supposed to be funny, these women  are older as well - something we don't see that often in fiction.

This book releases next Tuesday.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The It Girl; Ruth Ware

                                                    

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.  

It It Girl; Ruth Ware

Gallery/Scout Press - 2022

(20 Books of Summer List)

BEFORE

Afterwards, it was the door she would remember.  It was open, she kept saying to the police.  I should have known something was wrong.

She could have retraced every step of the walk back from the hall: the gravel crunching beneath her feet of the path across the Old Quad, under the Cherwell Arch, then the illegal shortcut through the darkness of Fellows' Garden, her feet light on the soaked forbidden lawn.  Oxford didn't need KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs; that lawn had been the preserve of dons and fellows for more than two hundred years without needing to remind undergraduates of the fact.

What do you think, read more or pass.  I've have pretty good luck with this author and, I do like a good mystery set in academia, so I'm hoping this will be a winner.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Godspeed; Nickolas Butler and The Messy Lives of Book People; Phaedra Patrick

                                                    

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. This week I'm featuring (2) books - one I've started and one that I plan to start in a couple of days.

This first book is from my (20) Books of Summer list and was inspired by true events. I started this one and am enjoying it.

Godspeed; Nickolas Butler

G.P. Putnam - 2022

1

Outside Jackson, Wyoming

This was the house that would change their fortunes.  They could feel it.  Cole had barely steered his pickup off the highway and [assed through an open cattle-gate before they began climbing the dusty canyon road north, and they could feel it--money--like a vibration in the crisp mountain air.  It was humming out there, an expectancy, a promise, and they were driving toward it cotton-mouthed, skin crawling.  They could practically see it on the wind pushing the late-summer leaves, swaying the yellowing meadow grasses, smiling down upon the dappled river water below.  The whole world here looked like money.  Money just waiting to be plucked up off the ground--the leaves like greenbacks, the shimmer of the water like silver coins.

I read the very first novel by this author, Shotgun Lovesongs, in 2014 and enjoyed it so I decided to give his most recent book a try as well.  What do you think, read more or pass?

The Messy Lives of Book People; Phaedra Patrick

Park Row - 2022

1.

THE APARTMENT IN THE CLOUDS

"Liv Green wore her polishing cloth draped over her arm in the same proud way a maitre d' might wear a napkin.  She'd already cleaned Essie Starling's two bathrooms, each bigger than her own bedroom, polished the white marble kitchen worktops and left uniform vacuum cleaner tracks on the dove gray carpets, just how the best selling author liked them.  She wore one earbud while she worked, listening to the audiobook of Essie's nineteenth novel for the second time and leaving her other ear free in case the author called out any commands."

I was at the library browsing the new book shelves and this one caught my eye. What do you think -- read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Only Woman in the Room; Marie Benedict

                                                  

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. 

This is my book club read for this month and it is a real page turner with very few characters. It is Fiction but based on a true story and should make for a good discussion book.

The Only Woman in the Room; Marie Benedict

Sourcebooks - 2019 (purchased)

Part One

Chapter One

May 17, 1933

Vienna, Austria

"My LIDS FLUTTERED OPEN< BUT THE FLOODLIGHTS blinded me for a moment.  Placing a discreet, steadying, hand on my costar's arm, I willed a confident smile upon my lips whiIe I waited for my vision to clear.  The applause thundered, and I swayed in the cacophony of sound and light.  The mask I'd firmly affixed to myself for the performance slipped away for a moment, and I was no longer nineteenth-century Bavarian empress Elizabeth, but simply Hedy Kiesler."

What do you think - read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Lies I Tell; Julie Clark

                                                    

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.

The Lies I Tell; Julie Clark

Sourcebooks Landmark - 2022

(library loan)

Kat

Present - June

She stands across the room from me, in a small cluster of donors, talking and laughing.  A jazz quartet plays in a corner, the bouncing, slipping notes dancing around us, a low undertone of class and money. Meg Williams.  I take a sip of wine, savoring the expensive vintage, the weight of the crystal glass, and I watch her.  There are few photographs of her in existence \--a grainy senior portrait from an old high school yearbook, and another image pulled from a 2009 YMCA staff directory--but I recognized her immediately.  My first thought: She's back. Followed closely by my second: Finally.

What do you think, read more or pass?  I l loved a previous book by the author - The Last Flight, so I've been looking forward to the newer release.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Vacationland; Meg Mitchell Moore

                                                     

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.  This one comes from my (20) Books of Summer list.

Vacationland; Meg Mitchell Moore

William Morrow - 2022

June

1.

Kristie

The Greyhound from Altoona, Pennsylvania, to Rockland, Maine takes twelve hours and thirty-three minutes with three stops, all of them where you don't necessarily want to use the bathroom but may find you have no choice.  Even so, the first part of the journey isn't too bad--Kristie Turner has two seats to herself.  But in New Haven, six hours into the journey, she gains a seat mate in the form of a sixty-something named Bob who wants to talk with Kristie about the granddaughter he is going to meet for the first time, and also about abiding love for Creedence Clearwater Revival. Never mind that the bus left Altoona at eleven at night, so by this point it's five in the morning.

