Friday, June 30, 2017

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

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It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:
  • Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
  • The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.
Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, The Woman on the Stairs by Bernhard Schlink.  The excerpts shared are from a hardcover edition borrowed from the library.

 The Woman on the Stairs 

Beginning: Monday, September 21
Perhaps you will see the painting one day.  Long lost, suddenly resurfaced — all the museums will want to display it.

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Page 56:  "How would she deal with the picture?  Wasn't it way too heavy?  Was someone helping her?  Who?  Or would she manage to carry it?  Why didn't she trust me?"
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My thoughts: The opening piques my interest and invites many questions.  Since I enjoyed Schlink's novel, The Reader when I read it a few years ago, I am eager to sink into another of his stories.
 
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From Goodreads:   For decades the painting was believed to be lost.  But, just as mysteriously as it disappeared, it reappears, an anonymous donation to a gallery in Sydney.  The art world is stunned but so are the three men who loved the woman in the painting, the woman on the stairs.  

One by one they track her down to an isolated cottage in Australia.  Here they must try to untangle the lies and betrayals of their shared past - but time is running out.

The Woman on the Stairs is an intricately-crafted, poignant and beguiling novel about creativity and love, about the effects of time passing and the regrets that haunt us all.

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This Friday Focus post was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated. 


Thursday, June 29, 2017

Thursday Thoughts: Paula Daly's Latest Domestic Thriller

The Trophy ChildThe Trophy Child by Paula Daly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Paula Daly is a keen observer of contemporary marriage and family life. As with two of her previous novels that I read—Just What Kind of Mother are You? and Keep Your Friends Close—readers are drawn into mysterious circumstances, murders, and unexpected twists while uncovering the troubled relationships between neighbors, spouses, parents, and children. Daly's characters are complex and relatable, and her strong plots move the stories along at a good pace.

The Trophy Child follows this same winning formula. I savored the story and hope the author will be treating readers to another novel—and the recurring characters DS Joanne Aspinall and her Aunt Jackie—very soon.


Thursday, June 22, 2017

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

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It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:
  • Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
  • The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.
Today I'm featuring my current read, The Trophy Child by Paula Daly.  The excerpts shared are from a hardcover edition borrowed from the library.

The Trophy Child 

Beginning: Monday, September 21
The girls' changing room smelled heavily of sweat, mud and a sickly-sweet deodorant that was beginning to irritate the back of her throat.  She didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for hockey.  Not a lot of enthusiasm for school, full stop, now that she was on a probationary period.

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Page 56:  "Jennifer couldn't respond, just quaked hard in her chair, her knees lifting with what Verity knew was excitement at seeing her daughter."
 
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My thoughts:  Paula Daly is a keen observer of contemporary marriage and family life.  As with two of her previous novels that I readJust What Kind of Mother are You? and Keep Your Friends Closereaders are drawn into mysterious circumstances and unexpected twists while uncovering the troubled relationships between neighbors, spouses, parents, and children.  Daly's characters are complex and relatable, and her strong plots move the stories along at a good pace. 
 
The Trophy Child follows this same winning formula.  I am savoring the story and hope the author will be treating readers to another novel soon.
 
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From Goodreads: 
Paula Daly is acclaimed for her distinctive voice, masterful plotting, and terrifying depictions of ordinary people whose everyday lives are turned upside down through deception and murder. In her unsettling new domestic thriller, The Trophy Child, Daly digs beneath the serene surface of the idyllic suburban Lake District community where families strive for perfection, delivering a suspenseful, surprising story of motherhood and fallibility.

Karen Bloom is not the coddling mother type. She believes in raising her children for success. Some in the neighborhood call her assertive, others say she’s driven, but in gossiping circles she’s known as "the tiger mother."  Karen believes that tough discipline is the true art of parenting and that achievement leads to ultimate happiness. She expects her husband and her children to perform at 200 percent—no matter the cost. But in an unending quest for excellence, her seemingly flawless family start to rebel against her.

Her husband Noel is a handsome doctor with a proclivity for alcohol and women. Their prodigy daughter, Bronte, is excelling at school, music lessons, dance classes, and yet she longs to run away. Verity, Noel’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, is starting to display aggressive behavior. And Karen’s son from a previous relationship falls deeper into drug use. When tragedy strikes the Blooms, Karen’s carefully constructed facade begins to fall apart—and once the deadly cracks appear, they are impossible to stop.

A thrilling tale of ambition and murder, Daly’s richly imagined world of suburban striving and motherly love is an absorbing page-turner about the illusions of perfection and the power games between husband and wife, parent and child.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

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It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:
  • Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
  • The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.
Today I'm featuring my current read, My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry.  The excerpts shared are from a hardcover edition borrowed from the library.

 My Husband's Wife  

Beginning: Prologue
Flash of metal.

Thunder in my ears.

"This is the five o'clock news,"

The radio, chirping merrily from the pine dresser, laden with photographs (holidays, graduation, wedding): a pretty blue and pink plate; a quarter bottle of Jack Daniel's, partially hidden by a birthday card.

My head is killing me.  My right wrist as well.  The pain in my chest is scary.  So, too, is the blood.
 
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Page 56:  "There was a silence.  Ed didn't notice, his head glancing from them to the paper and back to them again."
 
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My thoughts:  I'm still trying to process all the information and wonderful books I received last week at Library Journal's Day of Dialog and Book Expo.  While I arrange my reading queues of forthcoming and recently published titles, I am working on clearing the stacks of library books currently in my possession.  

My Husband's Wife leapt from the stacks because I couldn't resist the title and the blogosphere buzz.  I am only a few chapters in, but am already fascinated with the characters--solicitor Lily and her aspiring artist husband Ed Macdonald, and their neighbors, 9 year-old Carla Cavoletti and her single mother.  The prologue is set in the present day, but the story begins fifteen years earlier, in the year 2000.  With alternating chapters told in Lily and Carla's voices, I can sense that all is not as it appears, with shocking truths and events to be revealed.
 
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From Goodreads:  It won't be so bad when you're there, says my new husband before kissing me on the mouth. He tastes of Rice Krispies and that strong toothpaste of his which I still haven't gotten used to. I know, I say before he peels off to the bus stop on the other side of the road. Two lies. Small white ones. Designed to make the other feel better. But that's how some lies start. Small. Well meaning. Until they get too big to handle.

When young lawyer Lily marries Ed, she's determined to make a fresh start. To leave the secrets of the past behind. But then she takes on her first murder case and meets Joe. A convicted murderer whom Lily is strangely drawn to. For whom she will soon be willing to risk almost anything.

But Lily is not the only one with secrets. Her next-door neighbor Carla may be only nine, but she has already learned that secrets are powerful things. That they can get her whatever she wants. When Lily finds Carla on her doorstep sixteen years later, a chain of events is set in motion that can end only one way.
 
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This Friday Focus post was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.