Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday 56 - Ashes

I've recently read ASHES by Kelly Cozy, and the first chapter had me hooked. The opening sentences began innocently enough - the author described a typical day - but wow! Things started happening right away. 

Book Beginnings on Friday - Opening sentences:
Downtown Los Angeles glittered in the sun, seemed to preen. The city knew its best light - a spring morning, the sky cleansed of smog by the past weekend's rain - and its best angle - from a distance.

Friday 56 (from 56% on my Kindle):
I live in a small town in British Columbia, where I'm an assistant librarian. I putter around with books and have tea with my boss and we talk about what we're reading. I have a cross-eyed cat and a tiny house with fish painted on the bathroom walls and a bedroom done in early San Francisco Whorehouse. I tutor a fisherman's son.

Genre: Thriller
Length: 371 pages
Amazon Link: Ashes

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads:

Anonymous. That was Jennifer’s life. But when she survived a domestic terrorist attack and her last-minute escape became the iconic image of the event, that life was over. Wanting only to disappear and become just another face in the crowd, she cashed in on her unwanted fame and moved to a small town, hidden away and safe. 

Retired. That was Sean’s life. A former covert operative – the kind the government denies exists – he’d been pushed unwillingly into a life of suburban peace and quiet. But his retirement ended when he saw Jennifer’s rescue; from then on he only wanted to find those responsible for the attack, even if it meant turning rogue. 

What Jennifer and Sean will both find is that nothing goes to plan, and their paths will cross in a way neither could have foreseen.

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Book Beginnings and Friday 56 - Dakota Blues

Indie author Lynne M. Spreen says (on Goodreads):  
"Dakota Blues is about coming alive at midlife. Here's what I want to know: At middle age and in the second half, are we too old to start over? Is it foolish to try? Should we be winding down or giving it our all, burning bridges and blowing things up in a last attempt to realize our dreams? How best to travel this later-in-life pathway? These are the questions that fascinate me, and about which I crave to write."

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY:

         Karen's fingers hovered over the keyboard while she tried to remember the killer argument she'd been about to make, but the idea had faded. Not for the first time that day, she wished the hall outside her door hadn't become the official gathering place for coworkers in search of gossip and idle chit chat.
        It wasn't like her to lose focus so easily.

THE FRIDAY 56 (from 56% on my Kindle):

        Karen agreed. "The van runs beautifully, and I'm planning to take it around the Divide, through Albuquerque so I can avoid the higher elevations. It's a bit farther, but safer."

       "Always play it safe, that's our Karen," said Frieda.

Author: Lynne M. Spreen
Genre: Women's Fiction
Number of Pages: 306
Amazon Link: DAKOTA BLUES 

MY THOUGHTS:
         This is such a good book! Fifty year old, high-powered executive Karen Grace faces three life-changing crises, all within a matter of days. When her mother dies, she must leave California for her rural hometown in North Dakota to attend the funeral; her husband threatens divorce because his young girlfriend is pregnant; and her career is in serious jeopardy. But when she meets 90-year-old Frieda, she's offered an opportunity to break away and make some changes. Her journey makes for a fascinating story that I highly recommend.

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Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings and Friday 56. 

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Book Beginnings and Friday 56 - Love and Sleepless Nights

                              

Today I'm featuring LOVE AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS for my Book Beginnings on Fridays and Friday 56 post.

Author: Nick Spalding
Genre: Women's Fiction / Humor / Romance
Number of Pages: 170
Amazon Link and Synopsis: Love and Sleepless Nights

                                        

BOOK BEGINNING:
Laura's Diary - Monday, April 1st
Dear Mum,
     Well, it's finally happened. I've achieved my lifelong ambition. 
     It's been many years in the making, but I can now honestly say that I, Laura Newman, have successfully thrown my guts up in front of a group of men at an important job interview.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. To play, share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires and then add your name to the Linky list HERE.
                                                   
THE FRIDAY 56 (Laura is holding her newborn daughter):
      A sudden up-swell of tears rises from the depths of my being and now I start to cry with a combination of relief, awe - and not a little pride, if I'm being honest.
      I take the very small package into my arms, feeling the undeniable weight of new existence through every fibre of my being.

