Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

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 The Breakdown by B.A. Paris, which I will begin reading soon.  The excerpts shared are from a hardcover edition I borrowed from the library.

 

Beginning:  FRIDAY, JULY 17TH

The thunder starts as we're saying goodbye, leaving each other for the summer holidays ahead.  A loud crack echoes off the ground, making Connie jump.  John laughs, the hot air dense around us.

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Page 56: "I wait until he's upstairs, then rewind the news until I find the number and jot it down on a piece of paper.  I don't want the police to be able to trace the call back to me so I'll have to use a pay phone, which means I won't be able to phone until Monday, when Matthew's back at work.  And once I have, hopefully some of my guilt will disappear."

 

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My thoughts: The opening lines don't give much detail about the story, but the Goodreads description, and the quality of the author's previous novel Behind Closed Doors, which I couldn't finish fast enough, have me eager to begin this novel.

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From Goodreads:  Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods, on the winding rural road, in the middle of a downpour, with the woman sitting inside—the woman who was killed. She’s been trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? It’s a dangerous road to be on in the middle of a storm. Her husband would be furious if he knew she’d broken her promise not to take that shortcut home. And she probably would only have been hurt herself if she’d stopped.

But since then, she’s been forgetting every little thing: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm code, why she ordered a pram when she doesn’t have a baby.

The only thing she can’t forget is that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt.

Or the silent calls she’s receiving, or the feeling that someone’s watching her…


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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.