Teaser Tuesday 350: The Sinner

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week's teaser comes from The Sinner by Amanda Stevens, on loan from a co-worker. This is book five in a series, and I recommend reading them in order, as there is a natural progression from one book to the next. This book started out creepy, and just got creepier.

About ten feet to my right, I’d glimpsed another cage. From what I could see through the weeds and vines, the device appeared identical to the first except for one grisly addition.

Inside the mortsafe, a pair of hands rose up out of a freshly mounded grave to grasp the iron grate.

(Chapter one)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Series: Graveyard Queen #5

"I am a living ghost, a wanderer in search of my purpose and my place . . ."


I'm a cemetery restorer by trade, but my calling has evolved from that of ghost seer to death walker to detective of lost souls. I solve the riddles of the dead so the dead will leave me alone.

I've come to Seven Gates Cemetery nursing a broken heart, but peace is hard to come by…for the ghosts here and for me. When the body of a young woman is discovered in a caged grave, I know that I've been summoned for a reason. Only I can unmask her killer. I want to trust the detective assigned to the case for he is a ghost seer like me. But how can I put my faith in anyone when supernatural forces are manipulating my every thought? When reality is ever-changing? And when the one person I thought I could trust above all others has turned into a diabolical stranger?

Teaser Tuesday 347: A Patchwork Planet

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week's teaser comes from A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler, a library book sale find. It's been a few years since I read anything by her, and I was not disappointed.

I am a man you can trust, is how my customers view me. Or at least, I'm guessing it is. Why else would they hand me their house keys before they leave for vacation? Why else would they depend on me to clear their attics for them, heave their air conditioners into their windows every spring, lug their excess furniture to their basements?"


(Opening paragraph)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Genre: Contemporary Fiction


In this, her fourteenth novel--and one of her most endearing--Anne Tyler tells the story of a lovable loser who's trying to get his life in order.

Barnaby Gaitlin has been in trouble ever since adolescence. He had this habit of breaking into other people's houses. It wasn't the big loot he was after, like his teenage cohorts. It was just that he liked to read other people's mail, pore over their family photo albums, and appropriate a few of their precious mementos.

But for eleven years now, he's been working steadily for Rent-a-Back, renting his back to old folks and shut-ins who can't move their own porch furniture or bring the Christmas tree down from the attic. At last, his life seems to be on an even keel.

Still, the Gaitlins (of "old" Baltimore) cannot forget the price they paid for buying off Barnaby's former victims. And his ex-wife would just as soon he didn't show up ever to visit their little girl, Opal. Even the nice, steady woman (his guardian angel?) who seems to have designs on him doesn't fully trust him, it develops, when the chips are down, and it looks as though his world may fall apart again.

There is no one like Anne Tyler, with her sharp, funny, tender perceptions about how human beings navigate on a puzzling planet, and she keeps us enthralled from start to finish in this delicious new novel.

Teaser Tuesday 341: A Redbird Christmas

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week's teaser comes from A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg.

It was only November sixth but Chicago had just been hit with its second big blizzard of the season, and Mr. Oswald T. Campbell guessed he had stepped in every ice-cold ankle-deep puddle of dirty white slush it was possible to step in, trying to get to his appointment. When he finally arrived, he had used up every cussword in his rather large vocabulary of cusswords, owed in part to his short stint in the army.

(Opening paragraph)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

With the same incomparable style and warm, inviting voice that have made her beloved by millions of readers far and wide, New York Times bestselling author Fannie Flagg has written an enchanting Christmas story of faith and hope for all ages that is sure to become a classic.

Deep in the southernmost part of Alabama, along the banks of a lazy winding river, lies the sleepy little community known as Lost River, a place that time itself seems to have forgotten. After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River. There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society, who do clandestine good works. And he meets a little redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas when something so amazing happened that those who witnessed it have never forgotten it. Once you experience the wonder, you too will never forget A Redbird Christmas.

Teaser Tuesday 303: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am teasing from a work of fiction by Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, which was a February group read. Took me a while to get through this one, but the writing is beautiful.