Can't you see I'm tire? Kristie wants to say. Can't you see I'm grieving? But, of course, Bob can't see that.  Grief is not something you wear on a vest, like a Brownie patch.  She rolls up her sweatshirt to form a pillow and angels her body away from Bob's, falling deeply asleep.

What do you think? Read More or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Hotel Nantucket; Elin Hilderbrand

                                                     

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.  This one comes from my (20) Books of Summer list.

The Hotel Nantucket; Elin Hilderbrand

Little Brown and Company - 2022

1.

The Cobblestone Telegraph

Nantucket Island is known for its cobblestone streets and red brick sidewalks, cedar-shingled cottages and rose-colored arches, long stretches of golden beach and refreshing Atlantic breezes--and it's also known for residents who adore a juicy piece of gossip (which hot landscaper has been romancing which local real estate mogul's wife--that kind of thing!)  However, none of us are quite prepared for the tornado of rumors that rolls up Main Street, along Orange Street, and around the rotary out to Sconset when we learn that London-based billionaire. Zavier Darling is investing thirty million dollars in the crumbling eyesore that is the Hotel Nantucket.

Half of us are intrigued. (We have long wondered if someone would try to fix it up.)

The other half are skeptical.  (The place, quite frankly, seems beyond saving.)

For me, it's not summer without an Elin Hilderband and Nancy Thayer book on my list - my love of Nantucket Island is always satisfied.

What do you think, read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Tin Camp Road; Ellen Airgood

                                                         

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.  This one comes from my (20) Books of Summer list.

Tin Camp Road; Ellen Airgood

Riverhead Books - 2021

One

Laurel Hill knew that a part of her would die if she ever had to leave Lake Superior.  Its lapping was a heartbeat, one connected to her own.  Without the sight and sound of it landing onshore and departing again, the turning of the water as constant as the earth's orbit, her soul would fade and tear, a sheet left on on the line too long.

What do you think read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros; The Foundling, Ann Leary

                                                         

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 Foundling; Ann Leary

Scribner / Marysue Rucci Books - 2022

One

I've been told that my mother had a wonderful sense of humor.  Also that she was pretty.  But most people recall her wit first, and her easy laughter, and because of this I've always had a better sense of how she felt than how she looked.  She must have been happy most of the time if she found so many things to say and laugh about.  She died when I was an infant, so I have no memory of her.  After I moved to my Aunt Kate's house, I'd hear her talking with friends about my mother and me, usually in hushed tones after I'd left the room.

"She's a somber little thing," somebody would say. Or, "She's so shy; she certainly hasn't Louisa's high spirits."

What do you think, read more or pass? 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Lucy By the Sea; Elizabeth Strout

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 wanted to hold off on this book since it won't be published until September but, when I look at all my book choices, this is the book that is calling my name. What words of wisdom will Lucy Barton leave us with this time?

Lucy By the Sea; Elizabeth Strout

Random House - September 2022

One

Like many others, I did not see it coming.

But William is a scientist, and he saw it coming; he saw it sooner than I did, is what I mean.

                                                                        ~~~~~~~

William is my first husband; we were married for twenty years and we have been divorced for about that long as well.  We are friendly, I would see him intermittently; we both were living in New York City, where we came when we first married.  But because my (second) husband had died and his (third) wife had left him, I had seen him more this past year.

What do you think - read more of pass?  I can't get enough of Elizabeth Strout's books.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Kind Worth Killing; 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. 

The Kind Worth Killing; Peter Swanson

Harper Audio -2020

Chapter 1

TED

"Hello There," she said.

I looked at the  pale, freckled hand on the back of the empty bar seat next to me in the business class lounge at Heathrow Airport, then up into the stranger's face.

"Do I know you?"  I asked.  She didn't look particularly familiar, but her American accent, her crisp white shirt, her sculpted jeans tucked into knee high boots, all made her look like one of my wife's awful friends.

I started this yesterday and it's quite intense - detestable characters for sure but I'm liking it so far.

What do you think --read more or pass?

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Lost Apothecary; Sarah Penner

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 Lost Apothecary; Sarah Penner

Park Row - 2021

1

NELLA

February 3, 1791

She would come at daybreak--the woman whose letter I held in my hands, the woman whose name I did not yet know.

I knew neither her age nor where she lived. I did not know her rank in society nor the dar things of which she dreamed when night fell.  She could be a vicim or a transgressor. A new wife or a vengeful widow. A nursemaid or a courtesan.

But despite all that I did not know, I understood this: that woman knew exactly who she wanted dead.

This is our book group pick for the end of the month and from this intro I am really looking forward to it.  It is told in (2) timelines past and present day.

What do you think -- Read more or pass?