To participate in The Friday 56, hosted by Freda's Voice, post a few sentences from Page 56 of your current book (or from 56% on your eReader) and then add your name to the Linky list HERE.

MY THOUGHTS: Anyone who has ever had a baby (especially first-time parents) will relate to the emotions, experiences, doubts, and joys portrayed in this book. Presented as a series of diary entries (Laura's) and blog posts (her husband Jamie's), I enjoyed every single word.

Book Beginnings and Friday 56: Perigee Moon

PERIGEE MOON is my featured book for today's Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56 post.

BOOK BEGINNINGS:
When the kids on Henley Street were seven and eight and nine, there was no one to blow the whistle. There wasn't a leader among them, not one to make a decision. During the summer there could be as many as eight boys who milled around and collected together on the sidewalks. They wanted to do something interesting and fun but waited for someone else to take charge. 

(NOTE: Of course, that changes when Kate Willoughby's family moves into the neighborhood!)

FRIDAY 56:
Once the fraternity pin was in place, Kate decided it was time to take the relationship to a new level. She wanted an engagement ring and she wanted it in time for Christmas, during their junior year of college. It was time.

(NOTE: This is at 16% on my Kindle -- my estimate of where Page 56 would probably be.)

MY IMPRESSIONS:
I read this book a while back and loved it! The author took me back to a simpler time and carried me through Kate and Luke's lives - from the 1950s all the way to the present. Filled with humor and true-to-life situations that reflect the times in which the characters lived, I found myself nodding in agreement more than once! The characters and story created by Lynn Schneider will stay with me for a long time.
(By the way, Kate Willoughby is a "Fatal Attraction" type of character that you'll love to hate.)

Author: Lynn Schneider
Genre: Women's Fiction
Number of Pages: 342
Amazon link.
Link to my review on Goodreads.

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Book Beginnings & Friday 56 - Tangled Ashes

Author: Michele Phoenix
Genre: Women's Fiction
Number of Pages: 384
Amazon Link: Tangled Ashes

Book Beginnings on Friday: 
(Prologue)
Marie stood in the shadow of the grand staircase and held her breath. The lights were out--they had been all evening--but the ochre glow from the flames on the patio illuminated the polished wood and chiseled stone that loomed around her with threatening austerity. Beyond the window, two columns of wide-spaced guards funneled a stream of nurses and maids from the castle's rear entrance to the fire that burned like a funeral pyre, exploding tiny, arcing embers into the warm night sky. 

Friday 56 (from 56% on my Kindle):
As Beck got to the final cellar that led to the space under the ballroom, he noticed that the stack of old bookshelves he and Jacques had displaced Monday afternoon had fallen. They'd been propped up against the wall when the two men had left, but now they were scattered on the floor. He stepped into the dark and musty room ahead with a little less confidence in his gait, grabbing a two-by-four from the pile near the destroyed wall. 

Amazon Synopsis: When Marshall Becker arrives in Lamorlaye, France, to begin the massive renovation of a Renaissance-era castle, he unearths a dark World War II history few in the village remember. The project that was meant to provide an escape for Becker instead becomes a gripping glimpse into the human drama that unfolded during the Nazi occupation and seems to live on in midnight disturbances and bizarre acts of vandalism.

My Thoughts: The novel is set in France and two plots intertwine--one taking place in the 1940s during World War II and the other in current times. The WWII tale is told by Marie during the Nazi occupation, while the contemporary part is from the point of view of architect Michael Becker who has been hired to restore the castle where both stories take place.  I enjoyed reading a story told from a man's perspective for a change. Although I wish I'd known what was causing Michael's angst a little earlier in the book, both plots held my interest until the end. Overall, I enjoyed this book. (I just noticed that one of the tags on Amazon for this book is "inspirational romance," which surprised me. Yes, the author did mention religious beliefs, but the result was not preachy or overdone.) 