It surprised him that his grief was sharper than in the past few days. He had forgotten that grief does not decline in a straight line or along a slow curve like a graph in a child’s math book. Instead, it was almost as if his body contained a big pile of garden rubbish full of both heavy lumps of dirt and of sharp thorny brush that would stab him when he least expected it.

(Chapter 3)

ABOUT THE BOOK:



From the 2011 Random House Trade Paperback edition:

In the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in the English countryside lives Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, the Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But, then his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But, village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and regarding her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?

Teaser Tuesday 284: The Eyre Affair

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week’s teaser is from Jasper Fforde's novel The Eyre Affair. It's difficult to slot this quirky book into any one particular genre. It's part fantasy, part mystery and humorous as well. I look forward to reading more in this series!

With my last shot I hit his offside front tire and Acheron finally lost control. The car hit a parked Studebaker and turned over, bounced along on its roof and finally teetered to a stop barely three feet from where I stood. It rocked unsteadily for a moment and then was still, the water from the radiator mixing with the petrol that leaked onto the road.

(Chapter 5)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Series: Thursday Next #1


Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide.

Teaser Tuesday 252: A Week in Winter

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am sharing a bit of A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy, who died in 2012, shortly after finishing this book.

Stoneybridge was a paradise for children during the summer, but summer in the west of Ireland was short, and most of the time it was wet and wild and lonely on the Atlantic coast. Still, there were caves to explore, cliffs to climb, birds’ nests to discover, and wild sheep with great curly horns to investigate. And then there was Stone House. Chicky loved to play in its huge overgrown garden. Sometimes the Miss Sheedys, three sisters who owned the house and were ancient, let her play at dressing up in their old clothes.

(Opening chapter)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Stoneybridge is a small town on the west coast of Ireland where all the families know one another. When Chicky Starr decides to take an old, decaying mansion set high on the cliffs overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, everyone thinks she is crazy. Helped by Rigger (a bad boy turned good who is handy around the house) and Orla, her niece (a whiz at business), Stone house is finally ready to welcome its first guests to the big warm kitchen, log fires, and understated elegant bedrooms. Laugh and cry with this unlikely group as they share their secrets and — maybe — even see some of their dreams come true. Full of Maeve’s trademark warmth and humor, once again she embraces us with her grand storytelling.

Teaser Tuesday 248: A Passage to India

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!



Today’s teaser comes from a classic I will be starting this week — this one for a classics group read: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.

The sky settles everything—not only climates and seasons but when the earth shall be beautiful. By herself she can do little—only feeble outbursts of flowers. But when the sky chooses, glory can rain into the Chandrapore bazaars or a benediction pass from horizon to horizon. The sky can do this because it is so strong and so enormous.

(Chapter one)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Ranked among the greatest novels of the twentieth century, A Passage to India is the classic account of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. With careful crafting, exquisite prose, and a well-developed sense of irony, Forster reveals the menace lurking just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair. The basis for David Lean’s Oscar-winning epic film, A Passage to India is "full of passages of universal beauty, of universal interest. . . . Mr. Forster possesses the secret of all poets, which is intensity of perception" (Rebecca West).

(The 1984 movie, by the way, won two Oscars and was nominated for nine other categories.)

Thursday Thirteen 362: Year in Books

It's time for my annual reading review. Here is how 2014 shaped up:


Number of Books read: I had a goal of 100; I read 109. I also had a goal of 10-12 classics and read 20, so nicely exceeded both goals.


Genres I read: Classics, Romance, Mystery, Science Fiction, Young Adult, Literary Fiction — some in the romance, mystery and YA genres with paranormal elements.


Number of Different Authors: 75 authors, 26 of whom were men, the bulk of those in the classics genre. Seventeen of the twenty classics read were by men.


New-to-me authors: I read 36 new-to-me authors in 2014.


Authors I read more than once: Avery Aames, Vivien Arends, Nancy Atherton, Patricia Briggs, Agatha Christie, Casey Daniels, Martha Grimes, Victoria Laurie, Jenn McKinlay, Julie Miller, Ridley Pearson, Rick Riordan, Nora Roberts, Vicki Lewis Thompson, Debra Webb, Wendy Lyn Watson


Most-read Author: Nora Roberts (15 total — four trilogies plus three single title releases)


Authors I plan to read again: Nancy Atherton, Patricia Briggs, Agatha Christie, Kate Collins, Catherine Coulter, Charles Dickens, Jeaniene Frost, Kay Hooper, Elizabeth Lowell, Carla Neggers, Nora Roberts . . . to name but a few.


