Welcome to Book Beginnings on Friday, where participating bloggers share the openings of books they're reading. Today I'm featuring The Roots of the Olive Tree by Courtney Miller Santo. Here is the opening paragraph:
"Anna Davison Keller wanted to be the oldest person in the world. She felt she was owed this distinction, due to the particular care she'd taken with the vessel God had given her. In her morning prayers, she made a show, in case God himself was watching, of getting out of bed and onto her knees. She spoke to God in his language--asking for a length of days to be added to the one hundred and twelve years she'd already lived and pleading for health in her navel and marrow in her bones. She didn't say outright that God ought to strike dead the jo-fired man in China who was keeping her from the title, but after all these years, surely, God knew her heart."
SYNOPSIS FROM GOODREADS: Set in a house on an olive grove in northern California, The Roots of the Olive Tree is a beautiful, touching story that brings to life five generations of women--including an unforgettable 112 year-old matriarch determined to break all Guinness longevity records--the secrets and lies that divide them and the love that ultimately ties them together.
Amazon Link
MY THOUGHTS: I have finished reading this book and I enjoyed it. It was well written and the women were interesting and believable, and each one had her own compelling story. But I'll admit that I kept getting the characters confused--who was whose grandmother? Only after I'd finished it did I discover there was a genealogy chart at the beginning.
- Sandy Nachlinger
Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader (Gilion Dumas). Here are instructions for how to participate:
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.
TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.
For Teaser Tuesday, I'm posting the opening sentences from Lies That Bind by Delinda McCann.
When I was a little girl I never ever said, "When I grow up I want to be the mistress of a world leader." It never entered my head.
Amazon Link
Amazon Reviews (mine included!)
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away -- you don't want to ruin the book for others)
- Share the title and author too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.
~ Sandy Nachlinger
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!
This week's Teaser is from VENGEANCE IS SACRED, historical fiction from Peter Healy.
Teaser:
Paolo reached the stairs, but took one last look back before he ascended. He watched in shock as the girls on the ledge began to jump...sometimes alone, sometimes with companions, sometimes with their clothes or hair on fire, and sometimes with prayers on their lips. He bowed in respect then bound up the smoky stairs with the screams following after him and the horrors he witnessed etched in his memory forever.
[69% on my Kindle]
Synopsis from Amazon:
From the mountain farms of Italy to the distant shores of L'America young Paolo forges an unforgettable journey of fortitude, intrigue, and love as he eludes the retribution of the Camorra crime syndicate. But much more is at stake than just Paolo's humble life . . . for he has been bestowed with a mysterious family legacy that is now in danger to end.
Fleeing to the New World in 1909, Paolo struggles on his own until he meets the beautiful Maria, a bold, fiery, labor activist. The dauntless couple become involved in the dangerous garment workers' strike in New York City, but it is the ensuing fire at the Triangle Waist Company that proves to be the ultimate challenge of Paolo's psychic abilities . . . and a true test of his courage as a man!
However, through it all, a perilous debt still remains from Paolo's troubled past and those who lie in wait seek to honor their sacred code of vengeance. Can Paolo overcome the blind forces of reprisal and is the future as predetermined as one may think?
See my review here: Sandy's Review of VENGEANCE IS SACRED
FYI: The fire at the Triangle Waist Company really happened. On that day in March 1911, 146 people died, 123 of them women. For photos and more information:
http://www.osha.gov/oas/trianglefactoryfire.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf9GVbzf7Q4 (video essay)
To read more Teaser Tuesday posts, click here.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away -- you don't want to ruin the book for others)
- Share the title and author too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.