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Book Beginnings and Friday 56. 

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Book Beginnings & Friday 56: Midwives

For today's Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday 56 memes, I'm featuring MIDWIVES by Chris Bohjalian. I read this excellent book several years ago and just picked it up to read again. 

BOOK BEGINNINGS:
Throughout the long summer before my mother's trial began, and then during those crisp days in the fall when her life was paraded publicly before the county--her character lynched, her wisdom impugned--I overheard much more than my parents realized, and I understood more than they would have liked.

FRIDAY 56: 
My mother believed a home birth was an extremely empowering and invigorating experience, and gave fragile women energy, confidence, and strength: They learned just what their bodies could do, and it gave them comfort.

Author: Chris Bohjalian
Genre: Women's Fiction
Number of Pages: 372
Amazon Link: Midwives

SYNOPSIS FROM AMAZON (partial):
The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for fifteen years. But one treacherous winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor. But what if--as Sibyl's assistant later charges--the patient wasn't already dead, and it was Sibyl who inadvertently killed her?

As recounted by Sibyl's precocious fourteen-year-old daughter, Connie, the ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt except for the fact that all its participants are acting from the highest motives--and the defendant increasingly appears to be guilty. As Sibyl Danforth faces the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do.

MY THOUGHTS:
Published in 1997, MIDWIVES was an Oprah Book Club selection. I have to agree with Oprah -- I love this book! Yes, some parts of it are gritty, but they also reflect reality. I learned a lot about midwifery from this book, which came in handy because a midwife brought my granddaughter into the world!

  

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Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings and Friday 56. 

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Book Beginnings on Fridays and Friday 56: Flight Behavior

BOOK BEGINNINGS: A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture. Or so it seemed for now, to a woman with flame-colored hair who marched uphill to meet her demise. Innocence was no part of this. She knew her own recklessness and marveled, really, at how one hard little flint of thrill could outweigh the pillowy, suffocating aftermath of a long disgrace.

FRIDAY 56: Butterflies crossed her field of vision continuously at close range, black-orange flakes that made her blink, and they merged in a chaotic blur in the distance, and she found it frankly impossible to believe what her eyes revealed to her. Or her ears: the unending rustle, like a taffeta dress.

GENRE: Literary / Women's Fiction / Political

NUMBER OF PAGES: 416

AMAZON LINK: Flight Behavior

MY THOUGHTS: Ever since I read The Poisonwood Bible, I've been a Barbara Kingsolver fan. Although I'm only on Page 75 of Flight Behavior, I can tell it's going to be another favorite. I love her humor and the way she captures the beliefs, superstitions, and daily life of an Appalachian farming community - and that's just in the first 75 pages.

AMAZON SYNOPSIS (partial): 

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.

 

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Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56. Just click on the links below and add your blog post to the lists.

Book Beginnings on Fridays (hosted by Rose City Reader)

The Friday 56 (hosted by Freda's Voice) 

                

Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday 56 - A RELIABLE WIFE

BOOK BEGINNINGS: 
Wisconsin, Fall, 1907. It was bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet. The world stood stock still, four o'clock dead on. Nothing moved anywhere, not a body, not a bird; for a split second there was only silence, there was only stillness. Figures stood frozen in the frozen land, men, women, and children.

FRIDAY 56: 
"Sister, sit. I'm sorry. I'm bad and I'm sick and I say things. But just sit by me. I'm never alone, but I always feel so lonely. So far away from everybody. Nobody holds me. Nobody touches me or calls my name...."
[At 56% on my Kindle]

GENRE: Historical Fiction
LENGTH: 320 Pages
AMAZON LINK: A Reliable Wife

AMAZON SYNOPSIS:
He placed a notice in a Chicago paper, an advertisement for "a reliable wife." She responded, saying that she was "a simple, honest woman." She was, of course, anything but honest, and the only simple thing about her was her single-minded determination to marry this man and then kill him, slowly and carefully, leaving her a wealthy widow, able to take care of the one she truly loved.