Book I did not finish: Emma by Jane Austen. It's been a long time since there was a book I could not finish — more than a decade. I gave Emma a valiant effort, but could not get past the halfway mark in this book — and this was my second attempt to get through it. I think one of the biggest problems with trying to finish is that there isn't a likable character in the entire book. Definitely my least favorite Austen. I may make a stab at finishing it this year, as one of the items on the Ultimate Reading Challenge is a book you did not finish.


Best overall mystery: I'm going with the classics for this one — The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, and both The Mysterious Affair at Styles and Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie.


Biggest Disappointment: It's a tie between The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss, The Widow’s Walk by Robert Barclay, and First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones. I have seen part of a movie version based on the first, so was looking forward to the book, but did not enjoy it much — I think it would have seemed much more plausible to its original audience. The second was a book I won from Goodreads and which I looked forward to reading. The intro and premise pulled me in, but the editing was disappointing. The author used "just then" at least once in every chapter, and as many as five times in one chapter near the end of the book. How an editor could let an author get away with this lazy and weak writing is beyond me. The book over-sensitized me to the phrase "just then" and began my year-long crusade against it. I had heard a lot of praise about the last book (which even won a RITA), but did not like it — plus I was seriously annoyed by the overuse of "just then," especially coming so soon after the previously mentioned book.


Most imaginative world(s): Ridley Pearson and Rick Riordan.


Weirdest read: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.



I am tired of: Authors who use the lazy and weak "just then" in their writing. In every instance I saw it crop up in 2014, it was unnecessary and the sentence/overall writing would have been stronger without it. There are a couple authors I will no longer read due to their overuse of this trite phrase.


Reading goal for next year: For a sixth consecutive year, I have joined the Goodreads Reading Challenge. In recent years I have set a goal of 100 books, but am starting a bit lower this year — 80 books, with an option to increase it later — due to some life changes. Within that are mini-goals, such as reading at least 10 classics and catching up on some of the favorite authors/series in Mount TBR. And I want to finish the "Read the USA Mystery Challenge" once and for all. Only states books to go, and I have books for all, so shouldn't be that difficult, right?



What about you? What was your year in books like? What was the best book you read?

For a complete list of books read, click on the Books 2014 tab at top of the page.



LINKING TO: Thursday Thirteen

Teaser Tuesday 235: Lolita

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!



This week I am reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov for a classics group read. I held off starting this one to coincide with Banned Books Week, which runs Sept 21-27. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

(Part One, Ch 1)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, in 1958 in NY and in 1959 in London. It was later translated by its Russian-native author into Russian. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a 37–38-year-old literature professor, Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with the 12-year-old Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is his private nickname for Dolores (both the name and nickname are of Spanish origin).

After its publication, Lolita attained a classic status, becoming one of the best-known and most controversial examples of 20th century literature. The name "Lolita" has entered pop culture to describe a sexually precocious girl. The novel was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted several times for stage and has been the subject of two operas, two ballets and an acclaimed but failed Broadway musical.

Lolita is included on Time's List of the 100 Best Novels in English-language from 1923 to 2005. It's 4th on the Modern Library's 1998 list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century. It was also included in the 100 Best Books of All Time, compiled in 2002 by the Norwegian Book Club.

Teaser Tuesday 231: No Graves As Yet

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am reading a novel by Anne Perry set in Cambridge during WWI, No Graves As Yet. This is the last passage read before walking out of the house this morning, and is one I think will resonate with many.

"Strike and counterstrike, revenge for this or that--justice, from the other point of view. Isn't it the responsibility of thinking men to stop the cycle and reach for something better? . . . Isn’t that what all this [education] is for, to teach us something better than 'you hurt me, so I'll hurt you back'? Aren't we supposed to be leading the way to a higher morality?"

