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Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Confession: I had already finished this totally amazing book when I flipped back to the front to offer you a book beginning. And I am excited all over again by the first sentence – which, by the way, I find surprising upon a reread, based on what I now know about the character… but I’ll stop there.

Mrs. Featherby had been having pleasant dreams until she woke to discover the front of her house had vanished overnight.

Clearly I can’t contain myself. Get a copy of this startling debut novel and find out what happens to Mrs. Featherby in her frontless house.

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: misc fiction | 2 Comments »

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I have been hanging onto this audiobook for a while now, til a friend’s recommendation pushed it to the top of the list. I came in hopeful, based on that recommendation, and so far I am not disappointed. Check out these opening lines.

Those who know me now will be surprised to learn that I was a great talker as a child. We have a home movie taken when I was two years old, the old-fashioned kind with no sound track, and by now the colors have bled out – a white sky, my red sneakers a ghostly pink – but you can still see how much I used to talk.

I think this is an awfully effective way to get me curious. A quiet person, or a talkative person, would be one thing; but someone who has undergone such a change, and describes the juxtaposition portrayed on an old video called “ghostly,” well, there’s something there to pique the attention. Well done, Karen Joy. I continue hopeful.

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: misc fiction | Leave a comment »

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Two beginnings today from a new novel about which I know little. The Prologue begins:

The Turnip and I have a history.

Many decades ago, when he was a little boy and his folks were newly split, my sister left him with our parents and came to Memphis to live with me for a short while. It was only two months and just the medicine she needed, quite frankly, but he has held it against me ever since.

It’s intriguing, if not particularly revealing. (It actually took me a few paragraphs to figure out where we were and what we were up to.)

And chapter 1:

You want to be somebody else. You don’t know who this person might be; all you know is that she should be confident, beautiful, beloved.

More clear, at least, and the second person is somewhat unusual. I shall proceed…

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: misc fiction | Leave a comment »