What Catherine Land did not realize was that the enigmatic and lonely Ralph Truitt had a plan of his own. And what neither anticipated was that they would fall so completely in love. 

Filled with unforgettable characters, and shimmering with color and atmosphere, A Reliable Wife is an enthralling tale of love and madness, of longing and murder.

MY THOUGHTS: The author does a great job of setting the scene in his opening, doesn't he? He also establishes the tone of the book: dark and brooding. Although the beginning was slow and seemed repetitious to me, I kept reading and I'm glad I did. Once I got into it, the story kept me riveted, wondering what would happen in the end. 

*****

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Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday 56: Coming of Age ... Again

COMING OF AGE ... AGAIN by Carol Mizrahi is my featured book this Friday.

Genre: Women's Fiction
Length: 234 Pages
Amazon Link: Kindle & Paperback

BOOK BEGINNING:
It is quite possible that if Miss Thompson had been an altogether different kind of person, Irene, Sylvia, Barbara, and Rochelle would not have become lifelong friends. One can only guess about that, but what we do know is that the kindergarten teacher's autocratic style and stern demeanor brought them together and created a bond that lasted for over fifty years.

FRIDAY 56:
The throw pillows never moved, and her collection of Nancy Ann Storybook dolls, standing on bookshelves, never changed position. Day after day, year after year, nothing new was added and nothing old was subtracted.
(This book is on my Kindle, so I estimated where the 56th page might be.)

MY IMPRESSIONS:
There were lots of funny scenes in this book, and I loved the characters. The idea of lifelong friendship between four women -- from kindergarten to their early sixties -- really appealed to me. I'll admit that sometimes I'd get impatient when one of the women let her children take advantage of her, but I also understood how that could happen. I came to care about the characters and cheered when they took charge of their lives.  


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- Sandy Nachlinger

Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday 56: RYELEE'S COWBOY

BOOK BEGINNINGS:
Clint Maloney ran toward his screaming daughter faster than if the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels. She tearfully pointed up into the heavily foliaged, white ash tree. He expected to rescue a stray cat, but to his consternation, he spotted Ryelee Snyder, his live-in nanny and housekeeper, high up in the tree.
FRIDAY 56:
"It's too late now. Besides, who's going to believe the town drunk's daughter?"
(This is an eBook so I estimated where Page 56 might be.)

Author: Kathleen Ball
Genre: Western Romance
Length: 200 Pages (approximately)
Format: eBook
Available from Secret Cravings Publishing and Amazon.

My impressions:
I love the characters in this book. Clint is a widowed dad who lost the family ranch. His goals are to buy back his ranch and raise his daughter. Clint's nanny/housekeeper Ryelee has grown up poor, the daughter of the town drunk. Unmarried and pregnant, she pours her love into Clint's daughter Rheenie; but mistreatment, insecurities, and fears from her loveless childhood affect the decisions she makes. She wants the best for her unborn baby but doesn't expect much out of life.
All the characters are believable, and the author did a great job of creating sympathy for each of them. 

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Book Beginnings: Memories

This is my first time to participate in Book Beginnings, and I'm looking forward to discovering a bunch of new stories and new authors. My beginning is from MEMORIES by Deanna Lynn Sletten.

Prologue / Today

Danielle Westerly-DeCara stood stoically, clutching the folded American flag to her chest as the minister said his final words over the casket. She neither saw the minister nor heard his words; her mind only registered the fact that she had to get through this painful day, one moment at a time.

I've finished reading this book and enjoyed it. Although the third person omniscient point of view bothered me at first, I became accustomed to it after a while. The book tells a lovely story.

Now I'm off to look at everybody else's posts! Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings. Here are the instructions from Rose City Reader:

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

Leave a link to your post on the Rose City Reader page (here). If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings.

Happy reading!