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Series: World War I, Book 1

On a sunny afternoon in late June 1914, Cambridge professor Joseph Reavley learns that his parents have died in an automobile crash. Joseph's brother, an officer in the Intelligence Service, reveals that their father had been en route to London with the mysterious secret document--allegedly possessing the power to disgrace England and destroy the civilized world. Now that explosive paper has vanished, and Joseph is left to wonder: How had it fallen into the hands of his father, a quiet countryman? But Joseph is soon burdened with a second tragedy: the shocking murder of his most gifted student, who was loved and admired by everyone. Or so it appeared. And as England's seamless peace begins to crack, the distance between the murder of an Austrian archduke and the death of a brilliant student grows shorter every day.

Thursday Thirteen 335: Recently Read

Here's a look at some of the books I've been reading the last couple months. As always, click on any cover or link to find out more about a particular book from GoodReads.














BOOK NOTES


ROW 1: Nerd is the first in a romantic comedy series, and I have to be honest — I did not like this one as much as other books by VLT I've read. Victoria Laurie was the May Featured Author in the Cozy Mysteries group at GoodReads. Better Read Than Dead and A Vision of Murder are books two and three respectively in her "Psychic Eye" mystery series. The mysteries themselves are pretty good, but the author's "just then" fetish (see Monday's post) nearly killed me. It's unnecessary, distracting, and made me want to headslap the author with one of her books. It will be a good long while before I attempt another in this series.

ROW 2: The three in this row are all short stories or novellas that were free from B&N. The first two were okay, but I did not like the latter. Beauty and the Best Man (still free): Nook / Kindle * You Send Me (now $2.99): Nook / Kindle * The Stolen Child (still free): Nook / Not available on Kindle

ROW 3: The romantic suspense row, and not a bad read among them. Night Diver was the latest offering from Elizabeth Lowell. Blood Brothers is the book one in NR's Sign of Seven series — I have book two slated for this month. The Witness is a single title release from NR that was out a year or two ago.

ROW 4: Grace Interrupted and The Lost Symbol were both read for recent mini-challenges in the Cozy Mystery group, and I enjoyed catching up on both of these series. Leslie Meier was the April Featured Author for the same group. Mistletoe Murder is book one of the Lucy Stone series. It was an okay read, but did not inspire me to read more of the series.

ROW 5: One Hundred Years of Solitude was the April Classics group read. Not bad, but not an easy or fast read, either. Sadly, the author passed away while the group was reading and discussing his book.



What are you reading right now?



LINKING TO: Thursday Thirteen

Teaser Tuesday 217: One Hundred Years of Solitude

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez. I admit, I am struggling to get through this group read. It is slightly confusing keeping all the same-named characters straight, and the two-page long meandering paragraphs don't help. I started it last Thursday and am only about halfway through. It is not a fast read. I'm making it easy on myself this week by posting the opening sentences for my teaser.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs.

(Chapter 1)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Probably Garcí­a Márquez finest and most famous work. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human rice. It takes up not long after Genesis left off and carries through to the air age, reporting on everything that happened in between with more lucidity, wit, wisdom, and poetry than is expected from 100 years of novelists, let alone one man...Mr. Garcí­a Márquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life."--William Kennedy, New York Times Book Review

"Fecund, savage, irresistible....In all their loves, madness and wars, their alliances, compromises, dreams and deaths....The characters rear up large and rippling with life against the green pressure of nature itself."--Paul West, Book World

Teaser Tuesday 215: The Lost Symbol

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. The teaser below is from about midway through the book.

Change your location. Now!

Still struggling to catch her breath, she began moving down the wall, touching her left hand quietly to each exposed steel stud as she passed. Stay along the wall. Slip past him before he corners you.

(Chapter 47)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon answers an unexpected summons to appear at the U.S. Capitol Building. His planned lecture is interrupted when a disturbing object—artfully encoded with five symbols—is discovered in the building. Langdon recognizes in the find an ancient invitation into a lost world of esoteric, potentially dangerous wisdom. When his mentor Peter Solomon—a longstanding Mason and beloved philanthropist—is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that the only way to save Solomon is to accept the mystical invitation and plunge headlong into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and one inconceivable truth . . . all under the watchful eye of Dan Brown's most terrifying villain to date. Set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced story with surprises at every turn—Brown's most exciting novel yet.

Teaser Tuesday 214: The Widow's Walk

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am teasing from a book due out the end of this month, a copy of which I received through Goodread's "first reads" program, and the first one I have won from them in three years. This is from the opening of The Widow's Walk by Robert Barclay.

Her name was Constance Elizabeth Canfield, and for as long as she could remember, she loved gazing at the ocean.

No matter the weather, Constance found the froth-topped waves reassuring and filled with promise. In her world she could rely upon few things, but the waves were always there. She loved their consistency of purpose, and their constant determination to assault the rocky shoreline that lay so near her house. She also found them exciting, because they would one day bring her husband back to her. So she patiently watched and waited as they worked their welcome magic on her lonely soul.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

In the spirit of The Notebook and The Time Traveller's Wife comes Robert Barclay's haunting and romantic novel of passion, destiny, loss and an eternal love that will bring two people together across time . . .


His name was Garrett Richmond and he had always wanted to live by the ocean. So when the opportunity to buy-and renovate-the old home known as Seaside arrived, he leapt at the chance. Never mind that his friends and family thought he was crazy, he knew he could return this lonely mansion, worn by time, wind, and neglect, to its former beauty. But Seaside was more than just a project; it was spot that had called to him his entire life.

And then one night he saw her.

Her name is Constance Elizabeth Canfield and she tells him Seaside has been her home for over 150 years. But Constance is no ghost; rather, she claims that she has been somehow magically trapped between this life and the next. At first, Garrett can't believe her crazy story-the woman had to be lying! And yet, there was something about Constance that was from another time . . .

Soon this mysterious woman, and flesh and blood man share a closeness they cannot deny. But just as their love begins to bloom, Constance's presence starts mysteriously fading away, soon to be gone forever. Is their love doomed-or is it strong enough to transcend time, and even death itself?



DISCLAIMER: A free copy of this book was received from the publisher through Goodreads. As this is an uncorrected proof, text may be different than the short passage quoted here.

Thursday Thirteen 323: Authors/Series to Catch up On

March is National Reading Month, so I thought I'd share thirteen authors whose books have been languishing far too long in Mount TBR and need to be caught up on . . .

1. Nora Roberts -- I've just caught up on two of her trilogies, but there are other series and single title books awaiting my attention. Like an entire bin full. Not kidding. That does not include the books under her J.D. Robb persona, none of which I have read. I have enough to catch up on without adding those into the mix.

2. Toni Blake -- I have a few of her single title books to catch up on, under both her TB and Lacey Alexander personas -- including the two most recent "Destiny" novels. I had difficulty finding book five in the "Destiny" series locally, and I don't like reading series out of order. Meanwhile, I've seen book six everywhere. Anyway, I didn't buy it online last fall, as there was a chance it might show up for Christmas. Which, of course, it didn't, so then I decided to wait until after the birthday. Turns out that was a good move. *G*

3. Catherine Coulter -- I started reading her FBI series but have fallen way behind. I also have older romance titles in Mount TBR that I never got round to.

4. Elizabeth Lowell -- Both series and single title books, romance and suspense.

5. Iris Johansen -- Eve Duncan series, as well as a couple single titles.



6. Lisa Scottoline -- I have two or three (okay, maybe four) books of hers to catch up on, including a Rosato & Associates.

7. Jordan Dane -- I started two different series of hers, have the rest of both in Mount TBR, but have yet to get back to them.

8. Deanna Raybourn -- I read the first two Lady Julia Grey books, but the next two have sat untouched in Mount TBR for more than a year now. Oops.

9. Lisa Gardner -- I read several by her a few years back, still have several moldering in Mount TBR, and wouldn't you know her most recent one sounds really good.

10. Johanna Lindsey -- I did a major catch-up on her books a few years ago (fourteen read over one year), but still have several more in Mount TBR. Doesn't help that a few more have come out since my catch-up.

11. Kay Hooper -- I've kept up with her Bishop series (though I do have the most recent one to read), but have several earlier books to catch up on.

12. Elizabeth Berg -- I have several older books, as well as one or two more recent titles, somewhere in Mount TBR. I'm not even going to think of those I've yet to lay hands on, such as one due out later this year.

13. Carla Neggers -- This is actually a new-to-me author, but I've managed to acquire a lot of her backlist via Half Price Books and the monthly library used book sale. Sigh . . . now to catch up!


What about you? Is there an author whose books you'd like to catch up on? A series in which you've fallen behind?



LINKING TO: Thursday Thirteen

Teaser Tuesday 188: Life of Pi

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!



I finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel over the weekend for a group read at Goodreads. I was eager to read this one and it did not disappoint. Now I am interested in seeing the movie to see how it compares. My teaser comes from the opening of part two, a third of the way into the book. It is not a spoiler since we know going in that this is the story of a castaway.

The ship sank. It made a sound like a monstrous metallic burp. Things bubbled at the surface and then vanished. Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart. From the lifeboat I saw something in the water.

(Chapter 37)

BACK COVER BLURB:

Pi Patel, a God-loving boy and the son of a zookeeper, has a fervent love of stories and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship. Alas, the ship sinks—and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi. Can Pi and the tiger find their way to land? Can Pi’s fear, knowledge and cunning keep him alive until they do?

Teaser Tuesday 180: Breakfast at Tiffany's

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I spent most of Sunday reading Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. While I have seen the movie many times, I had never read the novella. It was interesting to see how they differed, particularly the ending. Here's a teaser from early in the story.

I'd been living in the house about a week when I noticed that the mailbox belonging to Apt.2 had a name-slot fitted with a curious card. Printed, rather Cartier-formal, it read: Miss Holiday Golightly; and, underneath, in the corner, Traveling.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Truman Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape. Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's; her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.

This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, “House of Flowers,” “A Diamond Guitar,” and “A Christmas Memory,” which the Saturday Review called “one of the most moving stories in our language.” It is a tale of two innocents—a small boy and the old woman who is his best friend—whose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.

Teaser Tuesday 151: Haven

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I am just starting the thirteenth novel in Kay Hooper’s "Bishop" series, Haven. Due to a change in publishers, it’s been a long time between books in this series, so I am looking forward to catching up with this psychic FBI unit. Here is the opening of the prologue.

In the first few minutes of Catherine Talbert’s escape, she did her very best to be as quiet as possible. She thought he was gone, but she wasn’t at all certain of that, and in her terror she just wanted to run.

 







ABOUT THE BOOK

Another nightmare, in the woods this time. Different: She was running. Trying to escape.

But the same ending. Always the same ending. Another dead girl...

Emma Rayburn was born and raised in Baron Hollow, North Carolina, and it was a quiet life. Then came the accident…and the nightmares—each filled with unshakable visions of darkness, blind panic, and desperate women chased toward inevitable death. With no reports of local women missing or found dead, Emma has written it off to troubled imaginings—night after dreaded night. Until her sister arrives.

Jessie Rayburn, psychic investigator for a firm called Haven, has been estranged from Emma for years. Unresolved issues from Jessie’s past have not only kept them apart but have been clouding Jessie’s unique abilities. A return to her hometown to face a dark and violent incident from years gone by is her chance to regain them. But reconciliation with the past comes with a price. Few people in Baron Hollow are welcoming Jessie back. No one dares to breathe a word. And in this conspiracy of silence, Emma’s nightmares are becoming more vivid than ever.

Even with the help of Noah Bishop, head of the FBI Special Crimes Unit and co-founder of Haven, Jessie and Emma soon find themselves outnumbered by the secrets buried in Baron Hollow—and outrunning an evil that has been festering for years, one that’s targeting Jessie and Emma one last time.

Teaser Tuesday 147: The Casual Vacancy

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 book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* 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 so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling is the next book on my to-read pile. This is from the first chapter, and I've about as much of an idea what is happening as you do.

Then pain such as he had never experienced sliced through his brain like a demolition ball. He barely noticed the smarting of his knees as they smacked onto the cold tarmac; his skull was awash with fire and blood; the agony was excruciating beyond endurance, except that endure it he must, for oblivion was still a minute away.

(Page 7)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems.

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.